The Connected Home is Finally Here

A connected home is one in which appliances and accessories are connected to the Internet. An example would be a refrigerator that texts the homeowner when the eggs are about to run out (the egg tray has the sensor).

It’s projected that a connected home can be built from the inside out, but connection is taking off via small devices or appliances that use a smartphone as a remote control: for instance, a light bulb that’s controllable with a mobile. With this setup, you can flip lights on and off when away from your home, or customize lighting with the smartphone such as setting up brightness to come on at a certain time.

Imagine a smoke alarm that sends messages to you when you’re away from home if it senses smoke. Well, someone else already did; it’s been invented. This funky technology can even be connected to a thermostat and automatically shut off the furnace if there’s a CO leak.

And there’s an app that can control many music systems via your smartphone. Are you now thinking about the Jetsons?

One to two percent of people have connected devices that control energy, appliances, climate and lighting, even home monitoring. Interestingly, according to a survey, nearly half of respondents are not quite ready to live like the Jetsons.

Nevertheless, the most popular connected home device is an alarm system. Plus, there are connections for garage doors, monitoring of pets and other occupants such as the elderly, and door locks (e.g., an electronic key for a repair person that expires by end of day).

In fact, there’s even a single application that can offer multiple connections, eliminating the need to have an application for every connected device. How cool is that?

Robert Siciliano personal and home security specialist to BestHomeSecurityCompanys.com discussing burglar proofing your home on Fox Boston. Disclosures.