Good morning

Imagine…

Your alarm clock peacefully wakes you up at 5am. As you remove the bed covers, and your feet touch the floor, a suptle glow of light illuminates your path to the bathroom and robe, allowing you to change into your gym clothes in an unobtrusive, dimmed light.

While you’re getting changed, the automated pet feeder releases fifty grams of dry food for your cat’s breakfast. As you leave for the gym, your front door automatically unlocks, and securely locks silently closes behind you.

After a high-intensity work out, you arrive back home, just after sunrise. The front door automatically unlocks, and you are greeted by your satisfied cats. A soft glow of sunlight bathes the room through the sheer drapes, as the heavier, block-out curtains magically part.

As you enter the bathroom, the shower knowingly turns on to a refreshing thirty degrees, at just the right pressure to sooth your body. The radio softly plays, updating you with the seven o’clock news. Steam is queitly extracted by the overhead fan keeping the mirror condensation free.

As you turn off the shower, and dry off, robe space and shelves illuminate, helping you select your outfit for the day. Over the sounds of the radio, you hear the grinding of coffee beans, as your coffee machine prepares the ideal latte to kick start your day.

Walking into the kitchen and living room, the sheer window drapes automatically open to reveal a glorious morning. The radio is seamlessly transferred from the bathroom to the kitchen, and your home maintains a comfortable 22 degrees as you enjoy your morning coffee.

After breakfast, you gather your work belongings to leave home, saying goodbye to the cats, with the door quietly closing and locking behind you.

Everything just happens, integrating seamless with your lifestyle to start your day.

A smarter front door

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

Making an entrance

The front door is the main point of entry into a home. It can be greatly improved with technology to provide better convenience, and improve the overall usability of a home.

For decades, we have become familiar with the concept of central locking in cars, that is now considered a standard feature, even for entry level vehicles.

A smart front door of today can integrate a number of currently available products, systems and technologies:

Smart lighting

Light is one of the most effective deterrents to keep unwanted criminals from your home, or to at least interrupt them.

A smart lighting system utilises motion and light level sensors to automatically switch on and off lights, and other devices (e.g. motorised shades, heating and cooling).

Sensors can also trigger predefined scenes (e.g. Welcome, Goodbye, Gone away, etc.) based on personal preferences and predetermined house rules, to automate regular tasks and routines.

Smart lock

Technology is effectively replacing analog interfaces such as the traditional lock and key to provide a higher level of convenience, and improve the overall usability of the home.

The user interface of a smart door is typically keyless, and may include a numeric code keypad, RFID reader (e.g. smart phone, touch card or fob) or biometric reader (e.g. finger print or retina scanner). Keyless access systems eliminate the fumbling for a manual key, that can be retained as a backup.

Think of smart locks and the encompassing home access control system in a similar way that a central locking system operates for a car. This functionality can be applied to all entry doors in a similar way, but with more intelligence.

Smart door bell

A smart doorbell integrates a video camera, audio microphone and speaker to provide an improved way of answering the door, monitoring the door and interacting with guests.

Video, audio and notifications can be viewed and received on your smart phone upon the door bell sensing motion or answering a guest’s bell press – you don’t even need to be at home.

Smart video cameras

Video cameras are an excellent deterrent to criminals with the latest cameras being able record very high resolution for easy identification.

Smart video cameras record video to a local storage device or to a subscribed cloud-based service when motion or sound is detected.

Similar to a smart door bell, video, audio and notifications can be viewed and received on your smart phone, allowing you to easily monitor your home.

A smarter door

Many smart home owners provide feedback of the smart front door being one of the most convenient and most valued features of a smart home. As with all smart home systems, smart doors need to be integrated into the design of the home to avoid fragmentation of form and function, and to provide the best user experience.

For the ultimate front door and entry experience, let me show you how.