Get Smart Home Off The Ground This Month

Millions of South Africans are staying home under the country’s ominously titled ‘lockdown’ in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the experience doesn’t have to be all bad. In fact, it may be the perfect time to get around to a long-neglected project – and for many of our tech-loving fans, that means optimising their smart home set up.

According to PC Mag, over 50% of people currently own a smart home device, but most don’t get the full range of use out of their tech. Here are our top tips for getting Project: Smart Home off the ground.

Stick to a single platform

Things become complicated when you need to consolidate different brands and operating systems into a single home. Having separate apps and control hubs for your kettle, lights and security system doesn’t feel very smart at all! That’s why the planning phase is so important.

Xiaomi’s Internet of Things (IoT) platform MIUI boasts over 210 million connected devices, making it the biggest in the world. With dozens of smart home products on offer along with a range of high-performance smartphones, Xiaomi provides the perfect ecosystem to centralise your smart home experience.

Weave all your devices together with sensors

Smart home products work best when they’re orchestrated to work together. But in order to do this, you’ll need sensors that act as automation triggers throughout your home. The Mi Smart Sensor Set is a great way to set up your smart home. It comes with a control hub, two window and door sensors, two motion sensors and one wireless switch. Once you’ve got the control hub and sensors set up, you can connect to each of your smart devices, and most importantly, they can connect to each other automatically.

Create and customise your smart home rules

All you need to control your entire smart home is a single app, the Mi Home app, available for Android and iOS. Once you’ve added all your sensors and devices to the app, you can create rules and scenarios for optimal smart home customisation.

Try to visualise which automations would make the biggest impact on your life. Hate waiting for coffee in the morning? Set your smart kettle to boil and maintain its temperature as soon as your alarm rings. Keep tripping up on your robot vacuum? Set it to run only when motion isn’t detected in a room for an hour. Need an extra layer of security? Connect your Mi Home Security Camera 360° to push notifications to your phone as soon as unexpected motion is detected.

Check out this walk through to see just a few automation possibilities with Mi Smart Sensors.

Keep experimenting to see what fits

Much like life itself, Project: Smart Home isn’t something you can set and forget. It’s a work in progress, and as your needs and daily routines shift, so will your smart home automation rules. The important thing is to keep tweaking and pruning your smart home, so you get the most out of it. Once you’ve optimised your setup, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without a smart home.