Smart home? Smart price when you sell

When Samsung surveyed more than 1,000 consumers looking to buy or rent a home in the next five years, it found people were prepared to pay a healthy premium for a smart home. 

Homes that utilise AI and connected tech could sell for a 7.7% premium – that’s more than £19,000 extra when compared to a non-smart home. Of those questioned, 25% consider smart technology a must-have in their next home. Crucially for property sellers, 33% of consumers want the smart technology already installed.

If you’re looking to add value to your home via smart tech, devices largely fall into two categories: mobile items that can be moved from home-to-home, and gadgets that form part of a property’s fixtures and fittings.

To add maximum property value it’s the items you intend to leave behind when moving that matter. Smart tech that homebuyers will be looking for include:

• Smart thermostats: devices that allow you to programme heating schedules and adjust temperatures via an app, such as Nest and Hive. The most recent models are voice controlled or sync with Alexa and/or Google Home.

• Smart appliances: dishwashers, washing machines, tumble dryers, fridges and ovens that have Wi-Fi connectivity for app control are seen as shortcuts to running a home with less hassle.

• Smart security systems: these can comprise doorbells, motion detector lights and security cameras, pinging the homeowner’s smartphone with notifications. The most sophisticated systems can tell the difference between residents, visitors, pets and burglars.

• Smart locks: these can replace traditional key locks, operated by either a PIN, a fingerprint or your smartphone, offering heightened levels of security.

• Smart curtains and blinds: smart blinds and curtains that are controlled via an app or a smart speaker let you create your own schedule, or you can choose an operation in-line with sunrise and sunset.

• Smart speaker system: ceiling speakers with microphones, an in-built Alexa function, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity allow music to be voice- or app-controlled for the ultimate in at-home entertainment.

• Smart lighting systems: usually consisting of a central hub or controller that connects to smart bulbs and smart switches, smart lighting allows you to adjust lighting levels, colours and ambient settings via an app or voice command.

How we’ll live in the future

It’s increasingly likely buttons and dials on appliances will be phased out in favour of voice, app or even gesture activation. Although it sounds futuristic, some households are already harnessing this power by using digital assistants, such as Alexa and Siri, together with an app to operate their lights, for example.

This is an easy-to-understand application of AI – a tech that’s going to be increasingly prevalent in the home. As we switch to more connected appliances and fittings, AI will use its learning power to familiarise itself with someone’s household routines and occupant habits. As a result, it will create a personalised, automated service designed to simplify and streamline how we operate within the home. 

So what could a personalised, AI-driven service look like? It could be a home that turns down the heating, switches on side lamps, draws curtains and sets a burglar alarm automatically as it knows the occupant is heading to an evening gym class. It will also run the dishwasher when full and reorder the weekly food shop – all without pressing a button. 

Trend forecasters are also excited about in-fridge cameras. They will use AI to check sell by dates, show homeowners what’s going off and suggest recipes based on the products in the fridge. There should also be advancements in diagnostics and fault finding, with appliances able to prepare reports for the owner and/or an engineer.

If moving home is your priority, contact us for advice and a selection of available properties.