My son is a tiny little gadget hoarder. I wish he was outside fishing or playing or creating but I can’t tear him away from Mindcraft. Talking to him about Mindcraft is a sore subject for me. I don’t enjoy it and I don’t enjoy being the bad guy who has to remind him to do his homework, brush his hair, and go to bed. When I talk to my son I want the focus to be on the bigger picture instead of arguing about things that just have to be. The solution? Home automation.
Somehow we’ve managed to turn home automation into something boring. We automate our lights when we get home, we adjust the temperature when we leave…yawn. Home automation is affordable, easy, and fun but it also has the potential to be powerfully creative. I would wager that it is powerful enough to make the toughest job in the world just a bit easier if we color outside of the lines.
One: The Safety of Your Kids Comes First
Protecting our children from danger inside the home is just as important as protecting them outside the home. Home automation can add an extra set of eyes to your house for less money than a traditional home security system. Door and window sensors, motion sensors, door and window alarms and security cameras are traditional home security items but they are also examples of items that can connect to a home automation hub for added home security. Using connected sensors you can monitor activity in your home and setup alerts that go straight to your cell phone or to your inbox if anything fishy happens. Home automation systems can also monitoring for raising temperatures like in the event of a fire. If you want to color outside of the lines you can even have the lights in your child’s bedroom flash red and add a connected speaker to announce safety instructions. This has the potential to be more effective than a traditional smoke alarm as research proves that many children sleep through traditional alarms.
Two: Making Life Fun Through Technology
The idea of coloring outside the lines simply means using technology to make life fun. Hue bulbs are a great way to add color and fun to your kid’s room. You could use Hue bulbs to make colorful fairies or perhaps change the lighting to their favorite color when they wake up in the morning. Automated systems use multi-sensors to differentiate between night and day so you can adjust the color of the light for different periods of the day. You can also connect speakers like Sonos to give your system a voice. You can teach it to say “Wake Up” or “Hey Batman! It’s time to Brush Your Teeth”.
Three: Teenagers Need Boundaries Too
Home automation is a great solution for parents of teenagers. You want to give them enough freedom so that they can grow into independent adults but they need boundaries too. Home automation can help automate the tasks so that you don’t always have to be the “bad guy”.
Beyond being an extra set of eyes, a Smart Home can foster independence. For example, a child can now use his cell phone to open the front door and you can get a text message letting you know all is well. A new driver is given more freedom as they learn to drive through the use of geofencing and free apps like Life360 that grant freedom with boundries. Or perhaps you just want to have peace of mind when your teen daughter is out and about so you add a panic button to her keychain.
The Sky is the Limit
As for me? I use the power of lights to shift the conversations I have with my son. Blue lights mean “brush your teeth” and green lights mean “go to bed”. Not having these discussions nightly means happier mom, more time for snuggles, and less time debating. In regards to Mindcraft? I’m still open to ideas.
My advice to new automaters is to use caution. There is a fine line between shifting how our time with our children is spent and being Big Brother. Instead of monitoring every movement, use automation to find ways to shift the focus of your interactions. Shift the conversations with your kids from “Why were you late” to “What was the best part of your day” by letting automation do your dirty work. Now if I could just figure out a way to automatically fold my laundry…
Rose Thibodeaux
SecurityGem.com