Don't make these mistakes when setting up a smart home!

Here are the mistakes you need to avoid when setting up a smart home!

1. Falling into the information matrix on YouTube

Arguably, the biggest mistake you can make when first building your smart home involves the information matrix on YouTube. YouTube can be a great resource to orient yourself if you're new to the smart home space. However, YouTube contains so much information that determining what information is valuable is often difficult.

The more information you take in, the more confusing and overwhelming your smart home project becomes. Dr. Liraz Margalit, Customer Experience Psychologist, believes that this phenomenon is common among consumers. In an article published by Psychology Today, Margalit stated, "Exposure to too much information and data forces customers to invest cognitive resources they did not plan to invest" .

In other words, sometimes diving into the world of smart homes will do more harm than good. So while it's smart to research smart home products before spending money, caution is needed to not go too far.

2. Automate everything at once

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The second biggest mistake when building a smart home is becoming completely out of control when setting up automation. Instead of being smart and automating tasks based on your lifestyle, you just find a bunch of automations on places like Reddit and combine them without considering whether they're useful with me or not.

This madness will create a mess of automated behaviors that not only take time to set up but also take a lot of effort to untangle when you realize they are inappropriate. Automation is a process that should be done slowly and after careful assessment of your daily behaviors. It's best to track daily habits for the past few weeks, then use that data to plan smart home automation according to your lifestyle. This will save you a lot of frustration.

3. Buy first generation equipment

One of the hardest lessons in the smart home journey is not to get sidetracked when it comes to exciting new first-generation technology. It's easy to follow a trend when a product makes delicious promises, but when things go wrong, you'll blame yourself for doing so.

4. Haste

Building a smart home is a fun way to use technology to automate life's most tedious tasks. You may be excited to get started. But remember, there is one mistake that you absolutely do not want to make, which is being impatient.

Whether it's buying multiple smart home gadgets at once, being an early adopter, or choosing a product that's nearing the end of its lifecycle, impatience can cost you a lot of money for nothing.

5. Buying technology just because it's on sale

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Buying technology just because it's on sale is often a financially costly mistake. Known as "loss goods" in the retail industry, deeply discounted devices are sold by brands that want you to buy more from them in the future.

Companies are also betting on the fact that most people tend to stick with familiar products. In fact, a 2013 study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that users tend to favor brands with which they are familiar. Furthermore, that familiarity influenced their decision to purchase products from the same brand.

That's why you can often get smart home tech products for cheap when Prime Shopping Day rolls around. Because if a company can familiarize you with their products, their marketing team knows that you're more likely to buy that brand's products.

If you've ever bought a smart device only to toss it in a drawer after a few months, then you know how frustrating the process can be. It feels like you wasted your money.

Overall, there are many different mistakes to avoid when setting up a smart home. And while the five mistakes listed above aren't the only ones to avoid, they are the biggest ones to keep in mind. If you keep them in mind when planning your smart home, you'll have a much better experience, avoid frustration, and save quite a bit of money in the process.

David Pac

Update 21 August 2024