Control Your Smart Home Easily With Your Voice

Smart home technology is all around us these days and is much more mainstream than in previous decades.  The undeniable success of voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Siri are simplifying our day-to-day lives.  If you ever dreamt of controlling your smart New York City coop with your voice, it is now well within the realm of possibility.  Smart thermostats like Nest or Ecobee can respond to commands like “Alexa, I’m cold.” A plethora of consumer smart lights, plugs, cameras, and video doorbells can also respond to your voice or control from a smartphone app.  So it’s easy, right?  Just go out to your local big box store or go online and you can order a complete smart home kit!

It’s actually not that easy to achieve the well-integrated smart home.  While consumer smart devices do work, sometimes they don't always respond the way they should.  Occasionally Alexa mysteriously can't connect to a smart device.  Sometimes the voice command you issued yesterday to dim the dining room lights doesn't work today.  If you don't depend on your smart home automation for any critical functions, you may not mind some of these glitches.

On the other hand, if you forgot to lock the garage door and are away for a long trip and the app for your smart lock decided to freeze and not connect, you might get more concerned.

If you want smart home automation that works consistently and well, you’d be wise to look into a professionally designed and installed system.  If you have a larger home and property, it is even more imperative to go the professional route.  Why?  Keep reading to learn more. 

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Capacity and Scalability

Capacity and scalability sound like words from computing or manufacturing, and indeed these concepts apply to smart home automation. Capacity in smart homes relates to how many devices can be controlled and work together at the same time.  Scalability refers to the ability of a system to grow with incremental needs.  Plug and use devices may work well in smaller settings, but often they rely on communication protocols or hardware that is not as robust as professional systems.  Often some of those protocols may not work well with certain types of construction.  Professional smart home control systems, like those from Savant and Control4, are designed to scale from automating one or two rooms to huge properties.  And a professional integrator is going to take into consideration what automation you want now and what you might want down the road, and specify a system that can grow with you.

A System That Just Works

Amazon Alexa has an ecosystem, which means that there is a set of devices that work within that system.  Similarly, Apple Homekit and Google Assistant have their own ecosystems, and many consumer devices can work with more than one of them.  But some smart device functions may not work the same across Amazon and Google systems.  Just like when Apple’s IOS and Google’s Android apps don’t have quite the same features.  In professionally designed and installed systems, the functions you want can be custom programmed, and the system chosen for the job is the one that makes the functions you want to work.

We understand smart home technology, so we will recommend a system with the technology best suited for your home.  If you want something very specific – such as integrating an electronic fireplace into your automation scenes - we will make sure that we can customize your system to make that function work.  Of course, we offer after-sale support as well, so you can call us to address an issue or to add another feature.  Because if you ask Alexa to fix herself, it’s not likely to happen.

Want to learn more about smart home automation and voice control for your New York City residence? Call one of our experts at 718-706-6835 or by filling out our online form.