How to make your home, a smart home.

1. How to make your home, a smart home. Here at Protec Security and Electrical, we’re always trying new technologies to test their functionality, reliability and ease of use for our end user customers. One of the many questions we’re asked as local Perth electricians is how to make your lighting ‘smart’ in a cost effective way. After extensive testing and many different electrical products used in Perth homes, a great solution is to use SAL Pixie electrical products, this can also be paired with the SAL Pixie WiFi gateway to give your Perth home remote automation controls. Here in Perth WA, our building process is a little different from the majority of Australia. Most of our Perth homes are brick with an external brick cavity. This means when your Perth electrician is completing the prewire on your home, electrical cables are usually chased in directly to the brick works and rendered over, leaving the switch or outlet inaccessible for new cabling forever without major works to your Perth home. Most modern smart switches require a neutral present at the light switch. Without having a neutral wire at your light switches in your Perth home, you may have to option for a smart device that does not require a neutral. These devices use the load of the switched circuit to provide power to the switch itself. Your Perth electrician will be able to determine if this is possible with the

2. current ‘load’ that particular switched circuit. Using SAL Pixie products, the light switch is replaced by a new SAL branded mechanism, the SAL mechanism is a push button type instead of the rocker style switches you likely have currently. This switch is Bluetooth and connects either directly to your mobile smart device, or directly to the SAL gateway to connect to your home internet. Using all these devices together in your Perth home will give you the ability to turn on the lights via the switch directly, turn on the lights using Siri on your iPhone, turn on your lights using Google Home hub or turn on your lights using Amazon Alexa hub. Depending on what switch type you have optioned for and what your Perth electrician determines suitable for your current lighting, you may also be able to dim the lights to predetermined levels using voice control or the switch itself. This technology is a great option that has reduced in price over the years and replaces a previously expensive option of z-wave devices with home controllers. This technology is much more basic then large home controllers with higher end devices however generally most customers are only looking to control a few lights and maybe a power point or two. Be aware of some devices with direct WiFi connection to your home network as this can ‘clog up’ your local network. If you’re interested in turning your home into a smart home, you can contact Protec Security and Electrical in Perth for more information. Content Source: Protec Security and Electrical