Christmas Gift Guide 2021: Gifts for the Smart Home

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As smart devices become more reliable and more readily available, more people are utilizing this convenient technology in their homes. Smart gadgets can do both very specific tasks as well as many broad ones, all allowing you to better control your home. There are many gifts for the smart home available this year.

Smart Home Hubs

The first thing you should start with is a home center. These are available from many different brands, and there are some that work with multiple brands. It’s recommended to get a home center that allows you to connect to other devices from different brands.

Home centers essentially tell all the other devices how to communicate with each other. That way, when you lock the door on your way out, the light should know to turn off. Without the home center, these wouldn’t be able to interact.

Smart Locks

Smart locks are very common and have helped people better secure their homes when combined with cameras. You can control your lock from your phone, while also keeping a doorbell camera out that sees any intruders.

You can also have other cameras set up around the outside and inside of the house, all of which can alert you via a phone notification when they see someone. That way you can check it real quick, no matter where you are, and do what you need to do.

Smart Thermostats

Another common smart device that people are adding to their homes is smart thermostats. Getting up to fiddle with the temperature can be a bit of a pain, and if you forget to set the thermostat when you’re out and about, you won’t be able to adjust it until you’re home.

Automatic Vacuum Cleaners

One option that’s becoming much more affordable recently is automatic vacuum cleaners. There used to be very limited brands to choose from and they were pretty expensive, but now it’s not so hard to get a little robot vacuum cleaner.

Much of smart device technology centers around scheduling and actions controlling other actions. For example, if your locks knew you left the house, it could turn on the robot vacuum to make a quick sweep and turn the temperature up or down a little bit to use less energy.

Smart Plugs

One great option to get is smart plugs. These connect other devices to outlets but can be controlled remotely, essentially making it a smart device. This helps so that you don’t have to rebuy a whole different lamp or replace too many things, rather than just plugging everything in again.

Of course, much of it is also smartphone-controlled. You want to be sure it’s something that doesn’t require you to be within a certain range to control, that way if you’re on vacation or something of that nature you don’t have to wait to get back to fix a mistake.

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Loving Life — The Reboot!

Dominique