Smart appliances are a more user-friendly form of appliances – they harness technology to make them more efficient in how they run, but also how they fit more efficiently into our lives. It therefore isn’t progress in and of itself, but relative to us and how we want to live. There are many benefits to switching to smart appliances, but of course this comes with a greater initial price tag. This article will go over those key benefits to give an idea of whether it’s worth making the switch.
Receiving alerts to issues
Malfunctions are common and expensive. One of the biggest problems, appliance breakdowns, such as when your fridge is not maintaining the desired temperature, is that the damage occurs in the space that you’re unaware of the problem. The longer the issue festers, the bigger the problem gets. More food will be destroyed, more components will be working overtime to compensate and correct. A huge benefit of smart appliances is that you will be alerted at the first signs of an issue – from leaving the fridge door open to having enough water in the dishwasher. Our lives become much easier when we are on top of issues so we can fix them sooner. Not only this, but they may alert you to the actual reason of an issue, making it easier to fix. Hiring someone to identify the issue is going to cost.
Remote access
Smart appliances are connected to the internet, so they can be accessed, controlled and monitored using your mobile phone wherever you are in the world. This means knowing what cycle the washing machine is on when you’re on the way home from work to turning the oven off on your sofa because you don’t want to miss the last few minutes of your show and burn the food. This can also help maintain the product and save energy by turning the appliance on and off when on holiday (some products operate better when used regularly).
Energy and efficiency
Smart appliances are ergonomic in every conceivable way. Their efficiency prowess really shines in their energy usage, as they usually proudly hold the very good energy ratings. Their insulation, processors, monitoring techniques and so on make them incredibly conservative with energy which will save you a lot of money in energy bills. Energy bills are a significant part of our monthly outgoings, so reducing these can really help for some families.
Free up your time
This might sound like a stretch, but it could honestly lead to earning more money. If you run a business from home or freelance, every minute can count. Smart appliances interconnect between each other and can coordinate pre-programmed schedules, and in some instances, run off an AI algorithm. In fact, as they are an IoT, you can often program and customize them yourself if you’re into that kind of thing. Anyway – they save you time. If you counted up the minutes spent walking to each appliance, using it and so on, you could probably get an extra half an hour of revenue-generating work done in that day. Or perhaps it will be just enough relief to be able to get that full-time job that you’re not sure you had time for.
Security threat
Anything that is connected to your WiFi is under threat of being hacked. This is less of an issue for laptops and phones, whose software is regularly updated. IoT smart devices however often aren’t. These can be hijacked for various reasons. Perhaps they want to invade your privacy, or perhaps they can see your schedule of when you’re not in the home and thus can coordinate a robbery. It’s unlikely, but it’s not impossible in many scenarios. The threat isn’t only from the outside either, as there could be family fallings out over such privacy abuse.
The verdict
You will certainly pay hundreds of dollars more for smart appliances compared to more traditional ones, and in some cases, thousands. There is also a privacy concern, too. However, with secure WiFi and a trustworthy family, your chances of being hacked are not very high – plus there are other precautions you can take with a simple Google or two. Many smart appliances are overpriced because they’re still a luxury good, and so they will not necessarily all save you money in the long run – but there is certainly the potential to when finding reasonably priced products. Furthermore, appliances can last up to 15 or even 20 years – that’s a lot of energy bills and so savings can be more than your initial estimates. The reduced rate in breakdowns and energy consumption are two huge money-savers, but equally being alerted to the cause of issues will prevent you from being ripped off by tradesman too.
