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A smarter bathroom

In this series of articles, I discuss and review how rooms and areas of a home can benefit from currently available technologies that are key elements of a smart home.

 

Your sanctuary

It is well known that bathrooms and ensuites are one of the most renovated rooms of a home. These spaces are the heart of the home and greatly enhance lifestyles. Realtors will often advise that a quality bathroom will provide one of the best returns on investment when selling.

With busy lives, homeowners and residents value opportunities for relaxation and recreation. Time spent in the bathroom should be pleasurable rather than stressful. It’s great to start day with positive experiences.

Of all the rooms and spaces within a home, the bathroom is possibly one of the most functionally demanding, and is mostly underrated and overlooked for technology.

Smart lighting

Lighting and lighting control systems can be very functional allowing us to have the best light, whenever, wherever, and however we want. With bathroom applications being so personal, so too can the lighting.

The right type of light needs to illuminate the space for the required application. For detailed tasks of applying make-up, hair, and shaving in front of a mirror, light needs to be even and indirect, without glare or casting shadows. Similarly, for the application of dressing, lighting can be adjusted to provide the most flattering light for the right time of the day or night.

With the lighting application in mind, careful consideration needs to be provided to ensure the appropriate light fixture, with the best type of lumenaire, producing the best quality of light is specified and installed in the right location.

Human centric lighting systems use special light fittings that can change colour – from warm to cool white, optimising light to maximise the intended task for specific times of the day and night. Based on personal preferences and requirements, makeup can be applied to suit a specific environment. Lighting can be automatically or manually changed to suit the intended application.

For general use, ambient lighting should be mostly automatic by using motion and light level sensors to automatically switch lights on and off, and dim when required – automated lighting in a bathroom is extremely useful when implemented correctly. Personalised task lighting will manually override automated functionality when and how it is required.

Functionality can be provided for specific applications – a midnight bathroom visit can be more effectively illuminated, providing just the right type and amount of light without disturbing your night vision, and partner.

 


Photos sourced from the internet

 

Smart fittings

A benefit of a smart home is the ability to automate regular routines. Water taps can be electronically controlled to personalise water temperature and water pressure with a press of a button to provide the perfect shower every time.

Exhaust and extraction fans can be integrated with the toilet, to extract odours directly from the toilet bowl rather than filling the room. Similar extraction fans can automatically remove steam when bath and shower hot water taps are run.

Motorised shades and blinds can raise and lower for privacy at the press of a button, or be automated to counter exterior glare from direct sunlight. Electronic switchable glass can magically change from clear to opaque to provide the ultimate level of privacy for shower screens, partition walls and windows.

Heating, including floor heating, can be automated to warm up the bathroom to a cozy temperature during the winter before you step foot into the room, and switch off when you exit the room. Heated towel rails and towel warming drawers can be automated to provide the perfect towel.

Smart power

Devices such as hair curlers and hair straighteners that plug into power outlets can be automatically switched off after being used, to provide peace of mind that they are actually turned off when you leave home.

Info-tainment

Splashproof televisions provide functional entertainment. There are even special television displays that are mirrors – when switched off are indistinguishable from a normal mirror, but when switched on, an image magically appears from behind the mirror. Displays can also provide notification and alerts of news, weather, stocks etc.

Music and radio keeps you up-to-date with the latest news and tunes, switching to your favourite program when you enter the room to shower, and fades out when you leave.

A smarter bathroom

The bathroom should not only look beautiful but also needs to be functional for each person that uses it. Bathroom technologies don’t need to be extravagant, and should meet the needs and requirements of the user. Technology can help to seamlessly transform your sanctuary to provide a lifestyle changing user experience.

For the ultimate bathroom experience, let me show you how.

Other articles in this series: 
Smarter front door

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Connected home vs Smart home

 

The terms Connected Home and Smart Home are often confused as being the same thing to describe a home with electronics and technology. However, they are very different – the connected home vs the smart home.

Connected home

Connect (verb): (with object) Join together so as to provide access and communication. – Oxford Dictionary

A connected home integrates multiple electronic and technology systems (e.g. lighting control, security, access control, distributed audio, distributed video, heating and cooling etc.) that are connected by a wired and wireless infrastructure, to themselves, and to the internet.

