Monitor, Control or Automate?

As I learn about and experiment with home technology products, I’ve found that there is a BIG difference between monitoring something, controlling something and automating something… This will have a big impact on how you approach your home technology approach, let’s talk about why.

Monitoring – This is typically watching something yourself remotely (typically on your smartphone) or getting an alert when something happens in your home. An example would be if a water sensor gets wet, you get a text message and know that you’ve got a leak. You could also monitor a camera in your home, etc.

Controlling – This is typically turning something on or off or adjusting it. You may be watching TV and feel cold, and want to set the temperature higher on the thermostat (from another room), or you may want to turn the AC on in the house as you’re leaving work, so it’s cool when you get home. You may also want to turn lights or appliances on or off.  For me, controlling something is “in the moment” when you want something to happen.

Automating– This is when things happen automatically, without your direct involvement. For example, when I leave work in the afternoon, my home automation system notices (via geofencing) and automatically turns the AC on in my house, so when I get home it’s already cooled-off. I didn’t do anything, it happened automatically. Another example may be turning-off your SONOS speakers when someone presses the doorbell (so you can hear the doorbell, and you can talk to someone at the door without the music being loud in the house). The classic example is having lights go on in the evening automatically based on the time of day, or sunset, etc.  To automate something you need to connect to those different systems, you need some kind of “if/then” programming capability, and you’ll also need some element of time.

There are TONS of systems that can help monitor and/or control things. Actually almost every “internet connected” device has some form of this. If you have a NEST Thermostat, you can monitor the temperature in your home, and you can change it remotely. However having it change automatically (other than preset timers like any other thermostat) requires some kind of home automation system. Further, if you want disparate systems to work together (such as a NEST Thermostat, a RING Doorbell and some SONOS speakers) you’ll need a home automation hub that can talk to all 3 devices.