Introduction: Impact of AI in Smart Homes
Impact of AI in smart homes is here to stay. Smart homes are one of the greatest innovations humans have made for a convenient and comfortable dwelling. Artificial intelligence – AI – takes the experience of smart homes to a whole new level. At first, AI was very costly and rare to find, but technological advancement has made it more accessible and affordable to many people.
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Smart home owners can access a wealth of benefits by making their homes AI-enabled. AI is compatible with smart devices in homes, enhancing their efficacy and adding convenience to everyday tasks. AI reduces human involvement in implementing various tasks, giving the user more time to concentrate on other things.
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AI Tools for Your Home
Owners of AI-based smart homes can enjoy freshly cooked meals, courtesy of a robotic kitchen, no matter how busy they are. The robotic kitchen is easy to command and cooks hygienic meals to suit the owner’s taste. It offers a wide variety of recipes to suit any dietary requirement and contains reliable procedures from international chefs.
AI heightens the security of smart homes to airtight levels through monitoring, collection of information, prediction of people’s behavior, and timely transmission of alerts. AI-based smart homes have excellent security surveillance through AI-enabled drones and cameras, which capture high-definition images of intruders. AI-based windows and locks in smart homes keep off persons without pre-authorization by the owners.
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Smart homeowners can use AI to reduce water consumption in their gardens while optimizing the quality and output of their produce. They can also use AI to manage their gardens, saving costs on planting, weeding, watering, lighting, and agronomists’ expenses. AI can also help smart homeowners develop kitchen gardens and grow their vegetables with minimal effort, while AI-based lawn mowers can trim the compound’s grass, keeping it neat even in the absence of the homeowners.
Let us elaborate some of these AI products that are proven to be extra useful in your home.
Impact of AI in Smart Homes: AI Enabled Robotic Kitchen
The use of AI robots in the kitchen is a rising global trend. The robots are intelligent, automatic, and contactless. They are very hygienic, make fewer mistakes, enrich menus, and reduce food wastage. The robots save you time and efficiently prepare food and beverages with consistent taste.
A robotic kitchen has a screen through which tasks are assigned to the robot. The screen lets users scroll and choose recipes from thousands on the database and track the robot’s progress. The robot uses sensors and cameras to view necessary ingredients, cookware, and utensils before preparing a dish.
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AI robots prepare freshly cooked meals at a button’s touch, giving their owners time to do other things. A fully automated robotic kitchen is designed to imitate human skills in motion and cook more like a human cook rather than a machine. The robots can do everything that a human would do in the kitchen; they can pick ingredients from the smart fridge, use the sink, pour, mix, adjust temperature and clean up after themselves.
Humans can also use a robotic kitchen in a normal way when they need to cook themselves. The utensils and cookware are convenient for both human and robotic hands.
A robotic kitchen is available in various styles; a variety of premium marble, Corian worktops, and onyx, and finishes that match the rest of the home decor. There are two formats of a robotic kitchen: a smart kitchen facilitated with the Internet of Things (IoT) and a fully automated robotic kitchen. The former can be updated to the latter.
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Smart AI-based Windows
AI-based windows create thermal comfort, as the windows open when outside temperatures and air quality are suitable. The AI technology shades windows to reduce glare and cycles the air conditioner until appropriate temperatures are reached.
AI-based windows use a persona-based approach depending on the historical preferences of the person at home and the room they are located in. Even when no one is home, the windows will open and shade appropriately, and the system will regulate temperatures to suitable levels.
AI windows will also alert the owner if someone opens or attempts to break a window. Some more advanced windows even have cameras that track the intruder’s face and sirens to alert the neighborhood and scare away intruders.
AI-based windows can connect with other smart devices for home monitoring and security enhancement, making them a convenient addition to the home.
Smart AI-based Locks
AI-based smart homes are incomplete without AI-based locks. These locks heighten home security and ensure no doors are left open, and they come with plenty of security benefits. First, they eliminate reliance on physical keys, which can be lost, copied, or stolen; second, the locks grant access only to those authorized by the owner; and third, AI-based locks have cameras that capture the images of everyone coming to the door. They can also automatically unlock the door as the owner approaches.
The cameras in AI-locks record images and videos in 1080p, which can help the police identify someone when the need arises. The video footage is automatically uploaded to the cloud for playback and easy storage. There is a useful connection between the lock system and smartphone apps which allows the owner to access the live feed while in any location.
Perhaps the best thing about AI-based locks is their ability to detect unusual things and send alerts. They are also beneficial for families with children since they record who entered the home and when.
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Autonomous Lawn Mowers
Smart lawn mowers are an incredible innovation, especially for those who are short on time or do not enjoy lawn care. They are currently top-rated due to their convenience and efficiency, and are also highly affordable, simple to command, and easy to maintain.
Autonomous lawn mowers use a battery-powered motor with cutting edges, a perimeter wire, AC-powered base station, and sensors to prevent them from getting out from the home compound. One end of the perimeter wire is attached to a terminus on the base station, and the rest of the wire lines up the lawn’s border. It is held in place by stakes.
Autonomous lawn mowers detect set boundaries to trim the right areas and spot their recharging dock. They are self-docking and can trim up to 30,000m2 of grass. Some may have rain sensors, making them almost independent of human interaction, as the mowers are smart enough to mow around obstacles and sleep when it rains.
