Adding Home Tech Devices Without Busting the Budget

Are you planning to spruce up your home with a few of the latest high-tech devices? Then you're in luck with the recent engineering advances that have brought all sorts of interesting, exciting products within reach of everyday homeowners. Some of the top-selling devices, apps, and gadgets have been around for several years but are only now priced to move, as merchants like to say. What's attracting today's homeowners? Several of the biggest sellers include next-generation LED lighting, smart plumbing products, advanced robotic vacuums, walkway lights that operate on solar energy, water faucet meters, ingenious power strips that save money, intrusion detection systems, and many more.

So far, the 2020s are turning out to be an era when engineering advances have come to the rescue of everyday consumers. That's true when it comes to convenience, safety, comfort, saving money, and efficiency. How can you make a plan to acquire your favorite tech products for the home? Start by choosing a few that are suited for your house or apartment, and then make a detailed budget to cover all the costs. Here's how to get started, along with a short listing of the current top selling favorite items.

Choose Three or Four Favorites

The most appropriate way to upgrade your home's technology profile is to select several products that fit in with your lifestyle, personal preferences, and budget. Depending on where you live and how large your dwelling is, some items will make more sense than others. There are many real-life products of Internet of Things that pertain to your home. If you're not sure about how much energy it takes to operate your home annually, check with your utility company before selecting an energy-saving device. As well, evaluate your need for things like robo-vacuums, shower meters, and walkway lights. Some homes just aren't good candidates for every gadget that comes along. After making a plan, move on to the budgeting phase of the operation.

Create a Budget That Covers All Expenses

Unless you have enough cash on hand to finance a major purchase, it's wise to consider taking out a personal loan to cover all the costs of upgrading your living space. Keep in mind that unless you're exceptionally handy, you'll likely need to hire professional installers for some tech products. When creating a budget, include the cost of both the item and installation. If you intend to purchase extended warranties, add that cost in too. Working with a lender to apply for a personal loan is the most efficient way to deal with home improvement costs like security systems, specialized lighting, and others. Many consumers are surprised to realize how easy it is to pay for everything at once with a loan.

Smart Plumbing

Cutting water use is easy with modern engineering on your side. Everyone has encountered the motion activated faucets in public restrooms. Now, you can install these same money saving devices in all your bathrooms, kitchens, and wherever there's running water. It might seem like a small issue, but smart faucets cut household water usage by as much as 10 percent for the average family. That means cutting utility bills significantly and saving money year-round.

Solar Walkway Lighting

If you like the ambiance and attractiveness of a lighted walkway in front of your house, check out some of the solar offerings available at improvement retailers. You can go small or extravagant with this project, but the upshot is that there's no wiring or electrical cost because the entire arrangement uses solar power. Some homeowners choose to line every cement or paved area with these lights. Not only do they look great and make your home literally shine after dark, but they help prevent falls.

Robo-Vacuums

Robo-vacs have been on the market for nearly two decades, but today's versions are better than ever. For one thing, they're quieter. They also use less energy, can monitor their paths with more precision, and come with high-tech filters as well as larger dust containers. For apartment residents, there are smaller vacs that are easier to store and don't take up much space. The high-end robo-vacs are lightweight powerhouses that do an excellent job of cleaning hardwood floors, linoleum, thick rugs, and numerous other surfaces. Some can automatically change their power levels based on the surfaces they detect.

Shower & Bath Water Meters

Recent breakthroughs in engineering made these clever gadgets possible. Not only do they measure the amount of water you're using or have used, but they also monitor the temperature to deliver a total readout of how much energy and water you use when showering, washing hands, or taking a bath. Meters are a convenient way to become aware of precisely what it costs to do ordinary daily chores and adjust your activities accordingly. For large families, cutting water usage in baths and showers can chop a sizeable chunk off the monthly bills for water and the electricity used to heat it.

Smart Power Strips

For those who like to minimize electricity use, the newest smart power strips can work in any room where you use multiple appliances. These days, that means pretty much every room in the house. Each strip includes several smart outlets that use motion detection to turn off things like lamps, TVs, and audio systems when they sense no human presence for a specified amount of time. Some of the outlets are standard, always on versions like you already have on your walls. The beauty of smart strips is that you'll never have to worry about leaving the lights on again.

Window & Door Intrusion Detectors

The latest security devices are all-around wonders that can detect any movement of windows and doors all through the house. Plus, you can monitor the entire system via an app on your phone, desktop computer, or from any remote device. Whether you're taking a nap or away on vacation, it's easy to set alarms that tell you when someone is attempting to enter your home. These ingenious products are ideal for any owner but especially for families who have small children and for adults who live alone.

