5 Tips to Spring Forward to a Smarter Home

Spring is the perfect time to refresh and rejuvenate your home. The extra hour of daylight in the evening not only gives us more time for outdoor activities, but it might also give you an extra spring in your step to take on a few small home improvement tasks. Aside from traditional spring-cleaning, here are a few simple and inexpensive upgrades that can make your home a more efficient, relaxing and fun place for you and your family to spend those extra 60 minutes. 

• Amplify energy savings with programmable lights. The extra sunlight during the spring and summer months cuts energy consumption by billions of kilowatt-hours every year. Amplify those savings inside your own home by installing programmable lights, like the Element smart lighting system that lets you schedule on and off like clockwork. Now, if it’s dark when you wake up, but daylight when you leave the house each morning, there’s no forgetting to turn off the lights on your way out the door. Element gives you wireless control on the go through the app. You can even schedule lights to turn back on automatically at night, so you never have to enter a dark house again.
• Energize your body with better sleep. Losing an hour of sleep—not to mention heavy use of screen-based entertainment like mobile phones and tablets—can wreak havoc on a sleep schedule. Reset your circadian rhythms by installing lights that allow you to adjust the color temperature. Element can be customized to wake you up gently each morning by mimicking the sunrise with gradually increasing light as your wake-up time approaches. No more jarring, annoying alarms! After a great nights rest, adjust the color to a cool bright white while working then a soft, warm white to help you wind down and relax in the evening.
• Refresh your space with new décor. While you might not have a budget for a complete remodel, a few spring touchups can go a long way toward giving your home a reinvigorated feel. A fresh coat of paint, some new throw pillows or a new light fixture can dramatically spruce up a tired-looking room. Integrating new programmable smart bulbs can accent your new paint color with adjustable color temperatures or help you create a relaxing oasis with dimmable lights without calling in an electrician.
• Make spring-cleaning fun. Who wouldn’t love a whole-home sound system to make spring-cleaning a little more enjoyable? Installing a traditional sound system can be complicated and pricy, especially going from room to room. Instead, Pulse incorporates a wireless JBL Bluetooth speaker system directly into a light bulb. Simply screw into any standard socket, connect to Bluetooth and turn up your favorite song of the season. Sync up to 8 bulbs for whole home sound you can install in minutes.
• Gear up for a getaway. When the clock springs forward, we often start to think about a summertime getaway. Many people know that passerby’s can tell you’re away by the fact that your lights are never on, so we might compensate by leaving them on 24/7 while away. Avoid the wasted energy by installing programmable lights. Set the lights to turn on and off on a schedule that mimics your patterns, or use the Element mobile app to remotely switch them on and off from your beach chair. For even more control, Snap offers a discrete HD security camera that can send live or recorded video directly to your mobile device from anywhere.

Turning your home in to a fun and functional smart home doesn’t have to be time-consuming or expensive. By making a few small technology upgrades that are as simple as changing a light bulb, you and your family can spring forward into a fun, simple and secure oasis you’ll enjoy for seasons to come.