What Is a Smart Home – The Complete Guide

5 March 2025 by M.Salih ASLAN

A smart home is a group of programmable, connected Internet of Things (IoT) devices that use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, or Z-Wave technology for communication. You can remotely control these devices using a touch-screen control panel or smartphone.

If you’ve never thought about turning your home into a smart home, this guide will explain why you should consider it. We also explain how smart systems work and introduce you to some of the most popular types of smart devices on the market.

What are the benefits of a smart home?

Smart home technology is about more than making your home flashier and impressing your neighbors (although a sleek, smart home setup is sure to catch their attention).

Several advantages can come with giving your home smart functionality. In the next few segments, we cover some of the benefits of investing in a smart home setup.

Save on energy costs

While it’s true that smart home devices usually have higher price tags than normal appliances, many smart tools like smart lighting and smart thermostats pay for themselves over time in energy savings.

Smart home automation systems let you decide when your devices work and when they don’t. For instance, you can schedule your smart thermostat to shut off your HVAC system while you’re at work and then turn on right before you get home. This ensures that your air conditioning system doesn’t waste electricity when you’re not using it.

Manage door locks from anywhere

Do you find it difficult to relax when you’re on vacation because you’re worried that you forgot to lock your front door? If so, a home security system with smart locks can give you peace of mind.

A smart home security system gives you remote control of your locks from anywhere, provided there’s an available Wi-Fi or cellular internet connection.

Keep an eye on your home with video security

Smart camera systems let you view security footage of your property on your smartphone. Many security companies also offer cloud storage plans that let you keep and share video clips from your cameras online.

Generally, smart security cameras will send notifications to your mobile device when they notice unusual movement on your property, so you can react.

If you’re a pet parent, you likely worry about your furry friends when you have to leave home. Security cameras can be a great tool for watching your pets. If your camera has two-way talk functionality, you can even speak to your animals through your smartphone. Two-way audio can also help you speak to people at your front door if you have a video doorbell.

Set the mood with smart lighting

Smart lighting lets you turn lights on and off in your home remotely. Depending on what type of smart bulbs you have, you might also be able to adjust the brightness of your lights or change their color remotely.

Effortlessly control your garage door

Your garage door is one the most vulnerable points in your home, especially if your family uses your garage as the main entryway. Even if you don’t purposely leave your garage door open during the day, it’s not hard to forget to close it when you pull out for work in the morning.

A smart garage door opener lets you shut or open your door remotely. If you leave your door open, you’ll get a notification on your smartphone letting you know it’s open. Then, you can shut it remotely.

Increase the value of your home

Who wouldn’t want a home with convenient smart tech? When you move, smart features can increase the value of your home and make it more attractive to buyers. Appraisers will often value a home as being worth more if it has smart tools.

A home with an energy-saving, smart lighting system or an existing smart security system might be just what house hunters are seeking.

How do smart homes work?

When you have a smart home, all your smart appliances can communicate with each other and work together. You can manage all your appliances using a single smart home hub, like a touch-screen control board, or a mobile device, like an Apple or Android phone.

You can use your smartphone to control your smart devices in real time from anywhere. This lets you do things like turn off your lights or shut your garage door while you’re on vacation. If your system has compatibility with voice assistant tools like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, you can use voice commands to control your devices.

You can also program your smart home for automation. There are two ways to do this.

• Creating schedules: You can program smart appliances to work at specific times. For example, you could schedule your smart locks to lock automatically at 11 p.m. when you go to bed.

• Using If This, Then That (IFTTT) functions: You can program devices to perform actions in conjunction with other appliances in your system. For example, you might set a command for your security cameras to turn on whenever your outdoor motion detectors are activated.

You’ll generally need a Wi-Fi router and a reliable smart app to connect and control all of your smart tools. The Vivint smart app has an interface that makes interacting with all your smart devices a breeze.

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What devices are used in smart homes?

There’s a huge array of smart devices that can help you do almost anything. Depending on their preferences, homeowners might have smart vacuums, washers, dryers, dishwashers, TVs, refrigerators, blinds, or coffee makers.

Whenever you buy smart home appliances, ensure they have connectivity with your greater smart home ecosystem. You can typically find out which smart systems a device works with on the box or company website.

Below, we list some of the most useful types of smart tools you should consider making part of your smart home system.

• Smart light bulbs: A smart lighting system lets you turn your lights on and off when you’re away. Some smart lights give you the ability to play with their brightness settings or change their colors. Vivint smart systems have integrations with ultra-quality Philips Hue smart bulbs.

• Smart thermostat: Thermostats with smart functions let you program when your HVAC system operates. For example, you can program your air conditioner to cool a room when it senses someone is there, so you don’t waste electricity.

• Security devices: Security cameras, smart locks, and motion sensors can help protect your home at all hours of the day. A smart home security system can send you notifications whenever it senses motion at your residence and let you view security footage from your cameras on your smartphone.

• Smart speakers: Smart speakers like Amazon Echo or Google Nest Audio can give you voice control of all your smart appliances. That way, you can operate your smart devices when your hands are full.

• Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors: Connected smart emergency detectors can do things like activate all the alarm systems in your home when one detector senses danger or automatically contact the fire department when there’s an emergency.

Are smart devices safe?

The same technology that makes smart devices convenient can also make them susceptible to potential hacks. That’s why it’s wise to only use smart appliances from reliable companies like Vivint.

Vivint smart devices have security measures in place to protect your home from cybercriminals. For example, when you activate privacy mode on your security camera, anyone who tries to view your footage will only see a blank screen.

Vivint also uses strong encryption to protect your data and won’t sell your information to third-party companies or use it to do things like create targeted ads.

Create the ultimate custom smart home system with Vivint

If you’re ready to improve your home’s functionality, security, comfort, and energy efficiency, Vivint can help you build a smart home network that meets all your needs. When you reach out to us, we’ll connect you with an expert who can help you choose the right gadgets for your ideal smart home setup.

We also offer professional installation on all our smart home products, so you know you’re getting the most out of your devices. And each of our smart solutions comes with an extended warranty, so you can rest assured our tools are built to last.

Home Automation 101: The Complete Guide

Imagine how great it would be if your home’s lights turned on automatically when you walked into the room, your doors locked by themselves when you left, and your thermostat automatically made sure your home’s temperature was always just right.

With home automation, this is all possible—and more. Best of all, it’s more accessible and affordable than ever, making a smart home a reality.

In this in-depth home automation guide, we’ll explore what home automation is, how it works, and how it can make your home a more comfortable, convenient, and safer place to live for you and your family.

Enjoy a more comfortable, convenient, and safe home with home automation.

Understanding home automation

Home automation may sound complicated, but the gist of what it is and how it works is actually pretty simple.

What is home automation?

In a nutshell, home automation is the use of technology to integrate various devices and systems around the house with each other to enable automation of various functions in your home. For example with a home automation system set up, your home has the power to automatically adjust the temperature, adjust lighting, lock doors, or arm your security system based on parameters you set.

The history of home automation

Many people think of home automation as a fairly recent phenomenon, but, in reality, it’s been in the works for decades.

In 1975, the first home automation network technology was invented and allowed various home devices to communicate with each other. In these early days, this technology was mainly used for appliances and lamps.

Smart home technology continued to advance and become more sophisticated, and by 2012, more than 1.5 million homes around the U.S. had some form of home automation. As more and more people began to see firsthand the benefits of home automation, demand took off. Today, home automation powers nearly 42 million smart homes.

Over the past decade, home automation has grown exponentially in the United States.

Key components of home automation

When it comes to home control and automation, there are different levels of functionality. These include the following.

Automation

With a complete home automation system set up, you can automate various functions around your home, so one action triggers another. For example, your smart thermostat adjusts the temperature to conserve energy when you leave or arrive, or the entryway lights turn on when the front door is unlocked.

Control

Another key part of an automated home is the ability to control your home remotely. Using an app on your smartphone, you can turn lights on and off, lock or unlock doors, or arm or disarm your security system from anywhere, to name a few.

Monitoring

This is the most basic level of home control, being able to monitor your home remotely. For example, you can log into an app to check the temperature of your home, watch your surveillance camera feeds, or see if your garage door is open.

When these all work together, you can enjoy a complete home automation system, making life simpler for you and your family.

Control your home from anywhere with the Vivint app.

How does home automation work?

Now that you know what home automation is, let’s take a deeper dive into how it actually works.

Home automation networking

In order for home automation to work, the devices need to be able to connect to and communicate with each other. As the popularity of home automation has grown, many companies have developed their own smart home devices.

As standalone devices, these smart products typically speak their own “language.” This means that when put together, they aren’t always compatible.

You can build a smart home by either getting devices that are already compatible with each other or by using a central hub that “translates” for each device, allowing them to integrate.

There are various home automation networking protocols that can connect your devices together. The most common are:

• WiFi. WiFi brings the Internet into your home and helps connect your smart devices together. Many smart home hubs, for example, operate via WiFi.

• Bluetooth. You probably already use Bluetooth technology on your phone to connect speakers and headphones. You can also use it for smart home automation. The downside to Bluetooth is the close proximity that is required in order to function.

• Z-Wave. Z-Wave is another form of connectivity. Smart devices connect to a Z-Wave hub, which then enables them to connect with each other via a mesh network. Simply defined, a mesh network creates multiple points of WiFi around your home. This allows signals to move from one device to another, without each device needing to be connected to WiFi. This keeps your router from becoming overloaded and your devices from losing their signal. Millions of devices around the world have Z-Wave connectivity.

• Zigbee. Another mesh network, Zigbee is known for its security and long ranges. While it is considered a reliable network, it shares a 2.4GZh frequency with most Wi-Fi devices, making interference a possibility.

• Thread. This mesh network is fairly new to the market and is an IP-based, open standard protocol that includes direct Internet and cloud access for each of the devices it connects (currently numbered at over 250).

• Insteon. Insteon has a patented dual-band system that uses both existing power lines and radio frequency communication to connect your Insteon smart devices.

It’s important to know the networking protocol(s) your smart devices are compatible with before you start adding devices to your home automation system.

