Video chats with grandparents, instant photo sharing on Facebook, blogs packed with every tip imaginable, and even apps to build journals and track a child’s first moments — Nowadays, parents have endless options when it comes to using technology at home.
However, sometimes our universe of screens, social, and streaming can be overwhelming and downright frustrating. Home control, smart entertainment, IoT, and voice assistants are still in early stages and demand constant attention to keep up with everything that is available to parents. The good news is we’ve rounded up some super helpful gadgets that might help make your #parenting life a bit easier!
Keep a virtual eye on the kids.
As a new parent or caretaker of young children, safety and security are always top of mind. For extra peace of mind, you can keep a watchful eye on the kiddos both indoors and out, day or night, with a smart home weatherproof security camera. In the kids’ bedroom, a Logitech Circle 2 makes it super easy to check in on your bundle of joy and keep tabs on the whole home with a wide-angle, 180-degree lens. Hear a distant cry from your bed at night? Just open the Circle app on your mobile device to see what’s happening in 1080p HD and it even has auto night vision to view videos in the dark.
Say hello to the helpfulness of Alexa.
Amazon Alexa is capable of a LOT of things and since we love our Echo in the kitchen so much, we discovered a great way to use an Echo Dot for everyday parenting. The Alexa skill to check out is called Sleep Sounds. Sleep Sounds essentially transforms your Echo Dot into an amazing white noise machine! The ambient background noise at naptime and nighttime helps both the kids and parents get some quality sleep. If white noise isn’t your thing, no problem. Plenty of options such as cicadas, frogs, city rain, and more are all available as well. An added bonus for Harmony owners is hands-free control of your TV — nothing is more relaxing than firing up a well-timed movie or cartoon for the kids in the afternoon!
See parenting in a new light.
If you haven’t experienced the transition from traditional light bulbs to smart lighting in your house, you are missing out! While it is probably the well-known smart tech, it isn’t exactly cheap. However, as parents, convenience is at a premium and smart lights definitely delivers when it comes to being a timesaver around the house — especially when your hands are full with little ones. From the wildly entertaining color bulbs from Philips to infrared-enabled LIFX, you have several options.
In addition to “Alexa, turn off all the lights”, our #2 favorite feature is called geofencing. With baby carriers, groceries, and tired kids as an ever-present reality for parents when returning home, smart lights + geofencing is practically like real-life magic. Using the location of your smartphone, your smart lights will turn on automatically so you aren’t searching for the switch or wandering around in the dark!
Hassle-free freshness around the house.
With all of the electronics available to buy nowadays, smart plugs like the Belkin Wemo Mini are becoming more and more handy to have around the house. One easy hack for parents to put them to good use is with air purifiers. Since most air purifiers (or even dehumidifiers) can only support one room, often times multiple ones are needed to cover the whole house. Unless you are a fan of going room-to-room and turning them on and off each day, smart plugs are going to be a major timesaver. Almost every smart plug available supports Alexa or HomeKit or Google Home so you can turn devices on and off from any room or even your smartphone.
What do you think?
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