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The door lock opens as soon as a resident approaches.
The vacuum cleaner works through its program, regardless of whether someone is at home or not.
Roller shutters are raised automatically in the morning and lowered again in the evening.
All of this works either by voice command or via the app.
Welcome to the smart home.
More and more devices and components are being added and can be integrated into the networked house.
"A smart home is the networking of technical devices that can be controlled centrally or remotely," explains Alexander Matheus from the VDE testing and certification institute.
"The spectrum ranges from the simple networked socket to the fully automated house."
Alarm systems as a smart home entry
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The classic applications today include the remote control of various devices - multimedia, security, air conditioning and heating as well as lighting of the rooms.
Smart alarm systems and video surveillance of the house entrance or property are popular as a starting point.
Many users start with lighting.
If you integrate the heating system into a smart home system, you can operate it more energy-efficiently.
This is an incentive, especially for homeowners, to deal with it.
Before someone networks his or her home, he or she should think carefully about the benefits this should have and how far he or she wants to go with it - preferably before installing the first devices.
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Because it depends on which technology makes sense.
When choosing a smart home provider and a system, customers should also pay attention to the security of the processing of their data.
Pay attention to wireless standards in the smart home
"Radio-based systems are an option for most households because they can be easily installed and expanded if necessary," says Sebastian Klöß from the Bitkom digital association in Berlin.
There are basic sets, the basic equipment of which usually includes individual actuators, sensors and a control center that radio signals to the individual devices.
According to Klöß, there is a problem with this: "If the customer integrates devices from different manufacturers into his smart home, they may not understand each other." Since they work in different wireless networks, the network does not work.
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Various radio standards can be used in the smart home.
The best known and most widespread is WLAN, the standard for wireless networks to connect to the Internet.
"Everyone has that at home, many devices are addressed directly via WLAN," explains Klöß.
For smart homes, however, WLAN is actually oversized - and so energy-intensive and prone to failure.
In his opinion, wireless standards specially developed for the smart home, such as ZigBee, are more suitable.
“This wireless standard is popular in the lighting sector,” explains Klöß.
ZigBee is supported by many manufacturers and has low energy consumption.
"Z-Wave is also a manufacturer-independent wireless standard that is used by many smart home devices."
Differences in smart home systems
"If the customer chooses a smart home system from a single manufacturer, he is bound to its radio technology," says Reinhard Loch, head of the energy efficiency and renewable energies group at the consumer center in North Rhine-Westphalia.
As a rule, the customer would then not be able to integrate products from other manufacturers into his network.
Experts speak of a closed system.
Open systems, on the other hand, can usually integrate devices from different manufacturers.
“They have a standard supported by various providers of smart home solutions, for example Bluetooth LE, EnOcean, WLAN, Z-Wave and ZigBee,” explains Loch.
Everything under control: residents can use the tablet to control the air quality in the room
Source: dpa-tmn
Users who do not want to deal with technology very much can rely on a single smart home provider who provides all components from a single source.
“That usually works well.” However, Loch advises consumers to ensure “that all applications that they want to integrate are available”.
Those who are more willing to experiment can try to integrate devices from several manufacturers into their smart home.
To do this, however, you have to deal more intensively with the technology.
"Because even open systems have their limits," points out Alexander Matheus.
Technology is evolving
But there is hope.
"Individual closed systems are now also open to other manufacturers, but often only for certain basic functions," explains Klöß.
"Or no automatic updates are offered."
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In the future, it could become easier to use smart homes without customers being tied to individual manufacturers.
Competitors Amazon, Apple and Google are working with other smart home providers to prepare a new open standard called Connected Home over IP.
"When the first devices for this standard will come onto the market cannot be foreseen exactly," says Klöß.
It has become easier for users since digital voice assistants became established on the market.
“In a sense, they function as an interpreter and central control point in the smart home,” explains Klöß.
Smart home users can control many devices in the house via app, such as the lights, heating or the music system
Source: dpa-tmn
If you program them, for example, for the daily morning routine in the house, according to Klöß, the assistants raise the shutters at the set time and turn on the lights, the radio and the coffee machine.
"It usually works even if the individual devices work with different wireless standards."
And the development goes on and on.
In a few years' time, thanks to artificial intelligence, the technology will react to people's behavior - and automatically know what the residents need.
"Then the smart home will be a self-learning house that recognizes the needs of the residents and manages the processes independently," says Alexander Matheus.
When your fridge knows what you ordered last summer
The connected home seemed like a smart idea until just now.
But now it becomes clear: your refrigerator doesn't just know what to buy.
In case of doubt, he could also whistle his information to the authorities.
Source: WELT / Eybe Ahlers