My most used home apps + why I love them
Bonjour cushion-loving friends,
Today we're swapping the fluffy pillow talk for tech talk! Yep, I've found myself downloading quite a few smart apps and meters for my house recently and I wanted to share what home interior apps are on my phone for anyone who's interested in bringing their homes right up to date with the latest technology or opt for a more *stylish* way of metering and monitoring your house.
Here, you'll find the top 3 tech products I use and why, hopefully giving you some ideas on how you can protect your home in a smart, convenient and stylish way.
OK, first things first, I'll start with the most recent addition to No. 42. Our Grohe Sense...
GROHE Sense – The Sensitive Water Sensor
This is a super new, innovative product released by GROHE in the last few months to safe-guard your home from serious water damage. With it's smart technology, the GROHE Sense detects when humidity and temperature levels are reaching critical, and instantly alerts you on your mobile. So you can be anywhere in the world and you'll be alerted before a drip becomes a flood.
Neil and I are one of the first couples to try this out (the perks of being an interior blogger <3) I installed the product myself, hooking it up to our home internet, placing it in the kitchen (where it's most likely to flood if it ever happened) and downloaded the GROHE Sense app to set current humidity levels and keep track of everything. It was a breeze to install, and has had surprisingly good uses other than keeping my home safe from water damage – I've been able to monitor the humidity levels for my house plants and can now tell which room is best to place which plants!
I love anything that has hidden multi-uses! The product itself is £51.99. A small price to pay to prevent the destruction flooding can have on your home and life, and a winner for anyone who has a holiday home in an 'at risk' area that they can't access at the drop of a hat.
Website: https://www.grohe.co.uk/en_gb/smarthome/grohe-sense/
Worcester Wave – Thermostat + mobile app
OK, tell me you do this too... you're about to go away on holiday or a weekend away and mentally make a note to turn off the heating so you aren't shelling out cash to keep your cushions warm while you're gone, only you rush out the door so fast that it's a miracle you even remembered your handbag.
Is that you too?
Well get this. When I had to install central heating to No. 42, I had the glamorous job of having to choose a thermostat for to stick on the wall to control the central heating from. I ended up opting for the Worcester Wave (to match our boiler - the Worcester Greenstar 32CDi) as it came with the added bonus of hooking up to our internet and allowing us to control our heating and water pressure from anywhere in the world. I downloaded the app, hooked it all up using the product number on the thermostat and I can't tell you the amount of times it's been a God send and saved us money on our heating bill.
Website: https://www.worcester-bosch.co.uk/products/boiler-controls/wave
Sonos system
Finally, I really don't think I could live without our Sonos speakers and app. In our old flat, the only means we had to play music was our spotify accounts blaring out of our 'tinny' laptops which was fine, until we moved to a 3 bed house where you had to carry the laptop from room to room to hear the sound.
We made the investment of getting 2 white Sonos Play 1 speakers in our living room, and one in our kitchen, so whenever we now play music, you can hear it in all rooms that have speakers. They simply plug in and out of the walls and on your mobile, you just stream a song from spotify or Amazon prime, straight to the speakers. Our plan is to keep collecting them so that one day our whole house will be one big stereo and every room you go in you can hear the songs being played.
An expensive thing to collect, but when you experience happy songs and dancing round the kitchen while chopping the onions, you realise they're an investment!
I hope that has given you some ideas for bringing your home up to date with the latest technology.
What home apps do you use and recommend?
*collaborative post*
This blog post was in collaboration with GROHE. Huge thanks for supporting the brands that help me pay the bills and write my blog. As ever, I would never feature a brand I didn't genuinely believe you need to hear about.
