DIY Smart Home: How to Implement It on the Budget

How to Build a Smart Home Yourself: Project Planning

At the initial stage, the most important thing is to correctly determine the priority tasks for a specific space. There's no need to automate your home to the fullest right away; setting up a smart home with basic, inexpensive components is sufficient to begin with.

The following are the main planning stages:

• Analyze your daily habits and upcoming tasks to determine what needs to be automated first.
• Divide your home into basic categories – security, climate control, lighting, and multimedia.
• Selecting a platform or specific ecosystem significantly impacts the compatibility of devices in your home.
• Setting a budget – a smart home can be built in stages, with the potential to expand its functionality.

It's also important to read reviews and other users' work – this helps avoid common mistakes and choose the right smart devices.

What equipment do you need to set up a smart home yourself?

A smart home system requires purchasing the right devices, which can serve as a foundation with the potential for future expansion. This equipment includes the following:

• A hub or central controller is the brain of the system for remote control. Device sensors and other elements that help control home appliances are connected to it.
• Smart bulbs and sockets. These allow you to adjust the brightness and color of lighting, and create a schedule for turning appliances on and off. Smart sockets help you control home appliances remotely.
• Buttons and relays. These elements allow you to automate even older devices. For example, you can configure a system to turn on lights at night and lock all locks with a single command.
• Sensors for opening windows, doors, water leaks, smoke and carbon monoxide, and motion sensors. These smart devices provide increased security by automatically responding to unexpected events.

Voice assistants are also worth mentioning. This is a completely new level of convenience, allowing you to issue a command to perform a specific action. Voice guidance helps you turn on the kettle, adjust the brightness of the lights to save energy, and support integration with various voice platforms.

Steps to creating a smart home for an apartment

The optimal option for setting up a smart home for a summer house or apartment is to initially select a minimal set and then gradually add new devices. The process of creating a smart apartment involves:

• Determining needs - initially, the priority goal of home automation is stated: energy savings, security, lighting control for energy efficiency, etc.
• Selecting the optimal platform. Today, the market offers a variety of universal solutions, both open source and commercial, such as Home Assistant, Mi Home, and others. The key when searching is to look for options that support the protocols of the devices you plan to install.
• Purchasing and configuring equipment. It's important to check how accurately the device supports the required protocols. Most gadgets in a budget smart home can be configured using Wi-Fi control.
• Creating scenarios. Numerous smart control scenarios can be implemented. For example, turning on soft lighting when a sensor detects someone in the hallway at night. Or controlling the heating when the temperature on the balcony drops below a preset level. Or, playing music in the living room using a sensor when the door is opened during the day.

The final stage is equipment testing. Therefore, with a creative and practical approach to building a smart home system, it's entirely possible to accomplish the task yourself.