How Smart Tech can help aid a good night’s sleep
How Smart Tech can help aid a good night’s sleep
To celebrate National Sleep Awareness Month, we take a look at how we can incorporate Smart Home technology into our routines to help aid a good night’s sleep.
In an ever-hectic world, the focus can be on getting the most out of our days, rather than making the most of our nights. However, studies show that a good night's sleep is what underpins our success during our waking hours in several ways.
It's not just the length of time you sleep, but the quality that really matters. We all know that frustrating feeling of having slept for eight hours but still waking up craving more time in bed. Thankfully there's a vast benefit our developed world has brought with it; technology to counteract these distractions. Somfy’s Smart Home solutions such as smart lighting, window coverings and home security can all be linked together to ease you into that perfect night’s sleep.
Start early
With so many distractions present, like watching one more episode of your favourite TV show, you may still find that staying up late is much more tempting than an early night.
To counteract this, start setting the mood for bed well before you step into the bedroom. Your brain sees light bulbs and still thinks it’s a sunny daytime, so set light levels around your home to emulate the feeling of the sun setting and start triggering the release of those sleep hormones. With smart-connected lighting systems from Somfy, each room can be set to its own level of brightness, going from white and bright in your kitchen, to a relaxing glow in your lounge, automatically getting dimmer over the evening to gently transition your brain from ‘day’ to ‘night’.
Create a cave
As you move into your bedroom, arrive to find your room cosy and low lit, to make the idea of getting into bed even more appealing.
Prepare your room so once you’re tucked up and the lights are off, your space is dark and peaceful. Studies have shown that light falling on even a small patch of your skin can impact the quality of your sleep. Turning off electronic devices with flashing lights can make a big difference inside the room; add draped curtains, blinds and external shutters, and all light and sound from the outside can be thoroughly blocked out as well. Like the lights, curtains and shutters can be put on a synchronised system, using a timer or controlled remotely through the Somfy TaHoma app, so the stage is set before you’ve even put on your pyjamas.
All these elements can be tweaked through apps on your phone, so if you do need to change something, you don’t even have to get out of bed! Most phones allow you to set a night mode, which replaces blue light from your screen with a more sleep-friendly orange, which means checking your phone won’t break your drowsy mood.
Safe and secure
Being safe in your own home is key to a restful night; nothing is worse than feeling like you’re sleeping with one eye open or an ear cocked for any strange sounds.
Most break-in attempts come through doors or windows; Somfy IntelliTAG™ uses multiple sensors and an advanced algorithm to analyse vibration patterns and detect the first sign of a break-in. IntelliTAG can tell the difference between normal events and potential threats, meaning no more false alarms. Within nanoseconds of the break-in attempt, IntelliTAG triggers the siren and sends an alert to your smartphone. For full peace of mind that Somfy is taking care of your home security, implement a Somfy Home Alarm and security cameras for a complete connected system, which can be controlled remotely from your smartphone.
A new day
Just as your smart connected home helped put you to sleep, the same systems can be used to launch you, fresh and rested, into a new day. Wake up as humans were supposed to, with a natural ‘dawn’ created by the automated opening of your curtains, and a gradual raising of the lights. Having adjusted these settings perfectly to suit the rhythm of your life, enjoy a more fulfilling sleeping routine which leaves you ready to crack on with everything your day has to offer.
