JOIN USGone are the days when a sturdy lock would secure the home. Now, tech-savvy mobile solutions are doing the job, finds Ankita Sengupta
What can you do with a touch? Switch on the light, change the television channel or maybe even adjust the temperature of the air conditioner?
Well let’s just try and imagine this: You walk into your living room and the lights dim, the curtains get drawn. The television comes alive with your favourite show or maybe even a movie. Now imagine doing all of this by a single touch. Welcome to an automated home.
Home automation is a system by which all electronic gadgets in a house are connected to a controlling device. This device can be a tablet or even a smartphone.
Through an application installed in the phone or the tablet, you will be able to control all the gadgets at home even if you are not physically present there. Apart from the usual electronic appliances, biometric or electronic door locks, surveillance cameras, gas-leak detectors, entrance-management communicators too can be operated with this application.
The management of these devices can also be personalised.
Similar to the profiles that we have in our phones, this application can create several such profiles or “moods”.
For example, a party profile can be created where one can personalise from the kind of lights that will illuminate the room to the kind of music, right down to the exact playlist, playing at the exact volume that one wants.
This profile can also be pre-set with a timer so that the party “mood” sets in at a particular time. You could also have a profile personalised to meet your needs when you are inside your house. You can have, for example, a profile set for your domestic help so that when she comes in, you have select doors unlocked for her to use.
This way you will be assured that no one will be permitted to enter your personal spaces like the bedroom or the study.
Simple and easy to use
If you are away from home and you have a friend at the door, all it will take to open the door will be a click of a button or a touch on your cell phone. Managing the home automation system is not a complicated affair at all. Even creating and organising different profiles is as easy as creating profiles on your cell phone. Once all the gadgets in the house are connected to this app, you will be able to monitor and control them from all over the globe. The only requirements to be met are a smartphone and an internet connection.
Safety and security management
Since this application can be tuned to a wide range of devices, it ensures an around-the-clock security cover. If it detects a gas leak, it will immediately switch the gas stove off and sends alerts to the prelisted contact numbers.
If you are having a get together at home and are cautious about your expensive personal belongings or your wardrobe, this application can, through an imaging system can monitor the surroundings of the wardrobe and can alert you if anyone approaches it in your absence.
This system also works effectively against intruders. In case of forced entry, the application will instantly send a notification to all the phone numbers pre-loaded into its system about the intrusion. Not only will it inform which doors are being opened, the Close Circuit TV connected to the app will also let you see the intruders. In case there are multiple devices already in use at your home, this application can form an integrated security detail with the combined use of these devices. On detecting a security breach, the system switches on the lights and raises an alarm. It also sends notifications to the owners through text messages, e-mails and pre-recorded phone messages. Therefore, with home automation every aspect of your home can be under your supervision even if you are not at home.
Home automation may seem like an expensive affair but as Avinash K Gautam, the vice-president of a company that offers home automation claims, there are several packages that can easily fit into everybody’s pocket. “The charges for home automation can start with as little as Rs 150 and can go up to Rs 300 per square feet. While with the smaller range a house can be equipped with just the basic security facilities, the price increases with the greater number of devices that are employed,” he says.
Moving away from the conventional methods of security, more and more people seem to be opening up to the idea of a fully automated home as it eliminates the concern and tension that most people have when they leave their houses unattended. Although we do see security guards at almost every apartment complex and most of the houses, they have their disadvantages. Their lack of attention on even rare cases may result in loss of valuables from the house. With cases of theft and burglary becoming rampant in the city, an automated home can not only protect a home from intruders, it can also provide evidence, from the cameras and other imaging devices for the miscreants to be caught.
Apart from the safety and security of the house, an automation also makes your home an intelligent one. With most of the electronic gadgets responding with just a touch on your smartphone, it reduces a lot of manual effort on the part of the user. Good news for the couch potatoes! Be it the projector, the home theatre, garage doors or even the sprinkler, you will never have to actually get off the couch to do anything. You need not even be present at home for them to follow your orders, just one touch and you will have a home that is reliable and responsive to your needs.
So, go ahead and make your home a secure place.