What are the benefits of home automation? Text

The greatest benefit of an automated or “smart” home is convenience. Once you can control your home’s lights from a console in, say, your bedroom, you’ll never have to traipse back downstairs in your P.J.s to turn off the garage light that you forgot about before you went to bed.

Still, safety and security are huge benefits to a home automation system. You can program your lights to turn on and off at specific times to ward off intruders after dark or while you’re away from home. Your system can include sound and motion sensors, which can be connected to a computer, and even notify you or the police via phone or e-mail if it “senses” that there’s an intruder, a flood in the home or a fire.

If you can afford a fancier system, you can even monitor your home over the Internet while you’re at work or away for the summer season. You can see rooms in your home and watch what’s going on there any time of day or night. 

Finally, you can save on your energy bills through home automation. Some systems allow you to control the thermostat and lighting so the house is a little warmer when nobody’s home and the lights turn off automatically when someone leaves a room. 

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