What is Cloud Computing?

Hello Folks! Glad to have you on board. Thank you for clicking this read. In this post today I’ll walk you through What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is not a buzzword anymore. Even though most companies are familiar with this term, they don’t know what it does and how it works. If you’re one of them, this read is for you. In simple terms, cloud computing allows you to use computer system resources over the internet. This means you can manage your data remotely over the internet from anywhere in the world. We’ll touch this further in our article.

I suggest you read this post all the way through as I’ll cover what is cloud computing, how does it work, the types of cloud computing, the advantages of cloud computing, and the future of cloud computing.

Let’s get started.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a way of storing, processing, and managing data over the internet. Simply put, it’s the on-demand availability of IT resources online. These resources include data storage, computing power and databases. This way you don’t need to worry about handling data over the computer’s hard drive or on-site data centers. This liberates you from managing hardware circuits, software patching, and on-site IT drills, giving you online access over data centers through which you can efficiently manage and process your data.

With the onslaught of IT workloads, companies harness the power of cloud computing. It’s not only fast, economical, and secure, it also gives better control over data. No matter your location, as long as you have access to the internet, you can control your information online.

Google Drive and Dropbox are the best examples of cloud computing where you can access and manage your information online. Companies can use it for regular tasks like data processing, data management, software development, data protection, backup and disaster recovery, server virtualization, data analytics, and other real-time applications.

How Does Cloud Computing Work?

There are three basic parts of cloud computing.

1: Device (like computer, tablets, smartphones) through which you access data

2: Cloud with data centers where data is stored and processed

3: Internet which connects cloud with the device

You might be familiar with the term client-server model. Here user with the device is the client and the cloud with data centers are the servers while the internet connects the users with data centers.

Prior to cloud computing, handling and storing data was challenging. Companies used to install their own data centers that required proper maintenance and regular on-site check-ups to make sure they were running well, which resulted in more oversized bills and more space to accommodate them. It was impractical, expensive, and less efficient.

But cloud computing has dramatically changed this behavior. Now companies don’t need to worry about maintaining, scaling, securing, and managing their IT infrastructure, instead, they can focus on providing a better user experience with quality products. The organizations get these reousrces with pay-as-you-go terms which means the more resources they use the more they pay over time.

Companies that provide cloud computing services often offer monthly subscriptions and give users access to their computing resources. They don’t need to get in the hassle of updating servers, buying software, getting more machines to back up the data, and updating software to avoid potential security threats. The service provider takes care of all of that for them.

Types of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is perfect for businesses that have a lot of data to deal with. Cloud computing is mainly divided into three major types.

Public Cloud:

The public cloud offers compute resources like storage, memory, networking, and CPU. Public cloud vendors host these resources with globally and fully managed data centers. You can pay the vendors and rent these resources to develop your IT infrastructure.

The managed services in the compute resources include security systems and database servers that set you free from the hectic drill of managing and installing the whole solution into your local and on-site data centers.

The common leading providers of cloud computing services include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. You can hire the compute resources from these vendors as per the needs and complexity of your business operations.

Private Cloud

The public cloud is shared by a range of organizations while the private cloud, on the other hand, is specifically developed to meet the business needs of a single organization.

Some businesses don’t feel comfortable working with the public cloud. They want their separate and private cloud on their on-site data centers. Private cloud is perfect and ideally suited for single private organizations.

Two options there: companies can host private cloud or they can involve third-party vendors to host their private cloud on their system. This gives them the ability to immediately get access to the compute power based on their businesses. This setup is best for businesses that are a bit obsessed with the security of their systems.

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid cloud gives you the ability to combine both public and private cloud and use them to your advantage. You can use either of them for a specific purpose. For instance, you may want to get unlimited storage space from the public cloud but you want to process the sensitive data on your private cloud.

This means if you running out of computing resources from the private cloud you can get the services of the public cloud to fulfill your business needs. It gives businesses advanced flexibility to move data across both clouds without a full commitment to the public cloud’s vendor.

And cost management is another blessing that comes with hybrid cloud. If you own a private cloud you need to install data centers on-site which require proper care and a capital expense. But with the public cloud, you only pay for resources without having to worry about the management of data centers.

