Possibilities
What a smart home can do today: twelve scenes from everyday life
Forget the lamp that lights up from an app. You only notice the real advantages of a smart home once you no longer have to operate it.
The most common question in our consultations is not "what does it cost?" but "what does it do for me?". The answer is rarely a product. It is a series of moments in which the house does something before you reach for it. Here are twelve, all from real installations.
In the morning
- The bedroom blinds rise with the alarm clock, not with the sun. Later at the weekend.
- The bathroom light comes on dimmed and warm at night, in daylight white in the morning.
- The coffee machine is preheated, because the plug switches on a quarter of an hour before the alarm.
During the day
- The blinds follow the sun and keep the rooms cool in summer without anyone thinking about it.
- The heating drops as soon as the last phone has left the house, and warms up again when the first one returns.
- A motion sensor reports if someone is in the house during the day who should not be there.
In the evening
- A button at the entrance starts the "end of work" scene: hallway, kitchen and living room in warm light, music from the kitchen, blinds down.
- The television dims the living room lamps when it switches on and lowers the projection screen.
- The front door opens with a finger, the phone or a code. The key stays in the cupboard.
At night and away from home
- The button beside the bed switches off everything still lit and reports which windows are open.
- On holiday, the house simulates presence using the lighting patterns of the past weeks.
- The wallbox charges the car with solar power from the roof and stops when the battery storage has priority.
What the scenes have in common
None of them needs an app. The app is the exception, for holidays and settings. In everyday life there are buttons, presence sensors and automation. That is the difference between a house full of devices and a smart home: one wants to be operated, the other takes work off your hands.
What lies behind it
For most scenes, lighting, blinds, heating and a few sensors are enough – the basic functions of any bus system and any good radio installation. Access, music, television and energy management come as layers on top. What matters is that all the layers talk to each other. A television that does not know the lamps cannot dim them.
Where to start
With the room where you spend the most time, and with the three things you do there by hand every day. That is the plan. The rest is technology – and we are happy to explain it to you at your home, using exactly these twelve scenes.
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