Apartment-Friendly Solutions to Make Your Space into a Smart Home

Updated: Nov 7, 2021

Living in an apartment doesn't give you the flexibility to make permanent changes to the property, limiting how much you can do in the space. However, this doesn't mean you can't transform your apartment into a smart home. Fortunately, in the past few years, some great products have been developed to give you control over lighting, sound, access control and security without having to make major adjustments in your apartment. The awesome thing about all of these solutions is that you can take them with you when you decide to move into your new place. In this article, we'll explore the best pieces of technology to get started with making your apartment smart.

Security

When it comes to the safety of your family or having peace of mind, installing security cameras is a great way of monitoring what's going on in your surroundings and can also act as a deterrent against potential break-ins. While a wired system is more robust, brands like Ring and Reolink provide battery-powered and solar-powered security cameras and doorbells that only require a Wi-Fi connection. They are easy to install and work great with all the major virtual assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant.

Access Control

Do you find that losing your keys becomes a problem or maybe sometimes you want to let someone into your apartment but don't feel like leaving your keys under the mat? This is where simple access control makes all the difference. August and Kwikset design and manufacture smart locks that integrate with your existing deadbolt in the apartment. This feature allows you to lock and unlock your door with an app or even use GPS to know when you are close to home, and automatically unlock the door for you. Sharing access is easy to set up and just as simple to cancel, keeping a record of who locked and unlocked the door in the app for easy referencing. Voice commands work great with these solutions as well.

Sound

Having whole-home audio was once upon a time a very expensive process characterized by multiple wired connections running throughout the entire house. Thankfully, with the emergence of brands like Sonos and Heos, wireless whole-home audio is now more accessible, affordable, and simplified. Using small wireless speakers connected to an app using Wi-Fi gives you the ability to create audio zones in your apartment wherever you have an outlet. So if you want a karaoke track playing in the bathroom while your partner is in the kitchen scrambling eggs and jamming to a Bob Marley tune, and your soundbar in the living room is playing the new CoComelon songs for your toddler you can achieve all of that with a multiroom speaker system. A wireless speaker system also gives you the ability to sync all of your speakers to the same source if you want the same tunes everywhere you go. The beauty of this solution is that it offers a simple setup and easy programming.

Lighting

A global trend right now is to reduce energy consumption by investing in LED technology. LED lighting doesn't just bring the benefit of energy savings but added peace of mind and convenience with the power to control your lighting. Imagine being able to turn on or off all of your lights from your mobile, set a schedule for when the lights go on or off, or automatically change the color temperature from fluorescent white to daylight white to warm white as the day progresses - all from an app. Having the smart functionality in the bulb itself gives you the advantage of controlling your lights without changing the light switches in your apartment. Brands like GE Cync offer smart bulbs that can generate any type of white light you want, along with any colour you prefer depending on your application. Wireless motion sensors also give you added functionality for those times when searching for a light switch in the dark may be problematic. Easy to use, easy to program and you can take all of your bulbs with you when you leave.

Wi-Fi

At the centre of your smart home transformation is your Wi-Fi connection. All of the aforementioned solutions rely on a robust Wi-Fi system. Most apartments are small enough to get decent coverage from the router issued from your ISP but there is always that one room or even in the bathroom where the signal drops constantly. Luckily there are brands like Luxul and Ubiquiti that provide commercial-grade products for your home, creating a seamless Wi-Fi signal throughout your apartment by using wireless access points and a Wi-Fi management system which are critical for seamless handoff from one access point to the other without interruption.

Ready to convert your space into a smart home? The first step is all it takes and with the beauty of technology, you can achieve the perfect smart home in gradual phases so there's no need to make a costly investment upfront. At Sonix AV Solutions we supply all of these products to meet your smart home needs.