Connected home systems consist of a range of products relevant to that particular system (e.g. Lighting control system – dimmers, relays, switches, sensors etc. Security system – alarm panel, keypads, motion detectors, siren etc.).

Products and systems are connected to each other by way of a hub or gateway to provide a level of automation – Home automation.

Automation (noun): The use or introduction of automatic equipment in a manufacturing or other process or facility. – Oxford Dictionary

Automatic (adjective) 1: (of a device or process) working by itself with little or no direct human control. 2: done or occurring spontaneously, without conscious thought or attention. – Oxford Dictionary

The automation component of a connected home manages all of the electronic systems and consolidates individual functionality with unified user interfaces such as  touch screens, remote controls, voice control and mobile device applications.

Connected systems are programmed to automate functions as defined scenes to provide better convenience of everyday routines. Home automation scenes might include Welcome, Goodbye, Goodnight, Good morning, and Away scenes. Typical functionality of a Welcome scene might be: When I arrive home after work, turn on the porch, entry, hall and kitchen lights, and turn on the ducted heating.

A connected home can provide fantastic convenience and automation, but by definition is not necessarily smart.

Smart home

Smart or Intelligent (adjective): (of a device or building) Able to vary its state or action in response to varying situations and past experience. – Oxford Dictionary

A smart home builds upon foundation systems and technologies of a connected home to provide a more functional, more intuitive, and more simple solution. User experience is the most considered element of a smart home.

As a progression from a connected home with manual electronic control, a smart home can also respond to various inputs such as time, occupancy, presence, ambient light, temperature, weather etc.

In a smart home, technology systems are fully integrated with the architectural form and function of the home, rather than as an add-on. Foundation technology systems (e.g. power, solar, battery storage, lighting) that are integral for a smart home are considered very early in the architectural design process to allow other systems to build upon.

Many smart home concepts and strategies may not even be regarded as typical electronic systems: Ambient, task and feature lighting are designed to blend seamlessly into the architectural form of the home to provide the right type of illumination where, when and how it is needed. A heating and cooling system is designed to compliment passive solar building design to collect, store, and distribute solar energy in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. They are many other passive concepts and strategies that make a home smart.

Although similar in some ways, a connected home and smart home are very different – A connected home provides an improved level of convenience, whereas a smart home provides the ultimate user experience.

For the homeowner, it is important to understand what a home of today and the future is capable of.

For the ultimate smart home experience, let me show you how.

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Human centric lighting – A better light

Natural light changes colour throughout the day – from a morning sunrise glow, to a bright midday sun, to a rich warm sunset. We have the technology to change the colour of artificial light in our homes – Human centric lighting*.

Clockwise

The human biological clock is closely tied to the day/night cycle of the Earth – circadian rhythm, and is pivotable for our body’s release of various hormones including melatonin that regulates sleep, and cortisol for healing. We know that light has a significant influence on the human biological clock and our health.

As much as technology can benefit us, it can disrupt our natural biological clock. We have too little of the right type of light during the day, and too much of the wrong type of light at night. Exposure to televisions, LED lights, computer screens, and mobile devices that emit blue (cool) light at night can disrupt our biological clock, delaying the natural sleep pattern.

Colour changers

Currently, lights are specified to be a particular colour temperature – typically warm white, or cool white. As a general rule, warm light is more suitable for a home because it is best for the worst case scenario. Up until now we have had limited control of light – we switch on/off, and dim.

LED lights are now available that can reproduce a range of colour temperatures (tuneable white light), and even the whole colour spectrum. Together with a compatible lighting control system we can automatically regulate light to achieve specific objectives.

With a human centric lighting system, artificial light can automatically mimic natural light. As natural light changes throughout the day and night, so too can the colour and intensity of artificial light – re-aligning our circadian rhythm to our biological clock.

A human centric lighting system can also manipulate artificial light. When we require higher levels of concentration and alertness, we can adjust the colour temperature to provide a cool light. When we want to relax or provide a more calm environment, we can adjust the colour temperature to provide a more warm light.

A better light

Lighting and control technologies have evolved to provide better user experiences. With careful consideration and expert consultation, light can be more organic and integrate better in our smart homes to provide greater levels of comfort.

For the ultimate lighting experience, let me show you how.

*Human centric lighting is also known by other names such as circadian lighting, bio-rhythmic lighting, tuneable lighting etc.