How Do You Feel About Automated Homes?

Lennar Homes is once again ahead of the game when it comes to home innovation. They announced this week that they will be showcasing some of their new homes in Las Vegas this coming weekend that will have automated features that will become standard in homes they build in the future.

The concept of automated homes used to mean that homeowners could turn things on and off from one central location. It could be a panel on a wall in one or many rooms in the house or it could be connected to a program that one’s computer could run. In this case Lennar is setting things up so that homeowners can run the automation from their smartphones as well.

They tout this as potentially saving energy by allowing homeowners to better control heat or air conditioning while they’re away from home, such as turning them on shortly before getting home to be comfortable without having to worry about setting timers all the time. Other features are turning lights on and off and even possibly setting things up to do pet maintenance while you’re not home.

I see much of this as a good thing while still worrying about other things. For instance, if someone gains access to your phone while you’re not looking and knows where you live, they could possibly unlock your doors or turn off your alarm system if you haven’t set your encryption properly. There’s also always the possibility that some technically savvy people could figure out how to run your system much closer to your home.

Still, this is a very bold move, one that could revolutionize the home industry, which could use a boost to help draw people back into the marketplace. It would leave one less thing to worry about if you left home, and you could probably run monitoring equipment of all types, thereby feeling more secure in the safety or your home as well. It’s worth exploring to see just how much automation there is and how easy it might be to use.