Smart home devices are becoming more and more common as more manufacturers jump into the market with their products and as time goes on we’ll be seeing a lot of different types of smart home products being made. With that said, a lot of smart home devices can be costly, depending on what you’re looking to get. However, there may be some devices out there you hadn’t known existed that would either serve you a really good purpose, make a task slightly easier or you may just really want after seeing it (I’ve done this, bad habit, well worth it though). Today, we’ll be taking a look at 6 really cool smart home devices that are under $100.
Smart bulbs are fantastic and handy devices. They allow you to control your lights either via their dedicated app, or you may sync them to your home smart assistant and use voice commands to control them. Much like other smart bulbs, you can adjust the brightness on this model and you can schedule a time for the lights to automatically turn on/off.
However, this Yeelight smart bulb also allows you to have any color as your light. Don’t like the tungsten color? No problem, you can switch it to white. Of course, you’re not limited to the colors that are provided by regular bulbs. You can change the lights to blue, green, red, yellow, purple, or any other color you can think of. They’re very inexpensive and are extremely handy in the long run, especially when used with a smart assistant.
Decorating your house or room can be super fun if you know what you want. I love my figurines personally and I’m not afraid to say I have a ton of them on display in my gaming room. Even though, I’d at the time, have them all neatly placed and presented I had felt like there’s something that was missing. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but after watching some YouTubers and streamers on how they present their stuff I knew that the one thing I was missing to make my presentation much better, is lighting.
Now, my gaming room is well lit, so figures can be seen well in the light, and even at night with the lights on, still looks pretty good. However, I just wanted to add that bit of spark to the room. In comes the Nanoleaf Light strip. With these light strips, I had lined the bottom of my display cases with them, used their app to program some nice RGB themes to go along with the figures, and finally, my setup was complete.
These LED light strips allow you to place them almost anywhere. With their app, you can control what kind of colors you want to be presented and you can even program a pattern that they’ll follow on the strip. I’ve done a simple rainbow color on the strip that continuously alternates, so it looks like it infinitely keeps changing colors. Of course, you’re not limited to this, there are a million ways you can decorate using these strips. They’re super cool and won’t cost you too much to get started on revamping the way your rooms look. They can also be controlled with a smart assistant.
Smart scales have shot up in popularity ever since their introduction. They’re a very handy tool for those weight watchers and people who like to keep fit.
The smart scales not only measure your weight as a traditional scale would, but it can also measure your BMI, your body fat percentage, and lean mass, which can help you keep track of and achieve your weight loss/fitness goals. The smart scales also link to your fitness apps and pulls data from it to allow you to know a whole bunch of data that’s useful to you, for example, while walking or taking a jog, your fitness app will log that data and the scales will actually use that data and let you know how many calories you had burnt doing that activity, which is based on all the data that’s provided to it through weighting yourself and your fitness app.
They’re fantastic tools to keep track of a lot of metrics that would be extremely helpful for those who are looking to keep fit, reach a fitness goal, or simply lose weight.
I’m just going to put this out there… I love my smart kettle. For some, this may just seem like a lazy product for the lazy person, and for the most part, you’re right. Not that I’m all that lazy (we all like to be at some point), but this kettle has saved me a lot of time.
We’ve all been in that scenario, we forget to set an alarm for work or you simply slept through it and you wake up a little later than usual, so you rush to get ready for work but have no time for coffee or tea. This device has saved me my morning coffee multiple times already. Since this device can be controlled through its’ app or through voice commands with your smart assistant, it’s super easy to control. I just wake up in the morning and say “Hey Google. Turn on my kettle”, my kettle starts to heat up the water while I go about my morning duties, and by the time I’m done. The kettle has everything boiled and ready for me to make my morning coffee. Which as you can see, would be extremely handy if you were in a rush trying to get ready for work while you’re late.
Besides the fact that it can turn the kettle on/off, it can also advise you of the water levels in the kettle, so if you’re low on water, you can refill it and place it back on its pad. Of course, that part is still manual, there’s no way around that, but you only have to fill it up so often. It’s also fantastic when you have guests over. If they’re like a cup of tea or coffee, you don’t have to get up to the kitchen, turn the kettle on and wait for it to boil. Simply open the app or ask your smart assistant to do that for you.
This is great for either the kids, yourself if you like a night light but also, can double as an extra security measure in your home. The concept is pretty simple. It detects motion and turns on the night light. There’s not much more explaining needed.
However, it’s not the only reason you should get one of these. They can act as extra security by detecting motion in your home, which via the Yeelight app, will notify you whenever movement is detected if you wish to put on that feature. So if you’re not home during the day but your motion sensor gets tripped where it shouldn’t, you’ll get a notification of this alerting you.
Smart plugs are one of the first time of smart home products to come out and I think they are one of the best smart home products you can get at the moment. Basically, what they do is allow you to control the on/off switch on the plug through your smart assistant or through the TP-Link KASA app.
My roommate almost always without fail, leaves her hair straighter on in the bathroom when she’s in a hurry and leaves the house. It’s not so much the electrical cost of it that worries me, it’s the fact that it’s a hot item left alone and plugged into my wall, which can be a massive fire risk.
Instead of arguing about it, I got her one of these smart plugs. It changed my life and hers. Basically, we had plugged it into the wall socket in her room, set up the device via the KASA app, and plugged the straighter into the device.
So, whenever she’s in a hurry and may forget to turn off the straighter, she can always log into the app (or with her smart assistant) and turn off the straighter, saving both of us time and stress. Of course, you can use this for any type of appliance, a heater, fan, or computer, whatever it may be. You’ll be able to monitor these devices when you’re not home and you can even monitor how much energy the devices you plug into them use.
