Controlling your home with a smartphone

12621_bPOFor busy families juggling to keep up with the pace of life, technology brings convenience and peace of mind to home life, making things easier for all of us.

It is now possible to control lighting throughout the interior and exterior of your home using your smartphone. With the proper bulbs, in-home Wi-Fi network and an app on your phone or tablet, you can control lights from anywhere and even schedule lights to turn off and on at intervals to give the appearance that someone is home.

You can also automate and control your home’s ­temperature from your smartphone or device. Although many thermostats allow you to drop temperatures while you’re away at work for the day, options such as the Nest Learning Thermostat and Honeywell Lyric take climate management to a whole new level, learning your schedule and adjusting temperatures automatically.

Peace of mind that the garage door is closed and the home is secure comes in the palm of your hand with the Chamberlain Wi-Fi Garage Door Opener and MyQ Garage smartphone app. It lets you open and close your garage from anywhere and receive alerts to your phone every time the door has opened, closed or been left open. You can add this same smartphone connectivity to nearly any garage door with MyQ Garage.

Apple HomeKit will make controlling smart devices simpler or more seamless using iPhone and Siri. Some of the first products to ­support HomeKit are Chamberlain MyQ garage door openers, Honeywell ­thermostats, the iDevices Switch, and Schlage door locks.

Imagine relaxing at the end of the day, saying, “Siri, I’m going to bed now, is my house secure?” HomeKit will ­confirm that your garage door is closed, doors are locked and the thermostat is in nighttime mode.

And the Apple Watch will have a place in the home as well. You can expect to control many of these devices and other apps from the watch on your wrist, where you might receive notifications that you left the garage door open after leaving the house.