A Smart home is more than just a group of products that work on your phone; it’s a network of devices working together for one purpose: Making your life simple.

Smart home products are an ever-expanding web of products that exist to make your life easier. Think of your home on autopilot, but adaptable. With thermostats that know when you’re coming home and turn on at just the right time, to doorbells that have a live video feed from your door to your phone, Smart home systems are some of the coolest pieces of tech we sell!

Smart Home Hub

Learn more about all the Smart Home products Koopman Lumber proudly sells!

• First Alert – Smoke detectors and CO detectors WIFI
• RING Video Doorbell
• RING Floodlight Cam
• Schlage Door locks
• Sylvania Smart bulb
• WION outlets and switches
• iGrill Weber
• Honeywell thermostats

What Is A Smart home?

“Smart home” is a general term that is used as a blanket for a collection of products in your house that are connected to a central device or web of devices. Most often this means you are connecting to your phone or tablet, but that’s not all that these pieces can connect to. Using Home Assistants such as Amazon Echo and Apple Homekit, control of your home is not only just at your fingertips, but also with a single sentence you can change the temperature in your home, turn on your TV, record a show, lock your doors, turn on your security cameras and lights, and more!

Why Use a Smart home System?

Save Money, Save Time, Save Energy

That’s the short of it. By having home controls that learn how you live your life and change their schedule to match yours, you’ll save more money than you thought you could, and by having a manual override at the touch of your fingers, you can take those savings even further.

Save Money – Saving money is a huge draw for people who buy into the smart home ecosystem. By creating schedules and having geo-location turning on and off your home appliances and systems, you can save some real money throughout the year. The barrier to entry is higher, but the backend savings are potentially huge.

Consider this: You set a schedule on your current thermostat to turn on at 4:30pm so your home is warm when you get there at 5pm. Your boss comes up to you as your leaving and asks you to stay late for a quick meeting. That meeting goes on for 2 1/2 hours (ugh). By the time you get home at 7:30-8pm, your heat has been running for over 3 hours with no one home. How much money is that? But with the Honeywell Wifi Thermostat, you could easily open up your phone and turn the heat off. Even better, when you pass a certain geolocation fence on your ride home, your system will automatically boot on for you ensuring that you save money, and arrive home to a nice toasty warm house.

Save Time – How many times have you walked out of the house, remember you left something off/forgot to turn something on, and had to turn around to take care of it? Well believe it or not it’s not an uncommon thing, and by having lights, outlets, and heating/cooling systems you can control from your phone you can simply turn everything off at the touch of a button or with a single voice command.

Save Energy – If you pull your own energy in through solar, or are just looking to be eco-conscious, then this is a great system for you. Being able to schedule processes in your appliances, and letting them react to your location before turning on or off allows you to save energy, which is not just great for your wallet, but the environment too!

Other Neat Tricks

Using services such as IFTTT (If This Than That) you can make custom profiles that will automate certain parts of your house for you. The process is simple. You tell something, “if this happens, then do that.” Easy, right?

Here are some examples you can create with your Smart home and IFTTT:

Simulate a Sunrise – Tell your Sylvania Smart Bulbs to ever-so-slowly brighten up your room in the morning, simulating the perfect sunrise even on those rainy days.

Wake Up Your House With You – Use your Fitbit to tell your home that you’re awake. When your Fitbit registers that you’ve woken up (after 7am of course), have it turn on the lights and the coffee pot.

Open Your Security App – Notifications are nice, but what if your phone or computer opened your Ring Floodlight Cam software the moment it detected an intruder? IFTTT can make that happen.

Turn Your Home On While Driving Home – Use IFTTT to get a fence installation at the end of your street that, when entered, unlocks your doors, turns on your lights, and begins playing your favorite playlists.

The list goes on and is only held back by your imagination!

What Does The Koopman Smart Home Look Like?

Woah, what’s going on in this picture? Simple: it’s the Koopman Smart Home Setup! This is what a Smart Home looks like in real (well, drawn) life.

Products Shown:

	Ring Video Doorbell		Sylvania Smart Bulbs
	Schlage Smartlock		WiOn Wifi Outlet
	Honeywell Thermostat		First Alert Smoke/CO2 Detector
	iGrill		Ring Floodlight Cam

You can get all of this, today, at Koopman Lumber! Click here to find your nearest Koopman Lumber location!

The Difference Between Bluetooth and WiFi

All smart products come with WiFi or Bluetooth capabilities, or both! But what’s the difference? Let’s find out!

Bluetooth – Bluetooth is a local connection created between 2 devices. It has a range of 30-60ft depending on the strength of the signal. This allows for pairing between your phone or tablet and the device directly, and the use of proprietary apps to directly control your device.

WiFi – WiFi is a networked connection that allows multiple devices to connect. WiFi controlled products require a HUB to connect to your devices and allow for remort control. When using WiFi, you just need to make sure to have a good internet connection, for this, you’ll need to work with a great provider. By clicking here, we’ll show you exactly what to do.

Smart Home Controllers and Assistants

When creating your Smart home, you need a way to control it all! There are 3 big players on the market right now, so make sure you check the compatibility between the products you want and the controller you’re using.

Apple Homekit (Assistant, Siri) – Use your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch to control your home with ease. Control everything from inside your home with just your mobile devices, or get an Apple Homepod or Apple TV to control your home remotely.

Google Assistant (Assistant, Google Assistant) – Use any Android device to control your home. Control everything from inside your home with just your mobile devices, or use Google Home to control your home remotely.

Amazon Echo (Assistant, Alexa) – Amazon Echo is a true home assistant. Alexa is your onboard assistant who you can talk to to control your entire home while home or through an Android or iOS app while you’re out.

When selecting your Smart ecosystem, make sure you choose products that work with your assistant or OS. There’s nothing worse than buying a product you can’t use, especially when setting your sights on something smart!

Wrap Up

The Koopman Smart Home is a great way to enter the world of smart living and makes a great gift for the holidays, birthdays, or just to say “I Love You!” To learn more, reach out to us over at koopmanlumber.com. Thanks for reading!