The concept of a smart home is becoming stronger with each passing day. Today, you can unlock your door lock through your smartphone, walk into the house, have the smart thermostat and lights turn on automatically, and command your voice assistant to have a cuppa coffee ready.

Doesn’t this sound like a scene right out of a sci-fi movie? Well guess what, this is our reality today, a smart world. You no longer have to physically manage the cleanliness of your home, because a robot vacuum is there to help you with such chores.

More and more people are owning smart home devices. Smart home devices are fun to use, but the main benefit of them is the convenience they bring to your life. Things are a whale lot better with them than without them.

Home automation once used to be a complicated endeavor that requires scripting, networking, and DIY skills. However, modern smart homes are much simpler, and just about anyone can easily set one up.

But here’s the real question, where do you start? Well, this is why we’ve decided to share a beginner’s guide to build a smart home.

Building the Foundation of a Smart Home

Most smart home devices are managed by their own apps, that you can download onto your smartphone and control them. There are of course other generic smart devices that use the ZigBee/Z-Wave technology, which uses the Bluetooth wireless protocol to communicate with a centralized hub.

Then there are come products that can be used in both ways, meaning, you can either use a smart home platform or their apps. However, platforms as such will limit you to the device that is compatible with them.

With tons of different products in the various ecosystems, it may feel overwhelming to build a smart home. But similar to other tasks, even this can be made easier by taking one step at a time, in other words, breaking the steps into smaller pieces.

In our opinion, we suggest starting your smart home journey with one or two devices and building it from there as you familiarize yourself with how the gadgets work. Perhaps you like the idea of controlling the lights through your voice, or maybe you want to have the ability to lock the door from your smartphone.

Choose a category from the list of things mentioned below and do a little research on what devices are available. By doing so, you can narrow down the list by the features that appeal the most to you and how compatible the device is with other platforms.

Many people start of by investing in smart home security devices and gradually move to more sophisticated systems. So what does a smart home security system do? It connects to your home Wi-Fi network, which enables you to control and monitor these devices through a smartphone and its app.

You can also choose extra motion sensors to provide better coverage for the entire house and further build a much more comprehensive system that has garage door openers, door locks, lights, indoor and outdoor security cameras, water sensors, smoke/CO detectors, and more.

Here’s a list of the key smart home devices that you can consider investing in when building a smart home from scratch.

Lights

Smart light bulbs like the Philips Hue allow you to control individual lights or even groups of light by your smartphone and create various lighting scenes with different color temperatures and brightness levels.

Now your eyes won’t have to flood with blue light after spending the entire day at work. Moreover, they can turn on and off automatically based on a different number of triggers. An alternative to smart bulbs is smart switches, as they can also control the already installed lights in your home.

Thermostats

With the Nest Thermostat Rebate Indiana, you can now adjust your heating and A/C based one when you’ve arrived home or the time of the day. The Ecobee thermostat also has multiple sensors that can be placed around the house, allowing you to see the temperature in more rooms.

Locks

There are many smart locks out there. Some have the ability to be controlled from a smartphone, some give temporary access to family members and friends, and some unlock by a mere touch of your finger.

Doorbells and Cameras

Smart video doorbells have cameras that allow you to see who’s at the door and also ignore pesky solicitors. Doorbells from Nest and Ring can integrate with cameras that belong to their parent companies, hence allows you to create proper security systems, which you can access remotely too.

Conclusion

In all honesty, the above-mentioned smart devices are just the tip of an iceberg, you’ll come across smart sprinklers and other smart devices if you dig deeper. However, be mindful to start small so that you don’t overwhelm yourself.

Good luck!