You Must Set up Your Smart Home Before You Travel.
The promise of a smart home is usually what you can do while you’re there. You can turn on the lights when you walk in the door, or program the thermostat to start cooling things down when it knows you’re leaving work. But you might not think about how to set up all your smart devices to work for you while you’re away. Taking a week or two off doesn’t mean you have to leave your smart home the way it is. Here are some things you should do to set it up before you leave.
Disable smart alarms
I’m to blame for this. Many of us use our smartphones to wake up every day, they travel with us on trips and vacations. However, smart speakers and smart alarm clocks, including those with special features like artificial light to make your sleeping brain think it’s a bright sunny day, are becoming more common.
It’s all too easy to forget to turn off those alarms when you leave the house, especially if you’re new to all that “special alarm clock” thing. I’ve been using my iPhone as an alarm clock for over a decade, and less than two months after buying the Hatch smart alarm clock , I forgot to turn it off before vacation. Luckily, it supports Wi-Fi, which meant I could turn it off from my phone, which I remembered (more on that later), but save yourself the trouble beforehand and disable the alarm from within the app.
Keep thermostats set to the correct temperature
If you are traveling during periods of extreme temperatures, such as hot summers or cold winters, make sure your thermostat is on (smart or not). Of course, there is no need to maintain the temperature as if you were at home – this is a waste of money and resources. Instead, worry only about keeping your home from getting too cold or too hot.
You’ll find plenty of recommendations on target temperatures online, but the general advice is that you don’t want your home to drop below 60 degrees or bake at over 80 degrees for too long.
Install some smart lights to turn on at night
You probably don’t want to keep the lights on 24/7 while you’re on vacation. However, it can be a useful security measure to keep a light or two on at night when you’re gone – no one wants to attack a home where “someone” is still awake at 1am.
Different smart lights use different smart home apps, but most of them allow you to create automations that turn lights on and off at specific intervals. You can set the lights to turn on and off in different rooms from 23:00 to 05:00, for example, if you want no one to notice the lack of lighting during your vacation.
Smart lighting is not the only effective tool here. You can set timers on your smart TVs to make it look like you’re watching some late-night programming.
Install your smart locks and share keys with housekeepers
While you can usually lock things with your voice or app, many smart locks can automatically lock when you close the door. Check if your smart lock has this feature and turn it on before locking your house.
If you trust family or friends who stop by your house to water plants, walk pets, or watch it at night, consider sharing your smart keys with them to make it easier to unlock the house.
Forget something? Just fix it on your phone
The best thing about a smart home while on vacation is that you don’t have to worry about forgetting any of the above. You used to ask yourself: “Did I forget to turn off the light?” or “Is the stove really off?” or “Did I close the garage door?” or “No, seriously, is the stove off? I’ve never left it on before, but maybe this time it’s really on.”
There aren’t many smart ovens on the market yet, but many other technologies are completely controlled from your phone, wherever you are. If it doesn’t occur to you to turn off the smart air conditioner, you can remotely flick the switch; if you’re not sure if you’ve locked yourself in, pressing the button locks your doors. Any smart device that connects to your phone using the app can be controlled from wherever you are, so you don’t have to worry so much about preparing at home before you leave.
Of course, these devices must remain connected to the Internet in order to work, which means that you need to:
Keep Wi-Fi on
Depending on how long you’ll be traveling, you might be tempted to turn off your router and modem, as these devices will consume seemingly unnecessary power while you’re away. However, this electricity is not necessary if you have a smart home, as Wi-Fi allows these devices to stay within range wherever you are.
If you turn off Wi-Fi while away from home, as I did, you will be disconnected from your smart home and all of its devices. It’s not that bad if you’re 100% sure you’ve done everything right with them, but if you forget something, you won’t be able to contact those devices while you’re away. This smart alarm will keep going off, these security lights will never turn on and these locks will never close.