Home automation allows many uses today. You can have many types of smart home devices, such as light bulbs, smart plugs, appliances… However, not all of them are the same. Even within the same type, you can find different characteristics. In this article we are going to talk about the advantages of being able to control devices by voice. It is something that is very present in home automation.
You can control many compatible home devices by voice. For example, you could turn light bulbs on or off, give commands to a smart plug, control an appliance… You can use it with smart assistants like Google Home or Alexa, which have a lot of compatibility.
Benefits of voice control in home automation
Maybe you are hesitating between buying a device that has voice control and another, similar one, that does not. You may be wondering if it is really worth paying a little more money or not. The truth is that you will see that there are some clear benefits, like the ones we are going to mention.
You save time
The first advantage is that you will be able to save time. For example, you could be in the kitchen preparing food and give orders, through voice commands, to turn on or off an appliance, turn on or off the radio or anything else you have nearby at that moment. You don’t need to stop what you’re doing, you’re simply going to use your voice to control something. It is very useful in certain situations and, therefore, it is an advantage of having smart devices that you can control through voice commands.
For security, logically you should never use a voice command to open a smart lock, although it can be useful to close it. The main brands of smart locks have these options, we can close the lock through Alexa or the Google assistant, but we cannot open it for security reasons. Furthermore, it would not be advisable to provide confidential information, such as authenticating with a dictated password in a certain home automation system, since anyone could listen to this password.
Comfort
You will gain in comfort. It is another advantage that we can mention. For example, think about the situation in which you are going to carry some boxes into a room, with the light off, and you want it to turn on without having to leave things on the floor. You can give the order for a light bulb to light up and that’s it. You will also gain convenience to be able to activate devices, search for information through an intelligent voice assistant, better manage the opening of windows or doors, etc. Thanks to using voice commands, you will have a range of options available.
In this example that we have given, we could also install a motion detector so that the light turns on when detecting some type of movement, and that it stays on for a certain time, and then turns off automatically. Another option would be to install a presence detector, this way, as long as there is a person in the room the light will remain on, otherwise it will turn off automatically without us having to do anything. However, if you do not have these devices then using the voice assistant is a very good option.
You save electricity
On the other hand, you can even save electricity. Home automation allows you to save resources and if you control devices by voice, too. For example, you will be able to turn off a light bulb that you left on, disconnect a heater or the air conditioning that you forgot when you left a room. Although they are basic gestures, they can come in handy to pay less on your electricity bill. Any small gesture adds up and home automation, with voice commands, can play an interesting role. You can apply it in many ways, always aimed at spending less energy in your daily life.
We must keep in mind that we will not only be able to do these actions inside the house, but also if we are outside. If we are not sure if we have left the light on, then we can tell it to turn it off to make sure it is off. If you have a home automation system like Home Assistant, you could configure automations to send you notifications via Telegram indicating that you have left the lights on. This way, you will be able to know the status of your smart devices at home at all times. In our case, we always use this home automation system instead of voice assistants for privacy reasons, very soon devices will begin to appear that are “smart speakers” but with totally local management, and perfectly integrated into the Home Assistant system to have maximum security and privacy when sending orders or speaking.
Therefore, as you see, you can use voice control on your smart devices and you will have certain advantages like the ones we have mentioned. Make sure you have a good Wi-Fi connection, so you don’t have connection problems on those devices.
