Do you know anyone in this day and age who isn’t busy? Neither do I. Everyone is on the go, from the teenager taking college classes while juggling a part-time job to the retiree who has committed to six different volunteering needs…plus babysitting the grandchildren. Yet some of the busiest people are those in between those two ages: the working parents with kids still at home. (And I don’t care if your kids are 18 months or 18 years, they still keep you busy!)
Those of us raising kids in the 21st century simply have too much on our plates to remember everything. We need some tasks automated for us. Things like automatic bill paying are now commonplace, for example. And now keeping a house safe and secure can be automated too, with a home automation system.
A welcoming home
Have you ever come home to a cold, dark house? How did that feel? Do your kids sometimes get home first, and they face that cold and dark alone? Imagine instead you and your kids coming home to a warm, well-lit house—without leaving the lights and heat on all day. How much more welcoming and secure would that be?
A home automation system enables you to do that. You can set timing up ahead of time or remotely turn lights on and off, and the heat too. This capability lowers your utility bills, makes your house greener and even acts as a burglar deterrent when lights aren’t a regular schedule (like they’d be with a timer). And the house you come home to? It will be a warm, well-lit one.
A safer home
As just mentioned, turning lights on and off at different times can help to defer burglars who might be watching your house, but a home automation system does much more to keep your home safe as well as welcoming. You can remotely lock and unlock doors, which is very handy when the kids are the last ones to leave and you can’t quite count on them to remember. Or maybe the neighbor needs to get into your house because a package was left on your front porch. You can unlock the door from wherever you are to let them in, and lock it again afterwards. This is true of the alarm system too. Turn it on, turn it off…all from wherever you happen to be.
Plus you can get an alert via a text or an email when someone goes in the front door (or whichever door you have deemed the primary entrance).
Some home automation systems include video security, so you can check on your home, kids and even pets remotely via your smartphone or computer. All you need is an Internet connection to literally see what’s what.
Alas, a home automation system won’t do everything
What a home automation system won’t do is automate your family, so don’t think the dishes will “automatically” get washed or the laundry folded or the lawn mowed. You’re still on your own when it comes to that kind of household management. But home automation does give you some control over the little things, so you can focus on the big ones—like that meeting tomorrow morning or the kids’ baseball practice tomorrow night!
