Felicity Haythorn
An Equippd smart home understands the hustle and bustle of family life, which is why you’ll find a system that’s easy to use, keeps your family safe and has a range of features you can implement and adapt into your home to suit the way you and your family live. Here, we walk you through the usual hectic daily routine of life with kids and show you how smart technology can keep things running smoothly.
The night shift
Sometimes your mornings start before you’ve even got out of bed, when a small person wakes you up in the middle of the night because they need the loo. In a smart home at night-time, the motion sensor picks up on someone entering the bathroom and brings the lights on at half-brightness, so you won’t be completely dazzled and unable to get back to sleep. This also helps the aforementioned small person to use the bathroom on their own at night, leaving you to get those precious zzzs.
The bathroom stampede
Damp towels are the bane of my life. But in a smart home, the towel rail can heat up automatically at set times of day to ensure it warms and dries towels without wasting energy. It can also be ‘boosted’ at the touch of a button (either on the wall or via your smartphone). The fan will run automatically to rid the bathroom completely of all the steam and humidity caused by all members of your family choosing the same half-hour in which to shower/brush their teeth.
Breakfast time
Everyone’s up and dressed – now it’s time for breakfast. If you think your smart home’s going to serve out the cornflakes and wash up, I’ve got some bad news. It won’t. But it can make mornings easier. Let’s start with coffee – you can programme your coffee machine to start doing its thang without you lifting a finger. Meanwhile, the blinds will have risen, and the freezing kitchen floor will be toasty underfoot – a smart home allows you to control the underfloor heating in each room individually and automatically, enabling you to schedule the underfloor heating in the kitchen to always be warm in the mornings. By introducing ‘lighting scenes’, you can create different lighting intensities to suit the time of day. In the morning, you can reduce the brightness level of the lights or just have the under counter lights come on.
Leaving the house
There’s nothing more annoying than being almost ready to leave the house and realising you’ve left something upstairs. But with a smart home, you can install an intercom system to speak to family members on different floors. ‘We love living in a tall, skinny Victorian town house, but who wants to have to climb a flight of four stairs when you’ve forgotten the kid’s shoes?’ says Equippd client Quincy Kresler. ‘So we can intercom up and talk to them. It syncs up to the doorbell.’ It’s at this point that you can push one button or swipe a touchscreen to switch off all your lights, entertainment and activate the security system. And hey presto! You’ve left the house in less than a few minutes – definitely a world record.
While you’re out
Imagine this little scenario – you’re at work or the shops (picture yourself in a non-lockdown world!) and your child returns home from school without their keys. What do you do? Panic? Nope. An automated home system will allow you to remotely control automated door locks from your smartphone. This also comes in handy when you’re on holiday too, giving you full control of your lighting, heating and power, including appliances. Never stress about leaving the oven on again!
Coming home
In these Covid-19 times, returning to the house after a hard day’s work doesn’t carry the same weight if you’re currently working from home. Nevertheless, coming home to a smart house is very pleasant. Presence sensors bring the lights on automatically when you step through the front door, and a swipe on the keypad activates the ‘coming home’ scene, which instantly disarms the burglar alarm, adjusts the heating and fills the room with relaxing music.
Family time
Parents with older children rejoice – a smart home means fantastic, reliable WiFi. Whether your teens are gaming, watching TV or listening to music, they’ll be streaming. Quincy agrees that her Equippd smart home is ‘great for family life. If everyone is streaming at the same time, I’m not even having to worry about all the different devices.’ Having a universal remote of systems, such as Lutron (used in conjunction with Control4) is also a timesaver and makes life simpler. ‘It is really nice to not have to worry about if we want to listen to music or watch TV or dim the lighting. You know, we’re not scrambling to find “that remote”.’
It’s bedtime
It’s the end of another busy day. Quincy’s favourite part of her smart home is her Lutron lighting. ‘The Lutron system is awesome. [It’s] the ability to sit in bed and turn off the whole house, room by room. I can make sure the girls’ hallway light is on but that everything else is off. It’s totally customisable, it works really, really well, it looks really elegant and we absolutely love it.’ Peace at last!