Controlling your smart home
Is tech puts the power at your fingertips – but the real benefits lie in automating tasks so the system integrates into your lifestyle
Look up the term ‘smart homes’ online and you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s all about phones and voice activation. The top search results will list kit like the Amazon Echo and Google Home as the basis for a connected setup. But these are simply another form of interface, like your wall switches, touchscreens or the apps on your phone. They just do the job in a different way.
If you’ve gone for a fully-integrated smart home, the brains behind it will be the rack in your plant room – connected back via the core cabling. “Bus wiring can be daisy chained, but everything else comes off a central brain that quantifies and populates all the commands, such as the Niko system,” says Andy Moss from Moss Technical. “There may be some kind of sensor to detect your presence in the house, for instance, but it’s the Niko that realises you’re in and turns the lights on.”
This is where compatibility and good design come in. It’s all very well being wowed by different manufacturers’ products and apps, but you need to work with your technology installer to ensure it will fit seamlessly with the overall setup. “Most thermostats work with most control systems, but it’s about whether the level of integration is right,” says James. “The temperature change function on the version your heating engineer has specified might be great, but does it suit your goals for smart scheduling? Or perhaps it will integrate with underfloor heating, but not with the hot water supply.”
Smart control basics
Phones are ok for occasional use, such as when you’re away from home or out in the garden, but clunky for whole-house control. “You have to load an app every time you use it,” says James Charasma from Sevenoaks Electrical Installations. “Plus you need to make sure it’s got enough battery life.”
The ideal route forward is to work with your integrator to select the best interfaces for each room. “People like tangible buttons, so we use switch interfaces that offer control of mood lighting, speaker volume etc – along with a remote for any room that’s fitted with AV,” says James. “We’ll also put touch screens in as many places as we can.”
Iain Shaw from Brilliant Lighting agrees. “It’s very difficult to give you multi-point control over interior and exterior illumination using conventional circuitry and switch plates, especially if you want dimming,” he says. “Smart systems give you the flexibility to do that effectively; but when we start the design process one of the first things we think about is where we’ll put the keypads – and the answer is basically anywhere we would have put a standard switch.”
As users, we’ve developed learned behaviour over the years, and that’s not likely to change any time soon. “Almost inevitably, people gravitate to the top left-hand button, so we use that for our main lighting scene,” says Iain. Fundamentally, if you start removing light switches and other easy ways to interact with your home in favour of app control, you’re probably overdoing things.
Voice activation
The ability to interact with your home simply by speaking to it used to be the stuff of sci-fi TV shows; but the likes of Amazon’s Alexa are giving us a taste of the future. “Voice control is the next big advance,” says James. “It’s not perfect yet: the interpretation is fine, but it’s not quite 100% if you’re speaking to the device from across the room, for example.”
While we won’t be chucking out our keypads and switches any time soon, voice tech is coming on leaps and bounds. It complements tactile controls, and makes a lot of sense for some users. “It’s particularly good for assisted living, especially given our ageing population,” says Andy. “Voice activation offers greater flexibility for people with less mobility to access things like remote health care or easily adjust the heating.”
Most leading smart home brands support voice control. “Lutron integrates with all the Amazon, Apple and Google versions, for instance,” says Iain. “Get a demonstration from your installer. It’s more natural than opening an app – and if you trust it, then you’ll find it works really well.”