What makes a home SMART?

-
Well, in my last post we talk about the IOT (Internet of Things).

Now we are going to briefly talk about devices designed to help you daily.

Smart homes are houses that integrate technology to help you do things.  (Like save money.)

There are thermostats out there (I have a NEST) that actually save you money because they learn your habits and help you conserve electricity when you can.

There are lightbulbs that you can control with your phone.

Home security systems which can also monitor the climate in your house and help your thermostat be even more efficient.  Even turn your AC off if the smoke detectors turn on to help suppress the spread of fire.

Ceiling fans which can be controlled by your thermostat to help circulate air so you use your AC even less and keep the temperature in your house more stable.

Smart locks for your doors which can be remote controlled from your phone in case your friend forgot the spare key you gave them or forgot the code you assigned them.

Electrical monitors which can be installed to see which appliances in your house consume the most electricity.

Heck, even refrigerators can track expiration dates of the food inside them to help keep you from getting sick.

You can talk to devices like siri or alexa and they can order things or answer questions for you. 

So a smart home is really a collection of devices designed to help you save time or money, or sometimes even both.

In up coming posts we will explore different devices for your home to see what may actually help you and be worth it. 

Thanks for reading.
If you like what you are reading please subscribe and follow this blog. 
If you would like this to be in VLOG format, drop me a message saying let me see you.
If you have a topic request or a question feel free to ask. 
Have a great day. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Virtualization: What is it and do I need it?

-
There is a lot of talk about Virtual Machines now but the reality is that it's not for everyone.  TLDR:  Do you play online or graphic intensive games? Don't use a VM.               Do you do heavy video editing or work?  Don't use a VM.               Do you browse on the web ALOT?  It might be a good idea to use a VM.               Do you watch a lot of porn? It might be a good idea to use a VM. Now, for a more in depth look at when and why to virtualize a computer.  Let's say you are heavily into gaming, but you want to keep your work stuff separate from your gaming stuff.  So on your Windows computer you create a Virtual Machine which is basically a computer within the computer.  Microsoft does this through a special service called Hyper-V which is just a fancy name for software based hardware. There are other virtual machine vendors out there like VMware, Virtual Box, Parallels. What a virtual machine does is create a virtual physical computer which you c
Read more

How to copy large files faster.

-
Over many years I have tried dozens of different methods to copy large amounts of files. On home small networks windows drag and drop is sufficient.  But when you start moving 500+gigs and 100k files, you want something more robust. The clear winner is still Robocopy. If you haven't used Robocopy or are afraid of the command line, use winRobocopy.  It is free and builds the command line for you. The reason I recommend Robocopy is MULTI-THREADED.  Windows Drag and Drop uses between 1-8 threads to copy files. Robocopy can be set as high as 128.  This can change 1 day copies to just a few hours. This means it uses 128 channels so is effectively copying up to 128 files or segments of files simultaneously.  There are many additional switches you can use and this GUI makes it really easy to build commands and then copy and paste into the command line.  http://www.upway2late.com/#/projects/winrobocopy  #sysadmin #techtools #techutilities
Read more

Smart Home tips.

-
Smart home technology is becoming ever more popular.  But everyone forgets about one key component that can ruin your experience.  Your home router.   Most people who are not tech savvy use their providers router.   These are typically capable of handling up to 6 devices without major slow downs.   Once you add that 7th device, things become sluggish.  Add 8 and your network may seem downright slow.    My home has about 18 devices 7-12 of which are active all the time.   I use a mid-high end ASUS router with 8 antenna and 3 networks across multiple channels.   I divide my traffic up by putting TV's, Lights, and other appliance types on 1 network.    I put computers, desktop and laptops on the second wireless network. And my phones and kids tablets are on the third network.   I also have an Akita Smart home Monitoring device in addition to my routers packet inspection and firewall features.    I also enable all the default firewall capabilities of every device (where applicable).  F
Read more