Y’all!
Being a new mom, I learned quickly that I need to be very efficient with my time.
So I partnered up with Cox to put together this new smart home tech video for all the
mamas out there!
Hey y’all hey it’s Ashley Renne and welcome to my sustainable lifestyle and tech channel.
I post videos about my smart home, electric car, and other topics related to eco-conscious
living so if you’re into that, just hit the subscribe button and turn the notification
bell on so you never miss a new video.
Now today’s video is all about smart home tech for moms.
I gave a tour of my smart home before I had my baby, so this is an update that shows you
how I use some of those devices, plus some new ones, strategically as a mom.
First of all if you’re new to this topic, what is a smart home exactly?
Simply put, it just means that you use Internet connected devices like your phone or tablet
to remotely monitor and manage different systems and appliances in your house.
Alright now, let’s get into what I do at my house.
Here are all the ways I use smart technology throughout my home to make my mom life easier.
1.
Mesh Wifi Okay so when it comes to using smart technology,
none of this would be possible without reliable Internet connection right, so I encourage
you to up your WiFi game by utilizing what’s called a Mesh network, which you could easily
do with Cox.
If you haven’t heard of mesh wifi, let me put you on game!
So with traditional wifi routers, the reach of their signals is rather limited.
Mesh routers, on the other hand, help to eliminate dead zones.
So for example, you could use Cox Panoramic WIFI which delivers high level connectivity
in areas that would traditionally suffer from low internet speeds.
My mesh wifi Routers come in particularly handy when the baby is taking a nap in his
room and I’m down here in my basement office working, and it's a space that would traditionally
have a poor signal.
And I can’t afford to have a bad signal anywhere in my house, because if my baby wakes
up, I need to be able to see or hear him in the app that I use to monitor him.
Now you can go to cox.com/smarthome to learn the different ways Cox can help make sure
your internet connection is reliable for your smart home.
2.
Smart Assistant Now at the heart of any smart home ecosystem
is a virtual assistant.
Your smart assistant is a voice-controlled device that connects you to the smart devices
in your home.
You give it a command, and it responds accordingly.
Now two of the most popular assistants are Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
I use Google Assistant, and the speakers I use the most for our voice commands are these
Google minis.
I have these Google mini speakers in several rooms throughout my house so I can use them
to my advantage whenever I have Baby Beyond with me.
As a first time mom, I have tons and tons of questions and Google is honestly the first
place I turn to when I need a quick answer.
And since my arms are usually full and I just can’t pull Google up on my phone, I just
ask my question out loud.
Google will hear my question and respond out loud with an answer.
Now also, I use it to play lullaby music and nursery rhymes.
So for example, when we’re winding down right before bedtime, I tell my Google Mini
device to play “Super Relaxing Baby Music” which plays peaceful music while I’m getting
him ready for bed.
Now whatever you want your speaker to play, just ask your smart assistant and it’ll
play it.
3.
Smart Item Trackers Now if you’re a mom, then you’ve probably
heard of the term “mom brain” – we have a lot of things to keep track of every day,
and naturally it can be easy to lose track of things.
For you, maybe it’s your wallet and keys.
For me, it’s my phone.
You can use smart tracking devices to quickly find the things you lose.
I have 3 ideas for tracking.
One is the Tile Bluetooth tracker –you can buy a few of these trackers and stick them
in items you typically misplace.
Like you can attach it to your keyring or put it in your diaper bag.
The second option that follows the same concept is Apple Airtag.
If you have an iPhone 11 or later, it offers not only direct navigation to your lost items
within range if you have an iPhone but also tracking worldwide using Apple's existing
FindMy network.
And the third option which is what I use is an Apple Watch.
I don’t lose track of my keys, wallet, or anything like that—the only thing I ever
lose is my phone, which happens like several times a day.
I have an apple watch that I use for other things, but one of the features it has is
an iPhone locator.
Very helpful for moms with mom brain.
4.
Smart Doorbell How can a smart doorbell be helpful for a
mom?
By silencing itself when your baby is sleeping.
I’ll never forget the time I put Beyond down for a nap, only for him to wake up 10
minutes later from the sound of our doorbell.
After that I started utilizing the feature in my Google Nest Hello Doorbell app that
lets you turn the indoor chime on or off.
Simply open the Nest app, tap on your Nest Hello feed, tap the settings icon in the top
right corner, and toggle the Indoor Chime on/off.
5.
Smart Monitoring Speaking of naps, you’ll want to make life
easier as a new mom with a multi-functional baby monitoring system.
Now there are tons on the market, but the one I personally think is the best for first-time
moms is the Nanit Pro Smart Baby Monitor & Wall Mount.
On top of the basic features like audio and video monitoring, this takes it a step further
with technology that can track sleep patterns, breathing, and growth.
See these little patterns on this band, they send a signal to the camera which then updates
in your Nanit app so you can see the data in real-time.
