Garden, entryway and living room
Making the home smart is getting easier and easier. On the one hand, there are the products, ranging from affordable offerings from the best-known brands to entry-level ones to green-up accessories and appliances without emptying the wallet. On the other is the ecosystem, which, with the recent extension of the Matter protocol, has realized that the real strength, even in terms of sales, lies in integration and not in a world of proprietary solutions. Getting the various Alexa, Google and Siri to talk to most of the devices you already have in your home is a win-win for everyone, manufacturers and consumers alike. Europe leads the Smart Home market growth rate. Leading the segment are connected boilers, thermostats and air conditioners for heating and air conditioning (20 per cent), as well as security solutions (19 per cent) and home appliances (18 per cent).
Not just technological but practical vexations, as home appliances themselves can reduce electricity consumption by 20 per cent, thanks to ways of saving and optimizing charging. Technological innovations make it possible to simplify everyday life with greater security. This is the case with smart locks, which follow the principle of abandoning traditional keys by being able to open apartment doors through a code, biometric fingerprint or smartphone. Among the most active brands in this regard is Nuki, which recently launched the fourth generation of its flagship product, the Smart Lock Pro (169 euros).
Get the home smarter
With or without Wi-Fi, it is installed over the lock to automate unlocking by digitizing the keys. The easiest way is to press a button on the phone’s app. Still, there are many extension possibilities, such as a numeric keypad on which to type a personal code, connected via Bluetooth to the Lock Pro, or one with an area for biometric fingertip scanning for all family members to register for safer and easier opening, getting rid of a burden to carry around. The fourth generation integrates the aforementioned Matter, so you can ask various voice assistants to open the door without touching anything.
Refrigerators and ovens are now connected by default, and finding a cooktop with Wi-Fi is still rare. The Candy CETPS64SCWIFI (289 euros) has it to control each of the four burners remotely, set maximum consumption, access automatic cooking modes and more. It has the same concept as the LG CBIZ2437B (549 euros), which additionally has “flex mode,” to join two nearby burners and create a single cooking plate when using larger pans and needing even induction over the whole area. The app to control everything is LG ThinQ, from which to also follow diagnoses in case of malfunctions or create routines, such as turning on the mocha in the morning at a certain time.
Eyes and sensors everywhere – smart home
We encounter technology in the connected home par excellence before crossing the threshold. Some of the most useful home gadgets can be found in the backyard, starting with outdoor security cameras. The Google Nest Cam with a battery (199.99 euros) can boast a true battery life record. Even with real-time alerts, night vision and face recognition, it can go for months before being unplugged and plugged in for a few hours. It is weatherproof and extremely versatile, with an optional stand that can be placed indoors if needed.
The beauty is that Nest Cam automatically stores up to an hour of recorded events in local memory in the event of a power or Wi-Fi outage. When the connection is restored, the app can review various actions. Entering the living room, the must-have is the speaker with Alexa. The latest is the Echo Show 8 (169 euros), which, although aesthetically does not revolutionize shape and size, incorporates many new features compared to its predecessors. These include a 13-megapixel camera for video calls, including on apps such as Zoom, space acoustic sensing technology, and a revamp of the home screen, which now, thanks to computer vision, can adjust content on the screen based on the user’s proximity. Great attention is still paid to privacy, with a built-in switch to close to any possibility, remote, of unwanted monitoring.