Advantages of Cloud Computing

Now you know what is cloud computing and how does it work. Perfect. There are several advantages of cloud computing. A few of them include:

  1. It is cost-effective. The clients demand the service from the companies offering cloud services. Cost may differ for every service depending on the storage and computing power you demand. This way companies don’t need to spend money on purchasing installing and managing IT data centers, instead, they can purchase required computing resources from the service provider.
  2. Flexibility is another advantage that this infrastructure offers. This is not static, but a dynamic and flexible process. You can process and access data from anywhere in the world no matter your location, giving you the chance to scale up your business as you like better and manage data from the locations optimal for your business.
  3. Cloud computing is scalable. Yes, you can increase or decrease the demand for computing resources from cloud service providers as you run your business. This means computing power is directly related to the activities of your business. If at a certain stage you feel you require fewer data to manage and process, you can ask for less bandwidth in your next package. You can even add more users to your plan. Plus, you can even collaborate with multiple service providers at a time depending on your business.
  4. Cloud computing makes data processing fast. This is a centralized approach and the cloud service provider offer access to their data centers that are managed and controlled by experts. Accessing data online from a centralized system makes your data secure and safe.
  5. Cloud service providers strive to comply with their infrastructure with standard protocols. They keep updating their systems and data centers, providing an excellent and reliable user experience. No outsider can play with your data. Only you have access to that data and you can modify and manage it as you see fit.

The Future Trends Of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing becomes a necessary part of the business as the requirement to manage and store a large amount of data grows. And this trend will definitely increase as managing data in on-site data centers is not only expensive, it requires a lot of IT drills to properly install and maintain machines handling and storing data.

We can expect the following future trends in cloud computing.

  • Companies are willing to incorporate hybrid cloud computing into their IT model. Hybrid cloud computing is the combination of both public cloud and private. This infrastructure is mainly used to move data between private and public clouds, providing more flexibility to the users to satisfy their computing needs. What makes hybrid computing so special is its ability to process both analog and digital data. The market of hybrid computing is expected to touch $97.6 billion by 2023.
  • It’s almost impossible to run a successful business without making a footing in an online world. And cyber-attacks, system failures, and data outages are the norm when it comes to managing data online. Cloud computing offers backup and disaster recovery solutions in case of emergency. It creates the copy of your sensitive electronic data and store it miles away in data centers. And if your data original data is lost or compromised, you can ask for a copy of that data from cloud servers. This brings us to the conclusion that more companies will accept this model onwards to make their data safe and secure.
  • We have seen this before and we’ll see it again in coming years – the incorporation of AI with cloud computing. To meet their business needs, companies are now leveraging the power of Artificial Intelligence to run and effortlessly control the activities of their business. AI gives power to the organization to manage and automate their production and manufacturing processes without the interference of any human being. According to IBM, 65% of businesses feel that AI is necessary to handle their business operations and improve efficiency.
  • According to Statista, the total number of IoT-connected devices will amount to 30.9 billion units by 2025. This is huge. This brings us to another remarkable cloud computing trend – Cloud computing in the Internet of Things. IoT in cloud computing serves as a data source (from where data is produced) while cloud computing allows that data to store and process in its data centers. The combination of IoT with cloud computing gives us a model of devices connected intelligently that can manage store and process data automatically without the involvement of an outsider. For example, Alexa is a cloud-computing IoT device that can give you important information from the data stored in remote data centers in the cloud.

Conclusion

Digital transformation is on the rise. And in this era where technology is changing at an accelerated pace, it’s necessary to come up with advanced solutions to manage, store and process your data.

Cloud computing is now a part and parcel of successful organizations. But still, companies, who have reservations about the security of cloud computing, hesitate to transfer their data to a remote location.

For those hybrid model gives the perfect solution where you can get the advantage of both cloud services. For sensitive data, you can pick the private cloud while for the storage of regular and less sensitive data you can choose the private cloud. This way you can move your data and scale your compute resources as per the complexity of your business.

Not to mention, cloud computing has just started. And as the requirements and demands of businesses go complex, companies need powerful systems that not only store their data but also offer advanced processing capabilities. With new advancements in IoT technology and Artificial Intelligence, more businesses will likely adopt cloud computing for the years to come.

That’s all for today. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article. If you are unsure or have any questions about cloud computing, feel free to ask me in the section below. I’d love to help you the best way I can. Thank you for reading this article.

Syed Zain Nasir

I am Syed Zain Nasir, the founder of <a href=https://www.TheEngineeringProjects.com/>The Engineering Projects</a> (TEP). I am a programmer since 2009 before that I just search things, make small projects and now I am sharing my knowledge through this platform.I also work as a freelancer and did many projects related to programming and electrical circuitry. <a href=https://plus.google.com/+SyedZainNasir/>My Google Profile+</a>

Share
Published by
Syed Zain Nasir