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The smart homes of the now. Six high-spec tech every property needs

Updated: Jun 20, 2022


couple sitting on the sofa looking at a laptop

“I’ll huff, and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down”. We all remember the nursey rhyme where the house built from bricks survived the wolf’s fury. And yes, once upon a time, brick and mortar was all that was needed to build a house, so the people who lived there could make it a home; but in the 21st century, we would be amiss if we didn’t recognise that a house isn’t fully a home unless it contains the fuel to fire our digital lifestyle needs.

The merging of technology with everyday life means that high-quality broadband is now a key consideration for today’s home buyers, so much so that homes with poor internet speeds sell for an average of £38,902 less than the market value*. To put it into another stark statistic, 39% of buyers simply won’t consider a property with sluggish broadband service.

All this leads us to believe that powerful connectivity comes before we start picking out the seating, soft furnishings and flooring options.

In this blog, we pick out some of the top smart home technologies prospective customers of every property developer will be considering when hunting for their ‘home smart home'.


* Eutelsat Survey


1. Ring my Bell

You know when a technology has hit the zeitgeist when it’s grabbed the attention of none other than light-entertainment duo Ant and Dec. Having turned Amazon’s Ring ‘video doorbell’ into a regular Saturday night feature with genuinely heart-warming results, millions of homes are taking smart home security serious to some level of extent right now.

Ring’s app-enabled video doorbell allows homeowners to see, hear and speak to visitors from anywhere in the world. While many of us are using this smart bit of kit to screen visitors while at home, it provides added peace of mind while away from home, for relatively small charge when compared to security solutions of old.

This dinky doorbell isn’t the only thing to be creating a buzz in Ring’s portfolio of products, it is complemented with a range of smart security cameras, lighting, alarm systems and assorted accessories. Ring even offer an ‘Assisted Monitoring’ subscription service that will contact up to three named contacts in the case of an alarm event.

Find out more: https://en-uk.ring.com/


2. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fittest of them all?


VAHA is positioned as an ‘interactive home mirror’ that provides access to ‘fully personalised, immersive sessions for body, mind and nutrition at home’. Quite possibly the ultimate ‘black mirror’ on the market today, this cheval floor mirror gives users access to personal training (PT) classes, 1:1 PT support, smart tracking and guided training.

Unlike other connected fitness devices, such as Peloton, the VAHA’s sensors capture your movements as you work out, giving you instant AI-assisted feedback to help you improve.

It looks like the magic mirror is finally with us, offering a window into a new world of virtual personal training available in the home right now.

Find out more: https://uk.vaha.com/


3. Television Revolution - Part III


Sky has been changing how we consume TV in the UK since the introduction of it’s satellite TV service in eighties. Arguably its greatest innovation, however, came in the form of its Sky+ system at the start o