Why you should use smart home technology
In the past 10 years, the popularity of smart home devices has been on the rise. With smart home technology becoming more advanced, these devices find their way into homes across the country providing valuable functions for residents with limited mobility, forgetfulness, health concerns. Smart home technology isn’t just for savvy tech users, seniors and those who find themselves tech adverse can highly benefit as these systems are extremely easy to use.
Benefits / Devices to use
With thousands of practical functions for these devices, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with the opportunities. Smart home devices’ primary functions make your life easier and more effortless. Through staying connected to a primary hub, multiple devices can be controlled at once without having the headache of managing all these. With so many benefits and functions from these devices, we have created a list of the greatest benefits for you from the best smart-home technology for seniors:
- Use as a speaker for music, podcasts, and more
- Can provide medication reminders
- Make Jokes
- Tell stories
- Remind you or important memories, birthdays, and more
- Set alarms
- Create a grocery list
- Look for a recipe/purchase missing ingredient
- Adjust thermostat
- Change tv channel
- Lock or unlock doors
- And much more…
Through connecting devices such as Smart Locks, smart lightbulbs, motion sensors, thermostats, and many others to a central smart home speaker (google home, google mini, or amazon Alexa) everything can be controlled simply by your voice. In using commands such as “Okay Google, set a timer for 20 minutes” a timer will go off in 20 minutes.
Create An easy to use Sequence
Google sequence, this is a function that allows all your smart home devices to interact with each other upon one command. An example of a sequence would be:
“Okay Google, Goodmorning”
- Lights turn on
- Thermostat turns up
- Weather update
- News update
- Medication reminder
- TV Turns on
With a scheduled routine, residents eliminate the hassle of managing multiple morning tasks and the risk of forgetting important things such as daily reminders, and medication reminders are eliminated. After using these smart home devices, you will soon look back wondering how you managed without these helpful devices.
Giving Loved One’s Peace of Mind
Knowing loved ones are safe becomes so important as age comes with risks of falling and other unforeseen issues. Through using smart home devices, loved ones can eliminate the worrying. If there is an incident such as a fall, medical alert, or others where a loved one cannot access a phone to call an emergency, by simply asking a home device to contact 911 they will soon receive help. If circumstances are worse where someone may be unconscious or trouble speaking and moving, smart home sensors can monitor and send feedback to a family member or caregiver that you have not moved in some time. Forgetfulness affects us all, through the use of smart home sensors, the opening of a medicine cabinet can be tracked ensuring loved ones or care providers are alerted if medication has not been taken. Your caregiver and family can now support you when they’re not physically present.
How Can I Get Started?
With so much new information it can be overwhelming as you think where do I start? There is no need to rush into everything at once. Take small steps to get started by speaking with your family, kids, or caregiver. If you’re looking to get started and test things out, a Google Home is a great option to get started. Ask for help on using this from those around such as caregivers, nurses, family or friends.
