Let’s get a little more personal with our AI discussion and talk about AI in the home. This really personalizes AI. Yes we know it can do wonders with a variety of research products currently underway. We’ve talk about some successes AI has had. How it learns, how it makes inferences, even touched on ethics. But what can it do you and me, now, today?
AI Partners With Homeowners to Save on Energy Bills
Check out Smart Thermostats. These AI driven devices can raise and lower the home temperature, communicate with your cell phone through an app to detect when you leave and arrive at your home, adjusting temperatures accordingly. Learn household routines, provide usage reports and maintenance alerts, like filter changes and more. If you’re interested, a simple search online can provide a wealth of information. The lights? It’s more than just a timer or on command, lights on, lights off. Now these smart devices can monitor natural sunlight and adjust the brightness of your indoor bulbs. This can be set to your circadian rhythm and save your money.
AI Partners with Homeowners for Intelligent Security and Safety
AI has moved away from simply recording, to understanding what it’s seeing. You can now have your smart doorbell recognize people like family members and delivery drivers. This means less alerts to your phone. You get alerts that are relevant and not the everyday traffic you expect. Additionally, we’ve all installed smoke detectors and CO detectors. Now AI can distinguish between a burnt piece of toast and a fast spreading fire. That would certain cut back on those annoying beeps when the toast burns. A recent addition are smart, proactive, water sensors. This device can detect a microscopic leak in your pipes and shut off the main water supply valve before your basement floods!
AI In The Kitchen
The newest smart devices, in smart refrigerators, use internal cameras and AI to track expiration dates, and automatically add items to your grocery list. There is now something called Guided Cooking and I love this. Smart ovens can have a vision system that detects the food you’ve put inside, whether it’s a roast or a pan of cookies! Once detected, it can set the exact temperature and moisture levels. WOW
AI Automated Cleaning and Maintenance
Ok, we’re all heard of this one. The robot vacuums. Well, it’s time to take another look when those robots implement AI. No longer does the vacuum bump into walls and chairs. It now uses LiDAR to map your home in 3D and can recognize and avoid objects, even temporary objects. The newest addition is predictive maintenance. Large appliances, like washers, dryers, AC units can monitor there own vibrations and power draw. If a motor starts to fail, this AI will notify you before the failure occurs.
Voice Assistants
Here’s another one many of us are familiar with. The home voice assistant. instead of the ‘set a timer’, you can now have conversations with follow up questions without repeating the wake up word each time. Additionally, when these assistants are tied into your other smart home devices, it can carry out a series of complex instructions through routines. For example, you could tell your assistant you’re leaving for work. The assistant can then lock your doors, lower the heat, or raise the AC and even activate that vacuum cleaner, all at once! How cool is that. Here’s another newer little trick. The AI can detect multiple users. It can detect who in the home it’s speaking with. Commands such as checking your calendar, or music, or to do lists, are now automated. It detects who asked and provides that individuals personal data.
What To Watch For
Starting in 2026, the big push is for interoperability. Most devices now use something called the Matter standard. This is something to watch for. It allows different manufacturers devices to communicate. Think of having a single app to control your Apple device, Google Speaker, Samsung refrigerator. All with a single app. FINALLY.
Wrap it Up
To wrap this up, AI has tremendous possibilities. Home based AI is something you can dive into today. It personalizes the way we interact with the technology. We can all, individually, establish our own relationships with our home AI’s and save money, secure the home, perhaps be better in the kitchen and assist us in a number of ways.
