A few decades ago, we used to imagine coming home to our friendly robot maid who would prepare all our meals by the push of a button. Now, advances in artificial intelligence are making all our smart home dreams a reality. While we don’t have the complete ability to transform our space into a fully automated home like in Smart House (complete with our own sentient Siri), there are plenty of ways smart home technology is making our lives easier. 

Check out how we’re making our smart living room the ultimate place to sit back, relax and watch TV.

Take Control from the Couch with Smart Home Devices

Getting up to turn off the lights for your movie or having to leave the couch to turn up the heat when the living room gets a bit chilly, is a thing of the past. There are a plethora of devices whose sole purpose is to give you control of your home amenities and utilities from the comfort of your mobile phone or any other smart device.

Now you can control lighting, room temperature, and even the fireplace from the comfort of your couch. Most of the smart home tools like Lifx light bulbs, which can dim or change colors, pair with Amazon Echo or Google Assistant if you just want to shout out a quick voice command. Nest grants you the power to control your house’s temperature and BOND, similarly allows you to control your fans and fireplaces, all while remaining comfortably seated in front of the TV.

Photo from Michael J. Miller of PC Mag

Let Your Virtual Home Assistant Do the Work

Even though we don’t yet have sophisticated enough robots that clean the entire house or serve as butlers, there are incredibly useful, body-less AI that will advance your home. Amazon and Google have both come out with smart devices that serve as your personal at-home virtual assistant.

Summon your Amazon’s Echo by saying “Alexa…” followed by a command. Alexa can play music for you, be your alarm clock, schedule appointments on your calendar and even acts as an in-home intercom for announcements. You can have Alexa help you with a number of other tasks in the living room as she’s constantly learning new special skills. Google Home also uses AI technology for their Google Assistant, and since it taps into Google’s database, it can pretty much answer any questions you may throw at it. Just start your command or question with “Okay, Google…” and let your assistant do its thing!

Update your Entertainment System

Caavo’s Control Center will simplify your TV watching experience so you have one universal remote to control your television, streaming boxes, audio system, DVD, and gaming systems! The universal remote is voice controlled so you can search for whatever show, movie, or a video clip you want to see by just saying a title into the remote and let the Control Center bring up the content for you on the most optimal entertainment platform.

Control Center also pairs with Google Home and Amazon Alexa, so you can even control your TV hands free if you aren’t near the remote. If you decide to upgrade your sound system, Sonos Sound Bar has WiFi connected speakers that can also be managed with the Control Center.