Home automation and smart homes

It’s hard to talk about home automation without mentioning smart homes. Although these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, they’re actually two different things.

Smart homes refer to homes that contain various smart devices that are integrated with each other and can be controlled remotely via a smartphone app.

Home automation, on the other hand, is something that smart homes do. When your devices are connected to each other and can communicate with each other, you can make various tasks around the house occur automatically or trigger other events.

What can smart home automation do?

Let’s take the smart thermostat as an example. One of the most popular smart home devices, the smart thermostat is a great example of home automation because it learns your temperature preferences and routine, then automatically adjusts the temperature in your home based on those preferences.

So if you’re away from home all day for work, your smart thermostat knows that and will adjust your temperature accordingly, helping you save money while you’re out of the house. But what if you come home early, or pop in for lunch? Motion sensors can detect you’re home, adjusting the temperature without you having to lift a finger.

Certain actions within a smart home can trigger other smart devices as well; for example, home automation enables you to program your entryway lights to turn on when you unlock the front door.

Pretty cool, huh? But that’s just the beginning. Other examples of home automation include:

• Lighting that turns on when you walk into a room, then turns off when you leave.

• Doors that lock automatically after a certain amount of time.

• Sprinkler systems that monitor the weather for you and adapt your watering schedule accordingly.

• Doors that unlock for an easier escape if a smoke detector goes off.

• Water sensors that monitor moisture and temperature levels, and then notify you immediately if moisture is detected.

• Surveillance cameras that automatically detect lurkers and begin recording.

There are hundreds of ways you can bring home automation to your home, provided you have the right devices and technology.

Why smart homes?

Home automation can benefit anyone, anywhere. Some of the benefits of smart home automation include:

• Control from anywhere. With a smart home, you can control various aspects of your home from a different room or a different state, all from an app on your smartphone. There’s no need to run home to let a repair person in or call your neighbor to check if you left a door unlocked—you can handle everything right from the palm of your hand.

• Greater accessibility. Smart home automation also gives you increased accessibility to your home. You can check camera feeds remotely, for example.

• Convenience. Home automation makes life more convenient. The ability to automate functions around your home lets you focus on other, more important things.

• Comfort. With home automation, your home is also a more comfortable place to live. You can adjust lighting based on time of day, or automate your thermostat so it’s always set to your preferred temperature.

• Hands-free control. For people with disabilities, smart home technology can help them access and control their homes via hands-free control. Many functions, such as lighting and temperature, can be controlled via voice with a smart speaker.

• Safety. Forgetting to lock a door or accidentally leaving a garage door open can compromise the safety of your home and family. But with home automation, your smart devices will automatically keep your home safe or notify you if you forgot to lock up. Adding professional monitoring of your security system adds an extra layer of protection.

• Savings. Did you know home automation can also help you save money? By turning off lights when they’re not in use and automatically adjusting the temperature so you’re not heating or cooling an empty home, you can save on your monthly bills. To give you an idea, a smart thermostat saves homeowners up to 12% on their energy bills every year.

• Energy conservation. With home automation, you not only save money, but energy as well. With lights that automatically turn off when no one is home, for example, you can help conserve power, reducing your carbon footprint.

Greater safety, control, and comfort: just a few of the reasons a smart home is worth it.

What can be automated?

Go to any electronics or home store and you’ll find that many devices—from kitchen appliances to thermostats to door locks—have the ability to connect to the Internet and become part of a smart home.

With that in mind, here are some of the most common and popular systems included in the smart home automation category:

• Temperature and climate control

• Home security

• Indoor and outdoor lighting

• Fire and carbon monoxide monitoring

• Entertainment

• Air purification

• Kitchen appliances

• Home maintenance

Within each of these categories, you’ll also find specific devices with various features and capabilities.

How to identify your needs

As you can see, there are a lot of smart devices on the market today. With so many available, it can be daunting to determine what you really need and what you don’t for your smart home.

The first thing you’ll want to do is identify your needs. You can do this by taking a close look at your lifestyle, what’s important to you, and your personal preferences.

Some questions you can ask yourself to identify your needs include:

• Am I away from home often? If you travel frequently or spend long days at the office, you could benefit from a smart home security system, home automation features like lighting control or automatic door locks, or water and temperature settings that alert you to potential leaks or HVAC problems while you’re away.

• Am I a stay-at-home parent? For stay-at-home parents, a doorbell camera that lets you answer the door remotely or indoor cameras that let you check on a sleeping baby without opening the door may come in handy.

• Do we frequently have company? If you host overnight guests or entertain often, smart locks that eliminate the need for spare keys can come in handy.

• Does my family place a lot of online orders? The average American receives 21 packages each year. If you get a lot of deliveries, a doorbell camera that notifies you when a package is delivered and protects you from porch pirates makes perfect sense.

• Do you have household help? Housekeepers, dog walkers, or others who may need to access your home can do so with keyless entry, eliminating the need for you to make multiple keys.

Ultimately, the best smart home devices for your home and family depend on your lifestyle, schedule, and what would make life easier for you overall.

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