Making Homes Work for You
Recently, I was approached by a client who was looking to include technological concepts in their build of a new home. The typical house of yesterday remains the same as what we have now, but we can still utilize today’s technology to build the houses of tomorrow. The ideal residence of the future would be a more functional and realistic version of Disney’s movie Smart House. This article will first begin by outlining applications of modern technology to the houses of the future. Next, it will review the houses we currently build for accessibility as well as a heuristic evaluation. Finally, the process of implementing new technology to bring us the houses of tomorrow will be explored.
Overview
Before we dive in, there are a few questions to answer:
What do houses look like today? In the houses of today, residents rely on working for what they want done. This means manual functions such as turning off the lights, using appliances, etc.
What are the key pieces of technology needed for the houses of tomorrow? The houses of tomorrow will primarily use IoT devices and work with smart assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant.
What ways do users currently experience the technology needed in the houses of tomorrow? If you have a smartphone, odds are that you have used the built-in smart assistant to perform simple tasks. This technology is going to be the cornerstone in making the houses of tomorrow possible.
Heuristic Evaluation
Like I said earlier, houses today are synonymous with the houses of yesterday. That doesn’t mean houses we have now are heuristically awful, however. Sure, it can be annoying to have to get off the couch in the middle of a great movie to let a guest in by unlocking the door, or to turn off the lights if you forgot to, but functions such as these work easily with very little thought. There is good visibility of system status, as the light is either on or off and if nothing is working then you don’t have power. These systems are straightforward and to the point, but they’re not perfect. There are four heuristics from the Jakob Nielsen list that the houses of today need to improve on.
- Error Prevention: Let’s say you’re in a room where the light switches not only control outlets, but also lights. When you are attempting to turn on a light, you might flick multiple switches, meaning the lights will turn on but then the outlet that your TV is plugged into got turned off by mistake. There is really no way to prevent this without having to remember which switch performs which function, bringing us to our next heuristic.
- Recognition rather than recall: In a house, whether it’s yours or someone else’s, you often must recall what the switches do. You may make mistakes when trying to get the right switch, especially if you have multiple functions on one light switch panel. Another problem is having guests over: in my home, I have smart lights in sockets wired to a switch that I always keep on so I can use my smart assistant to control them. However, no matter how many times I remind my guests, I often notice later that the light switch has been turned on or off. This brings us to our next heuristic.
- Help and documentation: While houses can be straightforward, there are still some aspects of everyone’s home that are different and confusing. I don’t know about you, but when I enter someone’s house and head to the bathroom, sometimes they have some sort of weird vanity or the shower handles are misleading. Not being able to figure it out, I often find myself asking for help.
- Flexibility and efficiency of use: Overall, homes today are not very efficient to get simple things done in. Want to turn on the lights? Better get up to go do it. Preheating the oven? Better get up and go do that too (and don’t get me started on if you’ve never used someone’s oven). Overall, it really isn’t ideal, especially when we have the technology today to make these little things easier.
Accessibility and Inclusivity Review
Whether you’re a professional, you work from home, and/or you are disabled, houses should work for you instead of the other way around. However, the houses of today are usually found to do the exact opposite. Forget to turn off the lights before you left the house? The electric bill is going up for the time that those lights were on. Are you disabled and forgot to turn an appliance off in the kitchen? You must maneuver back into the kitchen to turn it off. In either case it is not ideal, as your house should work for you in a way that you choose.
Going with the light example, there are several different technologies that you can use to solve that problem. The most effective for the most people would be to have smart lights with a voice assistant. Smart lights allow you to control the devices with your voice, or you can setup automations. For example, if you leave or arrive at your house, then your lights will automatically turn on or off. Something like this makes life a lot easier for everyone. The picture below shows an automation using Apple’s HomeKit and Siri, so if you run the action “Good Night” then the TV will turn off, or if your iPhone leaves your house, it will turn off as well.
There are so many solutions for accessibility/inclusivity issues in houses, but first, let’s explore tangible options and how they could be implemented in practice.
Redesign
In order to re-imagine the house, we need to break the entire property up into different segments (i.e. room by room). By breaking up the different rooms, it will be much easier to describe what technology goes where and why.
Basic Requirements
- Internet: in order to have a smart house you need a decent internet connection. Thankfully most ISPs deliver adequate speeds to connect all of the IoT devices you may want.
- Smartphone: to configure your smart devices, you are going to need a smartphone to add the IoT devices to your network and set them up.
- Smart Speaker: While you can access a virtual assistant from your smartphone, it is highly recommended that you have a smart speaker as well with an assistant like Siri built in. There should be one of these in each room of the house.
- These basic requirements give you the infrastructure you need to allow your house to work for you. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s begin.
Bedrooms
Given that we spend one third of our lives asleep, it is important that our bedrooms work for us in the best ways possible. Let’s dive right in.
Lighting: Lighting in a bedroom is obviously very important, so making it simple to control with a voice assistant is going to be the easiest way to make this more accessible.
The combination of a voice assistant on a smart speaker (like a HomePod) working with the Philips Hue system allows you to automate lighting related tasks. For example, you can automatically turn on or off the lights at a specific time, or even schedule the lights around the sunrise/sunset. This could allow your house to work around your schedule without you needing to do anything beyond configuring the time of your choice for this to happen. If you don’t want the lights to do something like this, then all you would have to do is use your voice to turn them on or off.
Entertainment: If you’re anything like me, having a TV in your bedroom is a must. In a smart home, you’re going to want to be able to control your TV to an extent. Getting a smart TV and connecting it to the internet and your virtual assistant would allow you to power on and off your TV, adjust the volume, and more, hands-free.
