You spend a lot of your time at home, and with the looming lockdowns due to the third-wave of COVID, the time you spend at home may increase over the winter period in South Africa. Smart Homes have increased in popularity over the years but in 2021, with technological breakthroughs, the opportunities are endless for how you can customise your home to needs, leaving no reason why you should do your day-to-day tasks at home the old-fashioned way.

Experts globally predict what the trends are for 2021, and to mention a few, we can expect that:

Homes That Learn Based On Your Personal Preferences, Behaviours & Habits

With the development of AI (artificial intelligence), homes will no longer be considered smart just because you have a remote to put on the air conditioning, or open the curtains. Instead, smart homes in 2021 will use AI to learn user preferences and to adapt to those preferences and this is not only restricted to your air conditioning and curtains but is possible across every area of your home. Imagine a fridge that can predict when you’re going to run out of your favourite food, this is the home of the future.

Spatial Understanding 

For a device to be truly smart, it should not only be able to adjust to your preferences, but should be able to understand its environment and how to adjust to the environment. This technology is currently being used to allow robots to clean floors however, in 2021 and beyond it is predicted that this will start being a requirement in home automation systems, where they are almost able to think on their own. You might ask your Google Assistant, “Hey Google, switch on the lights around the dining table…”, and your smart home system should understand the command and use spatial understanding to respond accurately to the command.

Extending Your Home Automation To The Exterior

In 2021, your smart home can extend to the exterior of your home to beautify your garden. Green lawns are due to fade away in times coming with home veggie patches and flower gardens becoming a craze, however, it doesn’t matter what garden you have, it will still require watering and with a smart sprinkler system, you can set your sprinklers and even track your water usag, for purposes of efficiency and conservation.

Smart Kitchens Are All-The-Hype In Smart Homes This Year

An area of the home where automation is gaining real traction is in the kitchen. With a variety of technologies in one space, when these devices are all integrated to work together, it can be a truly great space to use smart technology to its full potential. With your fridge keeping tabs on the food you’ve got, keeping track of expiry dates and even ordering your food, your oven knowing the precise temperature to cook certain foods, and smart microwaves, wine coolers and mixers all centrally controlled, allowing you to get home from work with dinner all but served. 

Smart Security To Keep The Family Safe In Intelligent Ways

A surveillance system that has face recognition, detects movement, texts you notifications and even contacts SAPS  or your local security company when there is an emergency, is what a smart surveillance system is all about. Couple this with smart locks that know when to lock, a drone that investigates potential threats when sensors are triggered and a car alarm that notifies you of an attempted break-in directly in an app on your phone and we are surely talking about the future of home security systems. 

These are but some of the trends in home automation that can be expected but, we foresee massive changes in smart bathrooms, smart gyms, smart lighting and more, making residents feel more comfortable in their own homes and freeing them from the manual day-to-day home tasks, after a long day at the office. As IoT and AI technology improves, we will continue to see breakthroughs in the smart home industry, making lives more luxurious and making potential future lockdowns a lot more bearable.