The Advantages of Using Active Components in Smart Homes

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Smart homes have been getting trendy over the years. The idea of running electron devices and appliances from remote locations is quite convenient and satisfying. These appliances are connected to the internet, a key factor that makes it possible to communicate with them.

Popularly known as home automation, smart home technology gives home owners convenience, safety and efficiency of running home appliances by just tapping on an app.

Behind the running of the smart phones are the active components that run on different technologies such as the Internet of Things(IoT).

Nowadays, every modern home appliance tends to have some elements of smart home or just home automation.

What are the benefits of active components in smart homes? And how are these components implemented in smart homes?

Keep reading as we highlight the key roles of the components in the smart homes.

Table of Contents

Overview of active components

All active components have a direct impact on the flow of the electric currents, or just the electric signals. They can increase the level of signals, decrease it or change the direction of the current.

The changes of the signals will have direct impact on different products and appliances.

Let’s take an example of an active component such as amplifier used in audio systems, increasing the current means increasing the volume.

There are many other active components used for different purposes. Let’s look at how they affect the smart home systems.

Better control features

With the incorporation of the active components, it is easier and more convenient to control smart home devices.

Components such as microcontrollers give you full freedom to determine the outcome of the appliances. All you need to do is make necessary adjustments or settings on the control console.

For most smart home devices, your smartphone will serve as the control panel. You can enter the input settings and the device will give the desired output.

Let’s say you want to adjust the lighting levels. You will just go to the company’s mobile application and enter the desired results.

All about the control feature is improving the convenience of using smart home systems.

Enhance automation of smart home

Closely related to the control is system automation. This refers to the ability of a system to function with minimum human supervision.

Most modern active components have built-in features that support full automation of applications.

One form of automation is through programming. For example, you can set a pet dispensing device to be dispensing pellets at specific times of the day. This you can be at work and your pet will still get its treats.

Another way of automation is through artificial intelligence and machine learning. Here, active components such as AI chips are used to determine the operation of a device. For example, smart thermostats have temperature sensors that are trained on safe and dangerous temperature levels at which necessary adjustments should be made.

Just like in the case of control, automation eliminates the need for human control.

Miniaturization of the smart home devices

Active components have led to the development of smaller smart home devices. It is no brainier that most devices have been getting smaller and smaller over over the recent years. This can be credited to the use of integrated circuits, which house active components.

The fact that the chips are small means that the final devices will also have minimal dimensions.

Thanks to the integrated circuits, we now have compact appliances that are packed with many powerful features.

Small smart home devices give you maximum mobility. You can easily carry and transport a device to whichever location especially when moving homes.

Small devices are also easy to store. You will easily buy a device without worrying about where to keep in your home.

Active components save energy cost

Given the capability of the smart home appliances, you can easily assume that they are heavy energy consumers. The good news is this does not happen thanks to the energy efficiency nature of the active components.

How do active components contribute in improving energy efficiency of the devices?

This happens in different ways.

The first method which is quite basic is the physical design of the integrated circuits that house the components. Other than just being small, IC manufacturers usually consider energy optimization when designing the chips.

They use designs that minimize heat dissipation and at the end be able to cut down the energy consumption.

Another way is through the incorporation of energy-saving functionality in the active components. For example, the ability of lights to switch off when nobody is in the room will reduce your energy expenses.

What makes it better is the ability to save energy without compromising the performance of the devices.

Better accessibility of the smart devices

One of the first things that come into most people’s mind when we hear of smart homes is remote access.We are able to control the operations of the device remotely using the internet connection. This is possible because of the specialized networking chips.

These chips support seamless connection and communication between devices through networks. The chips use various protocols to receive signals from devices such as smartphones. They also use established networking protocols just like normal computers.

It will be impossible to implement remote connectivity of the devices in the absence of the networking ICs.

Enhance security of the smart devices

The issue of security is quite sensitive when it comes to smart homes. This is mainly due to the fact that they also work over the network. For instance, a hacker could access your home assistant and give it wrong instructions.

There are specialized active components that mainly deal with the security aspect of a product.

These components are integrated into smart homes to prevent intrusion into the device by unauthorized parties.

Even in the smart homes market manufacturers strive to outdo each other based on the security levels of their devices. This just shows the importance of the security components.

Active components enhance flexibility of the smart homes appliances

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Active components make the impossibilities possible. They make it easy for device manufacturers to add new features and enhancements into the smart homes appliances. All that is needed is to customize the chip to meet the requirements of the user.

In addition to flexibility, active components make the smart home appliances scalable. This is all about increasing the functionality and even the performance of a component. Manufacturers can achieve this by adding another chip or replacing the existing one with another one.

Examples of smart home in real life

Beyond the benefits of active components, let’s look at some of the real-life application of smart home technologies:

Smart lighting systems: Smart lighting allows you to control the lighting in your home even when you are far away.These systems are equipped with numerous active components that make life easier for the home owners. Remote connection is one of them. The systems allow you to control the intensity of light depending on your need. The automation feature allows the smart lighting systems to detect the presence of people and adjust the lighting levels automatically.
Smart TVs utilize the power of IoT to give you the best entertainment from the internet. They give access to the best content catalogue. The connectivity feature of these TVs also make it possible to remotely monitor the them when you are not there. For example, you can check out content that your kids are watching.
Smart locks is another product of the smart homes technology: These locks are used for controlling access to facilities. They can detect proximity of residences near and unlock themselves. This is a convenient feature in garages as you will be able to open the garage door without having to get out of the car.
Smart home security system: Home security is an area that has heavily benefited from the use of active components on smart homes.Numerous devices and appliances have been improved to enhance security at homes. These devices include motion sensors and smart camera. Thanks to the AI chips these cameras are able to tell isolate residences from visitors or burglars. Using the IoT technologies, these sensors will send signals to home owners remotely.
Smart home safety: Home safety has also been enhanced thanks to the smart home systems. This has been achieved in many different ways.Smart smoke detectors send warnings to minimize the possibility of fire accidents. Appliances are also equipped with smart monitors that are able to shut off in case of power surge.
Smart pet care: These smart home devices are used for feeding pets. This can happen remotely by sending commands through your smartphone. Some do release the feeds automatically at specific times. This means that you can travel or be at work and still be able to care for your pet.

These are just a few examples that illustrate the benefits of active components in smart systems

Conclusion

From this guide, it is clear that active components have direct impact on the working and operation of the smart homes. They bring along many benefits such that it would have been difficult for the appliances to work without them.

So, if you are building a smart home appliances, it will be necessary to buy the best active components that will elevate the performance and functionality of your appliance.