How to make your home smart with home automation

How can you make your home smart with home automation, without revolutionising and completely overhauling your electrical systems?

In 2021, equipping your home with smart systems represents a great opportunity to benefit from maximum functionality and efficiency in your home. The benefits of a domotic home are many: smart home objects and products allow us to live in a more comfortable and convenient way, helping us to save money and manage our home with the help of a simple internet connection.

Here are some important tips and suggestions for buying and installing the right accessories to make your home smart at a low cost.

Home automation: making the home smart

Starting from a common system that we all have in our homes, a qualified electrician will be able to create your smart home automation system: from a single control unit you will be able to control and manage lighting, the opening and closing of shutters, and even the music, heating and air conditioning system (as well as any security system and other systems connected to the home automation system).

In 2021, living in a smart house will no longer require you to completely overhaul your electrical systems. The important thing, however, is to rely on a serious and qualified professional who will be able to work on your systems and easily create your customised home automation system.

Home automation: modifying an existing electrical system

In order to adapt a common electrical system and create a Home automation system, it is necessary to intervene with the substitution of the first command of the line with a special diverter (in the hypothesis that the load is controlled by several switches and diverters).

If, on the other hand, the electrical system has a line of push buttons, in this case it will be sufficient to intervene with the replacement of the relay with a connected device. For electricity management, you will need to add a module per socket. And again, if you are going to have a device for monitoring and controlling energy consumption, you will need a DIN to take measurements. It will also be necessary to guarantee the connection between the different devices and allow their communication: for remote control, it will be necessary to have a special gateway system, which will allow you to use special applications with which you can manage the different functions. Thanks to this system it will be possible to set specific functions and times, personalising the management of the systems.

The latest generation of home automation systems allow the user to activate every single function using their voice (voice activation), making home management extremely simple, practical and functional.

How much does it cost to build a smart home?

Before going into how much it costs to build a smart home, it's worth pointing out that installing a home automation system will increase the value of your property by 5 to 8%. In fact, a modern home automation system allows you to save considerably on the costs of running your home, thanks to constant and practical monitoring of consumption.

The cost of creating an advanced home automation system can vary according to the number of devices that we will have to integrate into the system itself: we will have to consider the number of rooms involved, the number of light points, and many other factors that will influence the technical and labour costs. In general terms, we can say that starting from a basic system, the cost of creating a smart home ranges from about 1,000 to 2,000 euros.

Home automation with Alexa

The easiest and least expensive way to activate smart devices in your home is probably to use the Alexa Echo device. This device is now present in many Italian homes and is used for a variety of functions, as well as for listening to music and interacting with your personal digital assistant.

Thanks to Alexa Echo, it is now possible to combine multiple smart devices that allow us to manage lights, appliances, the heating system and much more.

We can start by choosing one of the many Alexa-compatible smart speakers that allow us to interact with Alexa from anywhere in the house.

We can then continue by purchasing other devices that allow us to interact with Alexa and make our home smart without having to intervene on our electrical system. We can choose one of the following compatible devices:

• Alexa-compatible light bulbs
• Alexa-compatible smart sockets and switches
• Alexa-compatible infrared remote control
• Alexa-compatible wifi thermostat

All these integrated devices can be used with the help of the Alexa skills, which will allow us to interact with the chosen smart device in our rooms.

Read also: How to connect your home automation system