How to Create a Festive Themed Smart Home

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, so it’s only natural that we want our home to also get into the Christmas spirit. Of course, that will mean hanging up stockings and holly wreaths as well as the most exciting festive activity everyone looks forward to at this time of the year – putting up the Christmas tree. But why stop there? Did you know that there are a number of fabulous (and ingenious) ways to add touches of home automation throughout your humble abode to enhance the Christmas spirit?

Smart Lighting

The Benefits of Smart Home Lighting

Smart home lighting has so many brilliant benefits all year-round which can be used to ramp up the festive spirit during the yuletide season.

Saving Energy

Smart home lighting uses LED or CFL bulbs as opposed to traditional incandescent bulbs. This is great because LED and CFL bulbs use much less energy than incandescent lighting, due to the fact that they emit no heat. Not only is this good for the environment but it’s even better for your pocket! With the current cost of living crisis leaving us all feeling a little “bah humbug”, energy efficient lighting is the perfect way to cut back on energy use without feeling like you’re depriving yourself. Plus, the potential savings that you may get from reduced energy usage means you can instead spend that extra money on spoiling your loved ones with gifts around the Christmas tree. 

Timing Customisation

Another fantastic feature of smart lighting is its ability to program lights to turn on, off, dim or brighten, at a time of your choice, through devices like Somfy’s scenario player – clever right? Imagine setting the lights to dim in the evening with a hot chocolate by the fireplace, for cosy, Christmas vibes. Setting the lights to switch off at a certain time when it’s Christmas Eve, to let the little ones know that it’s time to hop into bed and wait for Santa. Then choosing the perfect time for the lights to switch on when it’s Christmas morning to let them know it’s times for presents and festive fun! This is especially a nifty device for parents who are all too familiar with the annual struggle of children rushing them out of bed at the crack of dawn on the big day. Setting the rule of “we stay in bed until the lights switch on to see if Santa has been” can go a long way to preventing exhausted mums and dads and instead parents who are jolly and in Christmas spirit all day long.

Changing Colours

Yet another thing we love about smart lighting is its ability to change into all the colours of the rainbow. You could try Christmas-themed colours like red and green to enhance the atmosphere of your festive parties. Or bathe your home in blue for a Winter Wonderland effect. The choice is yours!

Sync to Music

Make your Christmas soiree or New Year’s bash one to remember by syncing your smart home lights to your party playlist. You’ll create the ultimate festive disco when your lights flash in time to yuletide classics from Slade and Mariah, guaranteeing that even the grinchiest of guests will have a great time.

Long Lifespan

Smart home lights aren’t just for Christmas, thanks to the amazingly long lifespan of LED bulbs. These nifty lights can work for upwards of 10,000 hours! That means you don’t need to worry about changing the lightbulb regularly. Bliss!

How to Control Smart Home Lighting

The many benefits of smart home lighting are great – but they’re of no use if you don’t know how to control your smart lights in the first place! But, don’t worry, Somfy are here to help.

One of the most simplest ways to control your smart home lighting is to connect your lights to your smartphone via Bluetooth. Alternativy you can link them to your TaHoma and use Somfy’s TaHoma app to control the lighting however you please – even when you aren’t at home! So, there’s no need to stress about accidentally leaving the lights on anymore.

If you have a lot of smart home devices in your home, you can connect them all to your very own smart home hub and control everything easily from one single place.

Smart Christmas Lights

You’ve got standard smart home lighting, but did you know you can have smart decorative lights too? After all, it wouldn’t be the festive season of our dreams without Christmas lights!

The Benefits of Smart Christmas Lights

Tired of crawling under the Christmas tree to turn your festive string lights on, off, up, or down? Well, you don’t need to anymore! Simply do it from your sofa with a tap of your smartphone by turning your beloved Christmas lights into smart lights. Now enjoy all the benefits of smart lighting in your Christmas lights too – including syncing to music, programmed colour changing, and customisation to turn on and off at set times. What more could you want?

How to Control Smart Christmas Lights

Buy a string of smart lights or simply make your favourite Christmas lights a little smarter by plugging them into your Somfy plug-in receiver. Now all that’s left to do is use your Bluetooth or WiFi to sync to Siri, Alexa, Google, or whichever device you have, and then use a simple voice command to set your Christmas tree aglow – easy peasy!

Smart Heating

The weather outside is frightful, but smart heating is so delightful…

Unfortunately, along with the arrival of Christmas comes the cold and biting winter weather. Luckily, smart heating can help to keep you nice and toasty.

Control your heating from wherever you may be using just your smartphone, meaning no more panic over leaving the heating on when you’re out. Plus, you can turn the heating on when you’re on your way home to ensure the house is all warmed up for you once you arrive.

Don’t you hate being all cold at night and knowing that you’ll have to crawl from under your duvet to turn the heating up? With smart heating, this problem is eliminated. Just grab your smartphone from your bedside table and adjust the heating from beneath your blankets using the TaHoma app.

Or perhaps you’d rather not think about heating at all. If this is the case, use a smart sensor like the Thermis io to have your heating automatically adjust in accordance to the outside temperature.

With energy prices skyrocketing, it’s understandable that we’re worried about staying warm without spending a fortune. With smart home heating you can customise your heating schedule for optimum warmth with potential minimum spending. Plus, you can keep track and avoid any nasty surprises as  Somfy’s smart thermostat can predict your heating bill – now that’s smart!

Smart Home Security

We spend a lot of time and money on our Christmas gifts, so the thought of them being stolen is terrifying! However, there’s no need to go all Kevin McAllister with booby traps galore – a few simple smart home security devices can do the job even better, protecting your home and your Christmas.

Cameras and Alarms

Somfy’s clever cameras can detect motion and send you real-time alerts via push notifications to your phone, whilst also sounding an alarm to deter the would-be Grinch trying to steal your Christmas. Plus, images of the thief will be stored in the cloud, and 30 second HD videos will be captured.

Somfy sells both cameras and alarms separately, but you also have an option to buy all the home security supplies as one with the Somfy One Plus.

Give yourself the gift of home automation this Christmas and enjoy custom lighting, cosy heating and advanced security, all as part of your very own smart ho-ho-home.