What can a smart home do for you in 2023?

While smart homes are often seen as a young person’s thing, they can be a game changer for people with limited mobility or poor motor skills.

Even with all the potential pitfalls, there are still a lot of upsides to smart homes.

We have had years of companies trying to make every gadget connect to the internet for either their benefit or yours.

Sometimes this is just so a company can gather data about your habits, or sell you a subscription for something.

But there are also many smart home gadgets that actually can make life easier.

So, now that we’re about 10 years on from smart homes becoming more mainstream, I decided to re-kit out my apartment in the latest smart-home gear to see what’s worth it and what’s not.

Starting point: Lights and doorbells

The starting point for a smart home is to get a smart light globe or light strip. They’re easy to install, relatively cheap, and it’s easy to see the benefit instantly. You ask the smart assistant on your phone to turn the light on and it’s on. Or maybe it’s set to simulate a sunrise as you wake up, or you can change the colour to suit the mood for relaxation or to show your support for your footy team on game day.

I tested out Nanoleaf panels; the benefit with Nanoleaf is that I can set them to help me focus in the morning, have gentle indirect lighting at night to reduce eye strain, and sync with my video games after work to make them more immersive.

Nanoleaf’s smart panels have gentle, indirect lighting.

As for doorbells, I tested a Ring Video Doorbell at my dad’s place and it was a game changer for him. While he has trouble hearing a traditional doorbell, particularly when down the garden, he can feel the vibration of the app on the phone in his pocket and respond to that.

Next level: Appliances

Connected appliances can be useful, but not all connected appliances are good. In a lot of cases, companies have just moved some of the things that you used to be able to do with the touch of a button to an app that takes forever to load, gaining them data and you mild irritation. However, not always the case.

An example of a simple but good connected feature is my LG dishwasher, which sends alerts to my phone when it needs Rinse Aid.

All the major brands have really stepped up what connected washing machines can do in 2023, making them the appliance I think makes the most sense to have connected to an app.

The LG Series 10 12kg front loading washing machine has EZ Dispense, so it automatically dispenses the correct amount of detergent for the size and kind of laundry you’ve put in the machine, which is also adjustable in the app.

Washing machines make the most sense to be connected to an app.

Samsung’s “AddWash Smart Front Load Washer”, meanwhile, connects to an app that asks you what you’ve put in and then chooses the correct cycle to match.

Real commitment: Hardwired smart gadgets

Any smart home gadget that requires holes to be put in the wall, or an electrician to install, is more of a long-term commitment, and picking the right ecosystem can be hard.

Legrand’s offering is great because it keeps track of how much power each of the smart wall sockets is using. You can also set routines for particular switches to turn on/off at certain times, or when it detects your phone isn’t at home.

The Deta Grid Connect is similarly smart. Being able to use the app to turn on the light or setting routines like “Alexa, I’m in bed”, which leaves only the bedside reading light on, reduces the number of arguments about who’s going to get up out of bed and turn off the hallway light.

Bringing it all together: smart assistants

There are three main smart assistants in Australia: Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri and Amazon Alexa. All three broadly do the same thing, although the companies that created them have different goals. Amazon wants to sell you more Amazon stuff, so you can order things using your voice (take precautions if you have kids), while Google wants to use your data for better targeted advertising. Apple just wants to keep you locked in the Apple ecosystem, so Siri isn’t compatible with anywhere near as many devices as the other two, but also your searches won’t be used to sell you stuff.

Alexa is responsive and customisable, making it a good choice for homes with a mix of Android, Apple and Microsoft devices.

Drawbacks: How can it all go wrong?

There are so many ways a smart home can go wrong. Every new device you add to your Wi-Fi network is a potential security weak link, everything can be hacked, and so you need to think carefully about the benefits and security credentials of any device before introducing it to your ecosystem.

There’s also the fact that there are more things that can go wrong once you start complicating devices. Plus, if you live in an area with spotty Wi-Fi or an unstable NBN connection, you’ll find yourself with no doorbell, or unable to use certain lights.

Not to mention that there are a lot more things that can break a device. If it’s an appliance that relies on an app, you’re just one major phone operating system update away from the entire device being rendered useless.

Who does this help?

Even with all the potential pitfalls, there are still a lot of upsides to smart homes. While they’re often seen as a young person’s thing, they can be a game changer for people with limited mobility or poor motor skills. They’re a much more affordable way to secure the home if you live in a dodgy area and can’t afford traditional home security. Plus, smart devices can help you with skills, like cooking and laundry, that you might not have yet.

You do need to be aware of the risks and mitigate them as best you can by being selective about what you allow in your home, and ensuring you use a good mesh Wi-Fi network with built-in security. But all technology has risks, it’s up to you whether the rewards outweigh the risks in your situation.