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Smart light bulbs were one of the first smart products on the market, and as such were most of us' first foray into smart homes. There are a wide variety of brands offering light bulbs today, and the choice of bulb sizes and styles has expanded from simple A19 or grow lights to stylish retro options and holiday lights. But the biggest advancement over the past year is that many brands have started getting smarter. supplies, onwards. His two new releases this month, Nanoleaf Skylight and Aqara Ceiling Light T1M, send the message loud and clear that smart lighting fixtures are here and aren't going away. Rather, they signal a shift toward more important household functions.
Smart devices are starting to focus on endpoints
Nanoleaf and Aqara both feature LED light strips that can be used as architectural lighting details around your home to extend your smart lighting scheme. But the shift from decorative to essential lighting is indicative of where the industry is headed.
This also follows last year's trend of focusing on end points rather than starting points, such as smart plugs and light bulbs. Why bother with light bulbs when you can make your entire lighting fixture smart and eliminate the need for disposable bulbs altogether? Now we have smart ceiling fans, smart windows, and as we recently covered, smart doors.
Smart technology built into home utilities
While we still think of a “smart home” as a series of neat but non-essential features, such as smart blinds that raise and lower or a connected washer and dryer, the latest in smart technology The waves tell more about the essence of the house. As you scroll through the winners at the International Builders Show in late February, you'll see a focus on how smart technology can integrate and benefit you and your home. For example, the overall winners were a smart solar shingle that integrates with a “dam” shingle, and his Watercube, a smart water system for homes. The Masonite M-PWR smart door also received an award. Almost all of IBS's interior awards went to smart switches.
“Plug and play” smart home
The International Builders Show also spotlighted the growing number of “plug-and-play” smart homes. The home you're moving into will already be fully equipped with smart technology, and the power to control it will be transferred to you. This isn't just for homeowners. Developers are incorporating smart technology into single-family homes that controls how tenants access the building, parking, and various amenities. Of course, the process of transferring management of a smart home from one person to another has been commercialized. Cox Communications announced the following news on the show: cox communitya product that combines Cox Communications' high-speed network with a plug-and-play smart home system.
A few months ago at CES 2023, Home Depot announced a unique smart home platform designed specifically for all home appliance brands under the Home Depot umbrella. That's when I realized that their platform is also a kind of “middleman” that provides smart home services that you can easily leverage on your own.