Hints For Homeowners Get Ready For A Smart Home Three Ways Monday, January 28, 2019 (NAPSI)—If you’ve been thinking about making your house a Smart Home, three tech trends are worth considering: 1. Smart Lighting: Controlling home lighting through voice commands and mobile devices can be easy with low-cost, modular lighting systems from Deako. Traditional light switches can be converted to smart switches and smart dimmers, letting you control lighting, create schedules and personalize scenes for different activities, such as cooking, dining or relaxing at night. Mobile apps let you control lights when you’re away from home, for instance, turning on interior lights to make an empty home appear occupied and activating exterior lights to illuminate an entrance for a safer return. Smart lighting provides hands-free convenience, makes homes more aesthetically pleasing, and offers cost (and energy) savings because you can easily turn off lights when you don’t need them. 2. Smart Home Security: Programming outdoor lighting—turning it on at sunset and off at sunrise, for instance—is one effective way to thwart criminals. Other valuable security tools include cameras from Nest that provide 24/7 monitoring and can send alerts directly to your phone if the system detects movement or someone in the house. Smart doorbells such as Ring provide live streaming, too, so you can monitor your residence and use a built-in microphone feature to communicate directly with whomever entered, welcoming a latchkey kid or deterring would-be thieves. With Bluetooth lock solutions such as August, you control access privileges from an app so there’s no need to hide or hand off a house key; while Roost sends notifications when it detects smoke or carbon monoxide and can alert you to a low battery, eliminating that annoying middle-of-the-night chirping. 3. Voice Command Device: Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple’s Siri are familiar companions to those who have access to voice-activated speakers at home. Josh AI, Savant and Control4 also offer powerful ways to customize entire homes—integrating and controlling lighting, entertainment, climate and more. Operated by voice commands and smart sensors, these virtual assistants answer questions (such as will it rain today?), provide recommendations (since you liked that song, you might like this one), and take such actions as customizing a music playlist, locking doors, closing window shades, heating a home spa, dimming lights, reclining chairs and streaming video for movie night. Learn More For a look at these and other smart ways to improve your home, visit www.deako.com and @godeako on Twitter. --- PHOTOS --- File: 20190128-144623-73269.jpg Caption: It can be a bright idea to increase your comfort and security at home with smart lighting.