Much can be said about how a smart home can make everyday tasks easier, but some devices can also have positive health effects. By automating these devices, you can reap the benefits without having to remember or manually activate anything.
While I’m a big fan of Home Assistant, most of these devices should work with any smart home ecosystem.
Air quality monitors
Realize what you don’t see
It varies between air quality monitors Inexpensive appliances like the IKEA Alpstugawhich measures CO2 levels and particulate matter (PM2.5) in addition to temperature and humidity through professional grade sensors such as . Project Aura, Monitor powered by ESP32 so you can build it yourself.
These devices give you information about the weather around you that you cannot see. You can view them to see when it’s time to ventilate the space, or automate alerts to do so when you reach certain thresholds. You can also automate other devices to clean the air for you.
Air purifiers
Set them and forget them
When paired with an air quality monitor, a connected air purifier can clean the air for you whenever it detects levels of volatiles.
organic compounds (VOCs), particulate matter, and anything else your air quality monitor can detect.
models like Xiaomi Mi Air Purifier 4 Compact Offer smart control and compatibility with Home Assistant for about $120 SwitchBot Air Purifier ($90) even has Matter support. Alternatively, you can find a “dumb” air purifier model that doesn’t need to press additional buttons to activate and connect it to a smart plug.
Humidifiers (and a smart plug)
Keep the mold aside
Paired with an air quality monitor (or a simple temperature and humidity sensor), you can use ambient humidity to trigger a humidifier or HVAC in dry mode. Finding a smart humidifier is a bit of a challenge, but the basic models will do as long as they’re powered by a smart plug (and don’t require you to press any buttons).
If you live in a mold-prone environment, it’s important to reduce excess moisture (plus save on your heating bill). Mold spores can be incredibly harmful, but mold only grows when the conditions are right. you can use a Home Assistant to predict when mold will grow and use that as a trigger.
Robot vacuum cleaners
Perfect for anyone sensitive to dust
Most people buy robot vacuum cleaners because they like the idea of having a helper around the house. That’s fair enough, but if you suffer from respiratory problems like asthma, they play a different role in your smart home. By cleaning the robot vacuum regularly, you help reduce the dust that causes breathing problems.
This is especially true if you have carpets and rugs in your home. You can literally set and forget a cleaning schedule that cleans your robot once or twice a day, focusing on problem areas, and many of them are so quiet that they can do most of the house at night while you sleep.
Smart (or fancy) electric kettles and stoves
Your gas stove is polluting your home
I’ve only lived in countries with 220V or more power supply, where the electric kettle is the norm. Even so, my love of coffee makes me fill the gas-necked kettle on the stove with boiling water (because I felt cheap when I bought it and didn’t want to write about twice the price of the electric model).
If it sounds like you’re using a small controlled fire in your kitchen to boil water for tea and coffee, you should take a look at your air quality monitor shortly after doing so. Switching to an electric kettle instead of using gas means you don’t have to pollute your atmosphere several times a day.
Smart kettles are now available with all sorts of features like variable heat settings and the ability to maintain temperature. They may not be connected (although some are like $200 Fellow Stagg EKG Electric Kettle currently for software purposes only), but removing the byproducts of gas combustion feels “smart” enough to warrant an upgrade.
Alternatively, you can take gas out of the equation entirely by switching to an induction cooktop.
Smart lights and blinds in the bedroom
Wake up naturally with the sun (or mimic it)
Ben Lovejoy / How To
Not getting enough sleep is terrible for your health, and poor sleep patterns are often the culprit. A lot of this comes from not getting up at a consistent time, disrupting your circadian rhythm, and making it harder to fall asleep at night because you’re sleeping too long.
While you can just fight the alarm, using light to wake up naturally by stimulating cortisol levels can promote better alertness. One way to do this is to have smart blinds open slowly in the morning or using smart lights to achieve the same effect in winter.
Medication reminders and administration
Remembering is half the battle
Home Assistant users in particular can benefit from this. Did you know that Use notifications that work with Home Assistant to remind you to do important thingslike taking medicine? But that’s not the only way the platform can help you remember in this way.
Sometimes you may remember to take your medicine and then forget that you have already taken it. you can do Add an NFC tag to the pill bottlewhich you scan every time you take your medicine. You can then set up a simple tracker in Home Assistant to see if you’ve taken your medication.
Another solution is to add a tilt or vibration sensor to the container, which will trigger an event when you pick up the bottle.
Fortunately, a smart home doesn’t have to be strictly practical. Check out some of the fun things you can do with connected devices.
