How Smart Home Tech Keeps Your House Safe While You’re Away
From automated lighting to lawn-mowing robots, today’s home technology makes it easier than ever to secure your home, maintain your yard, and control access—all from your phone
We all have a home routine before we leave for vacation: Stop the mail, ask a neighbor to keep an eye on the house, and make the home look lived in. Then, we spend the trip worrying about all of it while we’re gone.
But there’s a simpler way. Today’s technology makes it infinitely easier—and much more effective—to secure your home, simplify upkeep, and ensure your house looks occupied while you’re away. The best part: Much of it can be controlled from an app on your phone, helping make travel less stressful.
How to make your house look occupied when you’re on vacation
Smart home tech devices have become widely accessible in recent years, allowing you to control everyday household items from a phone app. Brands such as WEMO (smart plugs and lighting controls), KASA (smart plugs, cameras, and bulbs), and Cozy Life (app-based home automation for lighting and small appliances) are all designed to make it easier to manage your home while you’re away.
One of my favorites is Smart Life, which works with 100-plus compatible devices and is easy to use. A simple place to start is with smart plugs—devices that connect to standard outlets and allow you to control power remotely—and pair them with lamps. After downloading the app, you give each lamp a name, and then set schedules for when lights turn on and off.
From there, you can expand beyond lamps to holiday lights, fish tanks, or even televisions (yes, even pet programming for Fido). You can monitor and adjust everything from the app, which helps your home appear lived in and provides peace of mind while you’re away.
How to maintain the lawn while on vacation
Your HOA may require a neatly maintained lawn, or you may simply take pride in your landscaping. Either way, the main reason to prioritize lawn care while on vacation is simple: An overgrown yard is a clear giveaway that no one is home.
You could hire a lawn service, but that often means coordinating access while you’re away. Instead, some homeowners are turning to robotic lawn mowers that can be scheduled in advance and monitored through an app from virtually anywhere.
The Mammotion LUBA 3 AWD is designed for this kind of hands-off maintenance. It’s relatively easy to set up and built to stay outdoors. It can be mapped for precision cutting of up to as many as 50 customizable zones. The robotic mower runs quietly enough to operate at night, using onboard lighting and obstacle detection to navigate around pets, wildlife, and landscaping.
The latest model is priced at about $2,400, making it a significant upfront investment. However, it can handle steep slopes of up to 80% and reduce the need for frequent professional mowing, saving money in the long run.
How to control who enters your home when you’re away
Gone are the days of handing a pet sitter or house cleaner a physical key as you head to the airport. Many travelers now use keyless entry systems that make it easier to manage access and, in some cases, track the time and duration of every visit.
A good place to start is with your garage door system. If you have a Chamberlain or LiftMaster garage door opener that is myQ-enabled, you can connect it to the free myQ app to control and monitor access from your phone.
From there, you can add a compatible smart keypad or video keypad outside the garage door. These devices allow you to assign PIN codes, and on newer models, set scheduled or temporary access windows through the app.
This smart home tech setup offers several advantages. You can see who is entering your home based on the code used and control access from your app. So if your dog sitter forgets the code, you can open the door from anywhere. For one-time visitors, you can set access for a specific window of time, while trusted regulars can use ongoing codes or app-based control. Together, these tools make it easier to manage home access while you’re away, without physically exchanging keys.
How to maintain your home’s interior while on vacation
No one wants to return home from a relaxing vacation only to be greeted by pet hair and lingering odors. A robotic vacuum can help keep things under control while you’re away.
The Roborock Saros 20 is the latest robot vacuum and mop system designed for hands-off cleaning. Once you’ve set up a map of your home in the app, it expertly navigates room by room, avoiding furniture and common obstacles while quietly picking up pet hair and debris. It also mops hard floors for a more thorough clean.
As with many premium models, it comes with a self-emptying dock, so it can automatically deposit dust into a larger bin that you only need to empty occasionally. Depending on the setup, it can also handle mop pad washing and drying through its dock system, reducing day-to-day maintenance while you’re gone.
Like other smart home technology, robotic cleaners can be programmed through apps and turned on and off at your discretion. That means you can leave home with less stress and return to a space that feels just as you left it.
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With the right smart home setup, you can leave town knowing everything is taken care of: lights turning on, lawns staying trimmed, doors secured, and floors cleaned. It’s one less thing to think about, so you can focus on the trip instead of what’s happening back home.