Autonomic mowers also secure themselves against theft by automatically triggering an alarm and locking when someone picks them up. They only function again when the user enters a custom PIN.
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Autonomous Home Monitoring
Security Surveillance
Home monitoring is made easier and more cost-effective with the use of AI. Apart from facial recognition, autonomous home monitoring has succeeded in eliminating barriers of human limitations. For example, there are now home surveillance drones and AI-based night vision cameras that produce clear video footage even in the dark.
When AI cameras spot an intruder, they trigger home surveillance drones which descend upon the intruder to capture their images, record them in a cloud database, and send alerts to the homeowner. Such cameras and drones are equipped with state-of-the-art vision sensors which are not hindered by complexity, severe weather conditions, or complete darkness.
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Although the cameras and drones are different, they are interdependent and fully autonomous. The owner can command them through hand gestures when nearby or mobile phone apps when away. The cameras and drones are affordable, and their parts are replaceable.
Most home security devices rely on cloud technology to implement their functions but adopting edge AI will level up the transformation corresponding with advancing home security measures. Cloud AI refers to when processes are remote, and edge AI is when the processes occur within the hardware. Autonomous home monitoring aims at using a mixed approach of both cloud AI and edge AI to compute its tasks.
AI has transformed home security from a utility to contemporary home comfort, giving homeowners the liberty to choose how their homes are protected.
Safety
AI can help keep a home safe by monitoring other devices and detecting any unusual activity. Some devices will detect a child’s cry through smart cameras, burning food, and smoke emissions, and send emergency alerts.
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As well as heightening home security, AI can also monitor elderly patients at home with contextual sensors installed to monitor temperature and humidity in the patient’s surrounding environment. Wearable sensors are used to monitor the patient’s psychological parameters and alert an ambulance if an emergency arises.
AI-Based Gardens (Water Saving Features)
Artificial intelligence has played a significant role in the agricultural sector by reducing repetitive labor and enhancing efficient use of resources without waste. AI applications in smart agriculture include smart lighting, multiple connected sensors, and watering systems. AI-based gardens are developed to automatically grow different types of plants with minimal human effort.
Agriculture consumes an estimated 70% of global water; however, the need to reduce global water consumption has prompted the industry to embrace emerging technologies. AI has played a significant role in increasing water efficiency in greenhouses and farms.
AI Helps to Achieve Optimal Irrigation
AI can identify overwatered or under-watered areas and determine the amount of water required by specific plants for optimal yield and quality. The Internet of Things (IoT) sensor technology assists farmers in estimating amounts released by plants from the total evapotranspiration, information that helps farmers reduce the amount of water used for irrigation.
AI employs powerful engines to process and analyze data from satellites, drones, and planes. It uses deep-learning algorithms to help farmers interpret imagery consisting of soil and plant-based sensors to understand their plants’ irrigation needs in real-time.
AI Helps Identify Irrigation Leaks
Water is scarce; leaks could increase a farmer’s costs and waste it. Impact of AI in Smart Homes & AI-based tools (e.g., Valley Insights) can access aerial visuals, each plant’s thermal imagery, and other infield data.
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AI field analysis provides accurate alerts on the affected spots and determines irrigation issues requiring prompt action. It also detects pivot-related leaks that are unnoticeable by the human eye and provides insights on correcting irrigation irregularities.
AI Based Kitchen Gardens
A well-managed kitchen garden can supply a family’s vegetable requirements for some time, helping them save money on food costs. However, most people in urban areas have tiny or no kitchen gardens. Various companies use AI to create and monitor kitchen gardens in outdoor or indoor spaces.
A hydroponic system is a soil-free media enriched with nutrient solutions to grow various fresh and organic vegetables indoors. The system is installed with cameras and is efficient in lighting and watering. It also has an application to advise users on anything they need to know. The system has AI sensors in different capsules to identify problems and propose solutions. Some systems, such as Gardyn, offer 20 different vegetable varieties and accommodate up to 30 plants.
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Various applications and hardware are available for installation in home vegetable gardens. Once installed, the systems can plant seeds, water the plants, eliminate weeds, monitor soil and plant health, and scare birds and rodents away.
Other applications used in kitchen gardens are sensors that monitor temperature, humidity, moisture needs, soil nutrition, and light. They use AI to analyze the garden gradually and recommend the best plant options for its conditions.
AI is also being used in some solar-powered robots to remove weeds, and the future seems bright for AI-based kitchen gardens.
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Conclusion: Impact of AI in Smart Homes
Artificial intelligence is the most reliable and convenient assistant in AI-based smart homes, offering consistent work output without increment in cost or delay. AI reduces the wastage of resources by using only the necessary amounts. The free advice on diet, cooking, gardening, and other points of interest can save owners a lot of time and money.
The world is experiencing a scarcity of natural resources, and only AI can help homeowners consume fewer resources and achieve optimum results from their projects. AI also offers cheaper labor than human power and is preferable to sustain any economy. Initial costs may seem higher, but no other charges are expected with progressive use. Besides, as technology advances and production meet supply, the prices will be lower.
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Smart homes are lovely to live in, and AI enhances their comfort and security. AI performs numerous tasks quickly, leaving smart homeowners ample time to relax, meditate, pursue personal development, and invent great ideas that can influence the world.
AI is the future that every homeowner dreams about; it is the ultimate culmination of human genius.