Tips and advice

Tips for your smart home that you must read

This article advises you via providing Tips for your smart home project so you can make your home smarter than before and become more knowledgeable.
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Google Assistant increasingly popular

Google has conquered the market in the Netherlands and Belgium with the Google Home and Google Assistant. Many consumers use Google’s voice assistant to control the smart home (or part of it). We have therefore written various how-to articles on how to link different products with Google Home. In addition, we have published a number of backgrounds about setting up and using Google Home and Google Assistant.

Everyday stores such as Kruidvat, Lidl, Action and HEMA sell smart lamps, smart cameras and smart sockets. Not just a few articles: Action, for example, has already launched fifteen different products on the market. They are items that fall within the Tuya platform and use Wi-Fi. Moreover, the products can also be linked to your Google Home. We will tell you how to do that in the article about Link LSC Smart Connect from Action to Google Home.

Perhaps you always use an old-fashioned wake-up alarm to get out of bed, or do you only open your eyes when the artificial sun shines in the form of a wake-up light? Did you know that you can also choose an alarm clock by the voice that helps you more often throughout the day: Google Assistant? In our article about Set Google Assistant as an alarm clock we explain step by step how to make Google Assistant wake you up every morning.

Getting Google Assistant into a particular routine has been quite a hassle in previous years. Routines are ways to bundle various actions together under one command. Fortunately, the option came to the Dutch Google Assistant this year and it is a lot easier to set up.

This way you ensure a good WiFi connection

The writer of this article has never had a better tan than in 2020: where we normally spent days in the air conditioning in the office, this year we worked from home. If you are blessed with a garden or balcony, it is wonderful to work there in the warm summer sun. At least if you have range: sometimes your wifi sometimes lets you down when you go out to nature. If the WiFi range in your garden also leaves something to be desired, it is wise to follow our tips your wifi connection in the garden get it right by taking it.

Have you just fixed the WiFi in your garden, it turns out that your husband who works in the attic is completely no connection to have. Of course something needs to be done about this, but the question is: how? Is it best to purchase a WiFi repeater for this, or are you better off setting up a mesh network? In WiFi repeater or a mesh network: which one is better? we will go deeper into the question of which of those solutions is better.

Safety and security

As we just wrote, smarthome is getting wider. You can already purchase a camera from Action for a few tens. This is ‘smart’ because it can transmit images to you thanks to the WiFi connection and the app on your smartphone. This way you can take a look in your garden or in your living room wherever you are. Although there are also some privacy issues attached to indoor cameras, you really have to be careful when you hang a camera outside. You are not allowed to just film the public road.

A smoke alarm is probably the quietest electronics you have in the house. Not when there is a fire or when you are baking burgers a bit too enthusiastically, but normally you don’t really have to worry about these devices. They last a very long time on a battery or are connected to a power supply. From July 2022, it will be mandatory in the Netherlands and Belgium to have at least one smoke detector on every floor and of course this may also be smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. We have written an in-depth article about what they do exactly and what you should pay attention to smart smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

When you look around your house like that, you probably don’t immediately think about making your door smarter. Still, it can make a world of difference if you do. Maybe you’ve invested in a lot of new tech lately, making you want to put a better lock on the door. Or are you a care worker and do you want to be able to give the postman instructions about what he or she can do with a package when you are not at home. Or do you simply want more and better insight into who is at the door? They are things that can help you enormously and that can improve safety. In our article about making your front door smarter you can read more about it.

More tips and advice

In addition to the tips and advice mentioned above, we have written many more interesting articles that will help you get started in the world of the smart home. So recently we are that dived into the world of Tuya. This platform is used by many large retail chains and many small brands to launch SmartHome products.