Now the Nanit app sends sleep advice tailored to your baby’s sleeping patterns, which
can sometimes be annoying if the advice doesn’t align with your parenting style.
But, other than that, it has helped me a lot with getting Beyond to sleep through the night
finally, like the whole night and that's a huge milestone for both babies and sleep derived
moms.
So for us, it finally happened on his 7-month birthday.
Yes!
6.
Smart Lighting Whenever you have to make a nighttime visit
to your baby’s room, it helps to have some kind of light source that’s not jarring
in the middle of the night.
I have 3 suggestions for that.
The first one is if you get the Nanit Monitoring system I mentioned earlier, it comes with
a night light that you can turn on right in the app.
So that’s what we currently use, and it’s perched right above his crib.
Another option is you could use the Hatch Baby Rest, which is a sound machine that doubles
as a night light.
You can change the colors of the nightlight, adjust the light intensity, and pick a soothing
sound to create the perfect sleep environment for your little one.
The white noise option works like a charm.
It drowns out all noise outside his bedroom and helps him sleep through the night.
And the third option is to use smart dimmable lighting.
We have Philips Hue lightbulbs installed that we can dim using our app or Google assistant.
No matter which smart lighting option you choose though, just make sure it’s one that
will help you see in the middle of the night without jolting you or your baby awake.
7.
Smart Fridge Okay so a smart fridge is going to be more
on the expensive side so this one is a nice-to-have, but it’s not necessary.
I just thought I’d mention it because I have one and I’m going to tell you the random
way that I use it with my baby.
I have the Samsung Family Hub.
When I was a kid, our fridge was the place we’d put notes, grocery lists, photos, artwork,
etcetera etcetera.
But with this smart fridge, you can use the smart screen which is basically like a giant
tablet to display those same things, but just in a much sleeker way.
Sometimes when I’m in the kitchen with Beyond, we walk over to the fridge and we pull up
the white board so he can doodle on it.
It’s just a very simple, cutesy little thing we do, and it’s an easy way to keep him
engaged when we’re in this area of the house – like I said, not a necessity, but if you
happen to be in the market for a new fridge, then why not consider buying a smart one?
8.
Smart Vacuum I never appreciated my smart vacuum as much
as I do now that I’m a mom.
I don’t have the same kind of time that I used to, so any smart tech devices I have
that can help me get chores done quicker, I will take advantage of.
And my smart vacuum is one of those things.
We have the Samsung power bot, it’s an older model that we’ve had for a few years now
but it still works like a charm.
It mapped out all of our rooms and finds the best path to clean each one.
And it's set it to automatically come on regularly during
times when Beyond is least likely to be taking a nap and when it's done doing its thing it
returns back to its docking station to recharge.
9.
A Smart Scale So if you’re like us and into multi-use
products to sustainably cut down on your consumption, then you might like this smart scale and it
doubles as a diaper changing pad.
So the one we have is by Hatch Baby and we use it to keep track of Beyond’s weight.
When he was newborn, we used this scale as a part of our bath time routine.
Now before we gave him a bath, we’d place him on the scale to capture his weight.
And in those early days of my breastfeeding journey I was always wondering if I was producing
enough milk and if he was gaining enough weight, so using this to weigh him always gave me
peace of mind.
Now I’m a lot more confident in my breastfeeding nowadays so I’m not obsessively weighing
him anymore like I used to back in the day, but I still like to do weight checks occasionally.
Now when I’m not using it to weigh him, I’m using it as a diaper changing station.
So I just put him on this and I change his diaper.
I like that it has multiple uses, because it’s just one less thing to keep track of.
10.
Smart Locks.
And last but not least, if you’re a new mom, you might have family or friends coming
to stay with you to help out.
My mom helped me during the first several months of Beyond’s life and I will be forever
grateful.
My sister and her kids were also here a couple times.
Smart locks gave them the autonomy to get in and out of the house without me having
to make several copies of keys to hand out or to stop what I’m doing to open the door
for them, cuz you know, always gotta baby in my hand.
They were easily able to get in and out of our house whenever they needed to.
Cox also offers some of the smart devices I mentioned.
For example if you want a Smart Assistant, they have the Cox Voice Remote with Contour
TV.
For smart lighting, they have Cox Smart Bulbs with Cox Homelife and for smart locks, they
have the Cox Smart Lock with Cox Homelife.
So to make your life easier as a new mom, consider getting your smart devices from one
place like Cox.
Alright, that’s it!
I hope you enjoyed seeing the different ways I use smart tech to my advantage as a mom.
If you’re looking to turn your house into a smart home, I highly recommend you look
into Cox to see how they can best support you and your smart home.
They can help you create more free time, me time, and we time with your kids.
I hope you liked this video and if you did, make sure you give it a thumbs up and subscribe
for more smart tech videos just like this.
And if you want to buy anything I mentioned in this video, just peep the description because
I put links to everything down below.
I’ll catch ya next week in a new video and until then, stay green y’all.
Say bye Beyond!
Bye!