Windows: No, not like Windows 10 on a PC, I mean your windows in your bedroom. No one likes to have to open and close the blinds at night or in the morning, so we get connected blinds. No, I’m not kidding, these exist. Specifically, let’s look at the FYRTUR blinds from Ikea. These blinds are already compatible with Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. Given the compatibility with these and similar virtual assistants, you can automate them with commands. You could open and close them on a timer or simply use your voice.
Living Room
Next to the bedroom, the living room is possibly the most important room in your house. It’s where you entertain guests, spend time with family, or a place you go just to relax. Therefore, it is important that this room can be controlled very simply, because if you have guests over you don’t want it to be confusing. Making it so you don’t have to go through and use several remotes to turn on everything but instead using a smart assistant and a few smart devices is how you do this.
- Condensing Connections: Using a device like Philips Hue Sync Box allows you to connect 4 HDMI devices and switch between them using a virtual assistant. Even more than this, you can customize the names of the HDMI inputs in the Philips App, which your virtual assistant will respect. All you would have to say is, “Hey Siri, Xbox” or “Hey Siri, Apple TV” in order to switch between inputs. This removes the need to remember what HDMI is connected to which device, making it easier than ever to switch inputs.
- Lighting: For the living room, lighting is going to be the same as the bedroom.
When your living room works for you in the easiest way, that is a living room anyone can use. Simple commands and getting rid of the memory load makes this the best solution for everyone.
Kitchen
Ah yes, the kitchen. Connecting this room is a little bit more difficult because of the infancy of some products that go into a room like this. The main goal in connecting the kitchen is being able to multitask while cooking or preparing food in general. Let’s explore what we can do and what we cannot do with smart devices in this room.
- Oven: Finding a smart oven that you can control with your voice is difficult because of the potential fire risks of having an oven controlled via voice or an app, but there are still solutions to look at. This KitchenAid wall oven can be controlled by all of the major virtual assistants, making it the best option.
- Lighting: Like the living room and bedroom, using smart bulbs like Philips Hue bulbs will allow you to control your lights using your voice, smartphone, etc.
- Sink: Having a non-touch sink while cooking makes things infinitely easier. If your hands are dirty from preparing a dish, the last thing you want to have to do after you turn on the sink and wash your hands is then wash the actual faucet. Using a non-touch faucet like this one from Kohler eliminates that problem. Not only this, but it makes turning sinks on easier for people with disabilities.
Overall, having smart connected devices in the kitchen not only makes multitasking easier but also provides many advantages to people with disabilities.
Bathroom
This room might be less self-explanatory, but having smart connected devices in the bathroom is actually very important. Let’s take a look at some examples.
- Smart Toilet: Toilets that have sensors built in to automatically lift the lid and flush are actually extremely useful, especially for people with physical limitations who may not be able to do that as easily. Thankfully, Kohler has one that even has lighting so you can see in the middle of the night.
- Lighting: Unlike the other rooms, having a motion sensor in your bathroom is important. Struggling to find the light switch in the middle of the night is never fun, so why not just have the lights turn on for you? Continuing with the Philips Hue family of products for the example, you can get the Philips Hue Motion Sensor that will provide you with a seamless, no-touch lighting experience.
- Shower: Going to someone else’s house and using the shower is always a pain, so making it easy in your house for you and your guests is the right move. The U by Moen system allows you to use any of the major virtual assistants to control your shower as well as run built-in presets. Not only with your voice, but you can also use a built-in control panel that gets installed in the shower itself. This eliminates the need for a confusing handle mechanism to turn on the shower.
That’s nice for the inside, but how do we make getting inside easier and more secure?
Thankfully, the inside of the house isn’t the only part that can work for you. Getting in the house and leaving the house can also be made easier.
Garage
The garage is one of the most used entrances for a house, so making it super easy for YOU to get in and out is very important.
- Smart Garage Door: Utilizing a smart garage door that gets connected to your wireless network and can only be activated by your voice through one of the major voice assistants will make getting in and out of your house much easier. Thankfully, Chamberlain makes a product just for this.
Front Door
Okay, so now the front door. You’re at home and you hear a knock at the door, so you want to know who is at your house.
- Video Doorbell: Doorbells with built in cameras are the easiest way to let you know not only who is at your front door but when someone is at your front door. One step further, most of these doorbell systems use biometric security to recognize people’s faces and better let you know who is at your door. One great example of this is the Logitech Circle View Doorbell Camera. It recognizes selected friends and family, provides push notifications to tell you when something has been detected and more.
- Door Locks: A doorbell with a camera is just part of this system for the front door. For the best experience, combining the doorbell with a smart lock will allow you to use the facial recognition of the doorbell with the voice connectivity and geofencing capabilities of most smart locks. One great product example is the August Wi-Fi smart lock. This lock detects your relative vicinity when arriving and walking away from it to lock and auto unlock for you using your smart phone. You are also able to use your voice to unlock the door to let people into your house using one of the compatible virtual assistants.
Conclusion
Since technology is always changing, it is important to think about how the technology we have today can make the basic things in your home work for you. From virtual assistants to facial recognition, from motion sensors to geofencing and NFC, the technology is very important, and it is already here. Not only does this technology make things easier, but it has a major impact for people who are physically disabled and are unable to do things themselves. Gaining the ability to make their house work for them may be even more important for people in those situations. At the start of this piece, I said I was going to review what we have to show you that the houses of today could already be the houses of tomorrow. We have the technology, so let’s use it.
