With the recent explosion in smart home devices that make us more connected, faster, and more automated than ever–we should be asking whether or not these devices actually make our lives better. The calculation is actually pretty simple. If we find smart home devices that make us more productive, relieve us of tasks that require energy, and help us find better leisure and relaxation, then they are good.
But if the race for smarter homes and smarter devices takes up more of our time and attention on insignificant things, then we’ve failed. In this post, we’re going to inspire you to be better through smart devices. Let’s take a look at some smart home features that actually make your life better by maximizing productivity.
Food Optimization
Digital Kitchen Scale by Greater Goods
There are lots of smart scales out there, but few are as powerful as the greater goods nourish digital kitchen food scale. The scale can weigh individual foods and gives you the readout of nutritional facts. How does this increase your productivity? Well, for all the ameuture biohackers out there, this will help you figure out exactly what kind of nutrition is going into your body. That’s something that is usually easy to figure out when it comes to power bars and drinks, but is a little more difficult when it comes to fresh fruits and veggies. And honestly, it’s the whole food that we need more of anyway. So a digital scale that gives you a great nutritional readout can help make whole foods a little more entertaining.
Smart Blenders
You won’t get anything done if you’re not fueled up. Staying with plenty of food and energy is vital for productivity. But on busy days where you’re running around, it can be really helpful to make a quality smoothie to get your whole food. Smart blenders take that to the next level by showing you exactly what kind of nutrients you’re putting into your smoothie. By using a smart blender, you can track important nutrition facts and make sure that you’re always making the perfect fuel for your busy days.
Keep Things Clean
Robot Vacuums
There are tons of different robot vacuums on the market. In fact, the robot vacuum became an early trope for smart home innovation. Sometimes the vacuums were seen as ridiculous, bungling companions. But most of us don’t vacuum enough anyway. And vacuuming every single week can sap some precious time out of your day. Skip the vacuuming routine by investing in a robot vac, and keep your floors cleaner without losing hours.
Air Purifiers
Smart air purifiers come with real-time feedback and simple smartphone controls. It allows you to get a healthy environment to work in. You probably know that what you eat affects how you think, but your mind is also connected to your experience of the atmosphere and the things that you’re breathing! Cleaning out your air can help you stay sharp and focused. Avoid the allergies and pollutants that can limit your ability to focus.
Smart Hubs
Whether you prefer Amazon, Google, or Apple–your smart hub is the central location where all your smart devices connect. It also allows you to easily send text messages and make phone calls over wifi, which keeps things moving. You can also make reminders so that when you get distracted and start to drift away, you can remind yourself to take care of that thing later and get back to business in the moment. A lot of productivity is not about losing focus, it’s about bringing focus back to center once it has drifted away.
Optimized Wakeup Routines
What is the absolutely least efficient part of your day? You might think that it’s when you get distracted on social media or on Youtube. But even in those times, you’re really doing something. The least efficient part of your day is from the moment you wake up until the time that you begin doing the first productive task. You don’t have to become obsessed over it, but it’s easy to pick up an extra 15 to 30 minutes in the morning just by hitting the floor quicker.
Smart devices are great for this. While your phone bugs you to get out of bed, there’s little to motivate you to follow its pleadings. Investing in a wider system of wakeup devices could help. Add smart speakers, automatic shades, and automatic lights to your room to really start things off with a bang. When your alarm goes off you can also program the speakers to play a song that gets you excited about the day. The shades come up, flooding the room with natural light. And the automatic lights slowly come up, gently urging you get moving. If you sleep with a fan on, make sure the fan goes off and the heater comes up so that it is warm out there.
Smart Home Office
Smart Earbuds
Bluetooth connected earbuds that allow you to make calls and get into the groove with music help you stay focused and on task. There are plenty of great buds that have good ranges and allow you to cancel noise or allow noise through, depending on what you need. If you need to focus at home or in a coffee shop, great noise cancelling smart earbuds let you work harder.
Smarter Paper
Taking active notes throughout the day on things that you’re thinking about is really helpful for work. Many of us really enjoy using a classic pen and paper in order to take physical notes. But if you take notes on paper, you have to go back to the paper to get your notes. But with smart notebooks and smart pens, you’ll be able to take much better notes. Smart pens allow you to scribble things down on paper and have them automatically sync to digital spaces. Write it down on paper, find it on your phone months from now.
Smarter Timekeeping
Part of productivity is knowing what to allocate time to, and what to rush through. With Apps, like ZEI, you’ll be able to track hours and productivity to become more efficient over time.
