The concept of “smart home” appeared a long time ago, already 20 years ago. But in those days, the Internet was an uncomfortable dial-up exotic, and the idea that your refrigerator would order food online was an unfortunate joke. However, the water wears away the stone, and over the years, manufacturers began timidly producing various equipment that could be integrated into the smart home system. Over time, a predominantly utilitarian attitude toward the idea of ​​a smart home has developed in the West. The mysterious Russian soul, on the contrary, imagines a smart home something like in the song: “Robots inject, not a man.”

Of course, both points of view are true, but with the caveat: it all depends on the specific situation. It is more important for someone more important to save on the energy consumption of numerous devices and lighting. Someone wants to stuff their home with alarms, sensors and security cameras. And someone is dumbfounded by the thought that he will get out of bed in the morning, pleasant music and soft light will turn on, and fresh coffee will be waiting in the kitchen.

The development of the Internet of things has breathed new life into the idea of ​​a smart home. Why be limited only to household appliances, if you can connect anything to a network? The main thing is to come up with a rationale. Nevertheless, in this area there are interesting and useful products that we ourselves would not mind to equip our apartments and houses.

Smart Luna Mattress Cover

Wonderful crowdfunding project . Watching our health, eating right and playing sports, we often do not pay due attention to almost a third of our lives - the period of sleep. We do not observe the regime, sleep too little, set the alarm clock to wake up in the middle of the long sleep phase. Needless to say, the quality of sleep is disastrously affected by all this, and with it our attempts to improve our health are collapsing. A smart Luna mattress cover can help solve this problem.

It is divided into two zones, for each of which you can set your own temperature: it is nice to go to bed not in a cold and uncomfortable bed, spending time warming and calming your nerves. But this is not just a remotely controlled heating pad: the mattress captures during sleep parameters such as the rate of your breathing and heartbeat, determining the phases of sleep. All this information is sent to the mobile application and the smart home control center (in the video, the Nest thermostat acts in this role) Having determined that you have entered the REM sleep phase, you can turn on the music for a soft wake up, turn on the light, etc. - for which you yourself have enough imagination and finances. By the way, the same can be said about falling asleep: having determined through Luna that you are sleeping without hind legs, a smart house can turn off the lights everywhere, the TV, lock the doors, turn off the warm floor and so on and so forth.

Flic: wireless smart button for everything

In fact, this is a transfer from the computer to the real world of the idea of ​​shortcuts. We are surrounded by more and more devices and appliances, each with its own interface, features, settings, moods and troubles. Every day we spend a lot of time and energy conducting all this motley orchestra. Bored, and you get confused from time to time. An ideal interface is when you press one button, and everything else is done by itself. It is this idea that underlies the Flic project .



This is just a button on a sticky base that can be programmed to control anything: light, music, alarm clock, timer, smartphone camera, navigator, etc. You simply set a specific macro for a specific button, which it initiates via Bluetooth. You can set different actions for a single tap, double tap and hold. You can get a more complete picture from the video shot with humor from the authors of the project:

Smart Home Alarm Scout

It’s necessary to make a reservation right away: without using the IFTTT Internet service , it’s just a good home wireless alarm system, consisting of a line of devices for different tasks. Such systems on the market are a wagon and a small trolley. But in conjunction with IFTTT, Scout's capabilities are much wider.

Briefly about IFTTT (If This, Then That): This is a surprisingly simple intermediate service that allows you to create any sequence of actions for your applications and devices connected to the Internet. These sequences, macros, in IFTTT are called “recipe”. Say you can set up automatic uploading to your Dropbox account of all photos on Facebook where your face is marked. Or receive a notification on your smartphone if a forecast is expected to rain tomorrow. Or make your smart lamp blink every time someone writes to you on Twitter. In general, a huge field for unbridled imagination.

As for Scout signaling, in conjunction with IFTTT (there is already a channel for recipes with this system), you can implement such scenarios offhand:

• Display a notification on the monitor of your computer (through the Pushbullet service , for example) when a window or door opens in the apartment / house (equipped with Scout sensors).
• You can generally record the opening time of the front door by sending data to Google Docs.
• If you use a fitness bracelet, then when you put it into sleep mode, you can automatically set your home alarm.
• You can configure the wireless button (hello, Flic) to automatically set the alarm or turn on the siren if someone suspicious has entered your site or rubs in the entrance.

Sesame, open up!

Great ideaable to make the most ordinary door lock “smart”. This is not the only such development, but perhaps the best in terms of the combination of characteristics and capabilities. Firstly, it does not require installation - just attach a “smart” module on top of the lock. Using the free application, you can now open the lock outside without any keys: either by pressing a button in the application or by a predetermined knock sequence (both by door and by smartphone). The lock can be included in the information network of your home using the included Wi-Fi module, which is inserted into a power outlet nearby. The application also allows you to configure different access rights for different people, and logs all the lock openings. Software security is provided by encryption with a 256-bit key. Damn convenient gadget, in a word.

Canary Observer

When was the last time you were worried, is everything all right at home? Is there a fire, have thieves got in, have children and animals done harm, what does the wife do in your absence ? And you rush home, imagining scary pictures of a flooded apartment or fire. All diseases from nerves, take care of them. Canary will help with this., a device that allows you to remotely monitor the room. Like many other IP cameras, the “canary” is equipped with a microphone and can “see” even at night. But its capabilities do not end there: the device is capable of detecting movement, has a built-in thermometer, a hygrometer, an air condition sensor and a remotely switched on siren. At any time, you can remotely view the image from the camera, save the video, get data from the sensors. Canary can also send emergency notifications. A good option for the role of a personal home caretaker / watchman.

Do it yourself

If you want to make your home smart just the way you need it, right down to the last comma, then self-automation kits may be the best solution. For example, Smart Home Kit (a very sophisticated name, right?) From littleBits. A good option for those who are taking their first steps in this direction or just want to understand for themselves what kind of a whim such a smart home is. The set includes 14 modules, including temperature sensors, an mp3 player and a cloudBit module , which allows you to connect third-party devices to the network.

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Building a smart home system is an exciting activity, there is quite a lot to choose from. There is something to break your head and put your hands on. The range of devices and components is constantly expanding, becoming more diverse and interesting not only for geeks, but also for ordinary people who do not want to pick up a soldering iron, multimeter and learn programming. And this is wonderful - the diversity of opportunities drives progress and allows you to wallow on the couch, lazily managing your smart home.