Everybody is about the smart home these days, right? Most of us have at least one smart device in our homes. Many of us have several. But what if you could go further than just using your phone to unlock your door or turn on the lights? What if you could make your home even smarter than the devices you have installed?
You can, with a technology known as geofencing. A smart home capable of interacting with geofencing is no longer just smart, it is a virtual genius. Adding geofencing is like giving your smart home Einstein’s brain. It’s amazing what you can do with geofencing.
Geofencing in Plain English
If you are not clear about the whole geofencing thing, don’t sweat it. It is easier to understand than most people think. Let us start with your smartphone. Have you ever wondered how it is possible for Google Maps or any of its competitors to know exactly where you are at any given time?
Your smartphone is equipped with geolocation technology. Through its mapping app and your phone’s service provider, Google can track your phone virtually anywhere. It can know, within a few feet, exactly where your phone is. The only requirement is that it be somehow connected – whether through Wi-Fi, your data plan, or even a Bluetooth connection.
How Geofencing Works
Because your phone can always be located, you can create a virtual geofence with a smart home app. A geofence is nothing more than a perimeter defined by physical location. When your phone is inside that perimeter, it is recognized as such. The system also recognizes when your phone is outside the perimeter.
You could create separate geofences for your own home, a family member’s home, or even your workplace. Then you can program your smart home system to respond based on your phone’s location.
Lock Up When You Leave
The easiest way to illustrate how geofencing can turn your smart home into a genius is by looking at a practical example. Imagine owning a smart home equipped with smart locks on first floor doors and in automatic garage door opener.
You can program the system so that it automatically locks the doors and closes the garage door when your phone leaves the perimeter around your house. Perhaps your geofence is no more than 100 yards. You would barely pull out of the driveway and start down the street when your garage door closes and your first-floor doors lock.
Now imagine your smart home system is from a company like Vivint Smart Home, a company with its own hub. You can connect your phone to the hub through a mobile app. This would give you the capability of programming a whole series of cascading events based on your location. But with your phone, you can override the programming from anywhere. You wouldn’t even have to be home.
Programming Your System for Work
Geofencing makes it possible to program your system for specific types of work. You can even use your workplace to create a geofence so that the tasks are kept separate. For example, imagine you want your robotic vacuum cleaner to do its thing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You don’t want to link it to the geofence around your home – because you come and go so often.
Instead, create a geofence around your workplace. Program your system so that as soon as your phone enters that geofence, the vacuum cleaner gets started. If you are homesick on one of your regularly scheduled vacuuming days, no worries. You probably don’t want the vacuum running anyway. If you do, you can always override the programming to force the vacuum to start.
Send Yourself Reminders
Another great example is setting up your system to send reminders based on your location. For this, you will probably need a smart speaker compatible with your mobile app. So maybe you are at home and poking around in the refrigerator when you realize you’re going to need milk in a couple of days. Set your smart speaker to send a reminder tied to your location.
Believe it or not, you can program the system to remind you to stop and get milk when you’re just a couple of blocks away from the supermarket. Take things to the next level by linking your phone to your car’s sound system. You’ll get the reminder through the car’s speakers as you’re driving down the road. How cool is that?
It Takes Some Time to Learn
Geofencing absolutely turns a smart home into a genius. However, mastering geofencing takes time. There is a lot to learn about setting up geofences and tying them to different devices and apps. So if this is something that interests you, be prepared for a steep learning curve. Just know that the amount of effort and trial-and-error practice you put in will pay off in the end.
It could take quite a bit of work to get your lighting, thermostat, and locks to all behave properly based on your phone’s location relative to your home. But imagine the benefits of mastering it. Imagine never having to fumble with your keys at the front door or walk into a house with no lights on. Imagine the garage door being open as you pull into the driveway on a rainy day.
The Sky’s the Limit
I have been following smart home technology since the early 2000s. Every time I think I have seen it all, some tech company comes up with something new. Needless to say, I am continually amazed. As I see it, the sky’s the limit for smart home tech.
If you already have some smart devices, why not consider taking them to the next level? Why not turn your smart home into a virtual genius by incorporating geofencing? It truly is remarkable to experience a home that automatically responds based on your location. Geofencing adds an extra level of convenience to the typical smart home setup.