Can You Control Smart Devices Away from Home?

Thinking of investing in a home automation system? While it’s all well and good to be able to control elements of your home while you’re in it, you might wonder if you can do the same when you’re not home. If that’s the case, then read on to find out!

Why Would you want Control Over your Home while You’re Away?

Firstly, let’s think of some scenarios where you would want to have control of your home or parts of it while you’re away.

Consider this scenario: you’re leaving the office from home and want a hot bath to be awaiting you as soon as you step through the door. If you have a smart bathroom, it would certainly make sense to be able to control it remotely from your office or on the road as you’re driving home. This way you could ensure that you’d have a warm bath to unwind in without a wait after a long day of work.

Similarly, let’s say you were just around the corner from home or pulling into the driveway; wouldn’t you want to be able to have the porch lights and living room lights come on? Or perhaps have the garage doors open for you?

Another use case would be if you decided to stay the night at a friend’s place but wanted remote access to turn on the garden and deck lights as well as some indoor lights – just to make the house seem lived in or occupied for safety reasons.

As you can see, there are quite a few reasons why you might want to be able to control your smart home and smart devices at home even while away.

Is it Possible?

The answer is, absolutely! 

Home automation systems are devised to allow you control over your home from within as well as from outside.

While certain smart devices that operate only via Bluetooth offer limited coverage (you may only be able to control devices in your home from within a short radius – let’s say from as far as the end of your garden for example), any that function using Zigbee and wireless mediums can be controlled from anywhere (as long as you are connected to the internet).

There are custom apps that you can download onto your smartphone and tablet. These would allow you to monitor and control smart devices inside your home from anywhere in the world. This makes home automation systems even more convenient to operate.

When it comes to Shinrai, for example, we offer our customers access to a smart home app called ORBIVO HomeMate. Using this, our clients can control Zigbee-based smart devices in their homes remotely. Whether they’re at work or in another country, it makes no difference. They’ll be able to turn smart lights on and off, control smart climate control systems and have full authority over their smart security systems. All that’s needed is an internet connection. But note that both the smart home as well as the person with the smart home app need to have access to the internet for the communication to work.