If you’ve spent the time and money to install the latest home automation tech in your home, you want to know you’re getting everything you paid for. And yet, many homeowners aren’t getting optimal performance from their smart home systems, to their detriment.

Perhaps you’ve noticed glitches with how all your devices talk to each other, or maybe your system takes a second or two to respond when you should get an instantaneous result. Or perhaps you simply feel like your automation system is creating more headaches for you instead of making your life easier.

Thankfully, there are easy solutions to many of these common smart home hiccups. Let’s run down a few ways you can give the home automation system in your San Diego, CA home a shot in the arm.

SEE ALSO: Experience a Life of Luxury with Home Automation

YOUR HOME NETWORK

All your smart home systems rely on your network to communicate with each other and work properly. Not only that, these devices must talk to your phone or other control device so you can manage them the way you want.

If you’re seeing spotty connections or similar network glitches, your network may not be strong enough to support everything in your home. It may be time to upgrade your network components, and if that fails call an automation professional. They’ll work with you to see if you have too much traffic on your network, wi-fi coverage gaps, bandwidth distribution issues or other problems.

SCENES AND SCHEDULES

If your frustrations are less technical in nature and more about the everyday hassle of using your devices, it may be that you’re not taking full advantage of the automation features available to you. The good news is that many of these systems are designed to work on their own once you’ve given them the right instructions.

An easy example to use here is lighting control. Sure, it’s handy to control all your lights from your phone, but your system is capable of so much more.

To start, you can set your lights to turn on or off at different points throughout the day, which means you don’t need to constantly make adjustments. Another way to simplify your system is to create preset lighting scenes for certain moods or occasions. This could be something as simple as an “Away” setting that turns everything off once you leave the door, or you can get more complex for moments when you have guests or want to relax at home.

These tips may not seem like they’ll do much, but automating your system as much as possible frees up more time for you to do things you enjoy.

COMBINE YOUR SYSTEMS

The combined power of your automation system is greater than the sum of its components. Your smart home devices can do a great deal individually, but together their potential greatly expands.

Lighting control is a good test case for this idea as well. It makes sense to link your lights to your motorized shades and your home theater; that way you can dim the lights, lower the shades and fire up your TV with one button press.

Another good combination is to link your lights to your security system, particularly your smart locks. Doing so gives you the ability to turn on your alarm and lock all your doors with one command. If you’re going on a long trip, you can also set up a schedule for your lights to turn on and off throughout the day to give the impression that someone’s home.

This is just the beginning of unlocking the potential of your automation system. To learn more, call us in San Diego at (858) 798-9130, fill out our online contact form or click on the chat box in the lower-right corner of your browser.