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How You Can Use Smart Things in Your New Home

How You Can Use Smart Things in Your New Home September 26, 20174 Comments

Hi, I’m Kari, creator of Keep it Simple, DIY. I’m a lifestyle blogger with an MBA who blogs about finance, Home & DIY, blogging, and more. My main motto is that if you just try, you will succeed. The key is to Keep it Simple.

How You Can Use SmartThings in Your New Home

How You Can Use SmartThings in Your New Home

*Affiliate links present

Welcome back to the blog! I’m so excited to say that we are almost done getting Smart Things set up in our new house.

No, this post isn’t sponsored by Smart Things but I would work with them in an instant if they asked.

Previously, I’ve talked about how I used Smart Things for home automation and give things I love about Smart Things.

When I sold my last house, the buyer’s wanted the ‘security system’.  So we ended up leaving the door/window sensors and the hub.

On to the new house and we are starting from scratch. Come along with me and I’ll show you how you can use Smart Things in your new home too!

Using Smart Things for Security

Security is one of the most important aspects of your home. If you don’t feel safe and secure, your home may never feel like a home.

There are many security options with Smart Things.

Door/window sensors and alarms

(Link to Amazon)

The most notable security options are door/window sensors and alarms.  Door and window sensors can be placed on any type of door or window including your garage door. They can let you know if the door is open or closed and can sound the alarm when needed.  This alarm will sound of an intruder enters.  We had an alarm in our last home and it was very loud! It even made me walk out of my own house when I accidentally sent it off.

cameras and doorbells

Security cameras are definitely another major part of security. Nearly every business and many homes have them.  Security cameras can be places anywhere in or around your home.  Smart Things takes security to the next level by allowing you to watch your cameras in real time.

You can also purchase a video doorbell or just a smart doorbell. This will let you know when someone is ringing your doorbell. Many types of doorbells also allow you to respond to and see your visitor from your phone.

smart Locks

You can set a smart lock on your doors that you can use a code or your phone to lock/unlock. Smart Things can even do this automatically when you want it to.

smoke and carbon monoxide detectors

Every home should already have both of these but including them with your Smart Things gives them an added bonus. With Smart Things, you can set your phone to tell you that your detectors are going off so you don’t find out too late when you arrive home after work. Being able to know as soon as they go off can save you your pets and your house.

water sensors

Water sensors may not be as important to you but if you but they can come in handy to let you know if you have a leak. The laundry room is a great place to use these.

There are many options for security with Smart Things.  The opportunities are almost endless

Using Smart Things for Home Automation

Here’s the fun part. Yes security is so important, but having a smart home is cool!

lights and switches


There are two main ways to use smart lights in your home. Smart bulbs and smart switches. For the bulbs, you use them just as you would a regular light bulb. Then you can access that bulb from your app. Switches are a better solution of the switch has multiple bulbs on it. Then you can use the switch or app to turn the light on and off. The app can also automatically turn the lights on at a specific time or when something specific happens.

Smart switches can also be used to control your fans. Pair that with Cortana, Siri, Alexa, or OK Google, and you can tell your home to turn the fan on without getting up!

smart blinds

Smart blinds can be expensive if you don’t want to diy them.  But how nice would it be to just tell your phone to open or close the blinds for you? PRETTY COOL.

Smart Thermostat

Thermostats can be such a pain to program but Smart Thermostats are not only easy to program, you can program them from your phone.  You can also had quite a bit of customization to your heating and cooling schedule which can save you money.

smart irrigation

The sprinkler system can be even more of a pain than a thermostat.  The irrigation system can also be smart, allowing for maximum customization.  Being able to turn the water off and on remotely is great for those super rainy days or days when the grass needs a bit more moisture.

garage door opener

This is one of my favorites. You can have your garage door controlled by Smart Things too! Your openers will still work the same way but you could also use your phone.

Or, better yet, you can set your garage door to open automatically when you need it to. I have mine set to open when our drop station sensor is triggered within a 15 minute window. That way it knows when I get to my drop station before work it is time to open the door.

appliance modules/smart outlets

With appliance modules and smart outlets you can turn on virtually anything that gets plugged in. From the Christmas tree, to a crock pot or even a lamp. Almost any electronic device can be turned on and off with Smart Things.

total automation

Once you have all of your Smart devices set up, you can set up Routines. Routines automate your smart home and security features.

We lived without Smart Things in our new house for about a week and I can’t tell you how many lights we turned on. We also kept forgetting to lock the front door since we were so used to having it lock itself.

We are very happy that we finally have our Smart Things system up and running. It makes so many parts of our daily routine so much easier.

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Hi, I’m Kari, creator of Keep it Simple, DIY. I’m a lifestyle blogger with an MBA who blogs about finance, Home & DIY, blogging, and more. My main motto is that if you just try, you will succeed. The key is to Keep it Simple.

4 comments

  1. Our friends that live in San Francisco have so much of this set-up and it was so cool! It’s probably such a relief for parents as well! Just to always be aware when doors and windows are open 🙂

  2. It’s so cool that there are products that are connected to your phone nowadays! I can’t wait to have a house and start using some of these products 🙂

  3. getting a smart lock for our house was THE BEST and -dare i say it… the SMARTEST (heh, get it!?) — thing we’ve ever done. I’ve locked myself out of the house so many times but with our smart lock we could unlock the door from our phone. genius.

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