In 2007, I bought my first piece of real estate and was eager to make it a place of my own. I was a third-year apprentice plumber, focused on automating my routines and organizing the world around me. Even before then, I noticed patterns in the world, the ons and offs, the ups and downs and how predictable we humans can be. That’s when I began my deep dive into the world of automation.

For most of us, smart home adoption begins with connected LED lighting or voice-activated speakers with artificial-intelligent assistants. We use lighting to set mood and tone, while smart speakers let us control our surroundings hands-free. I imagined myself living in a world where I could snap my fingers or say a keyword to wake up my environment, having everything synced to my preference. 

When I first scheduled my bedside lamp to wake me up with soft light adjusting to full spectrum, aiding in circadian rhythm function like the sun — I knew I was onto something.

As a young dad and husband trying to juggle the schedule of two kids and my own daily tasks, we set up house rules. These are different than the house rules we all grew up with, such as the limited corded phone access and queues to the family computer. These rules are code, essentially “If This, Then That” triggers that automatically respond to specific conditions. It made managing our household a bit easier by automating repetitive tasks. 

For instance, if the garage door opened at 6 p.m., inviting me home from a long day of work, the lights in the house would be adjusted to my preference, temperatures keyed in, and perhaps the music turned on, helping me with a calm entrance. 

However, I didn’t stop at the lighting and speakers. I wanted more control over my busy, yet predictable life. So, I dove deeper into the Internet of Things to explore smart solutions for everyday challenges.

Experimenting with Smart Irrigation Systems

While living on the north shore of Long Island, I spent a lot of time learning about horticulture and the power of growing your food and living off the land. I’ve always enjoyed gardening throughout my life, but I wanted to experiment with something unique that I could share with busy dads and moms who missed their time in the garden or spent too much time on chores, such as lawn maintenance. 

For me and my wife, spending time working in the garden was fun, especially when no one is to blame for lack of maintenance attention, which tends to happen if time management is not your thing. This led me to the installation of a prototype that not only regulated my schedule, but also made me giddy with excitement. 

One of my first real smart home wins came with irrigation. I installed the Rachio irrigation controller; it connected to Wi-Fi and was packed with cool features such as live weather and customizable watering schedules for all specimen types. I added a rain sensor for real-time responses and, suddenly, I had a system that learned from its environment and spoke back to the cloud. It adjusted to regular watering schedules based on my preference, using the right amount to yield the produce without being wasteful. 

I’ve always been a passionate gardener and an advocate for a clean environment that allowed us to grow our own food. However, to keep up with the demands of life, property and my garden, I set out to install new zones onto an existing system and added them to my smart controller. The system not only watered my vegetables but also provided data. I’ve always said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t fix it,” and this was a new tool to help me measure. 

These zones, Garden 1 and Garden 2, were set up with individual solenoid valves that fed the adjustable height sprayers or bed soaking hoses on the soil. Having the right data allowed me to make informed decisions about how much water was being used and when, making gardening more efficient and my maintenance schedules more tolerable. Also, it was a cool party trick to say, “Hey Google, water Garden 1,” and see everyone get excited. 

This adaptation opened my eyes to the potential of smart technology and plumbing and how much it could improve everyday tasks, from lawn care to general water use awareness. Over time, I continued to integrate smarter systems throughout my home, all while keeping an eye on how code could solve real-world problems for myself and my family. 

Embracing Security and Water Management

As my collection of smart devices grew, I started incorporating them into all aspects of home management. I installed a smart security system, with cameras around the house, an integrated fire alarm system and built a true mesh network of connected devices. Everything worked together to create an environment that suited our needs, and it was all managed remotely via apps and voice commands and very impressive when it worked. 

Water management, though, became a particular focus of mine after building the suburban farm prototype. After years of using smart irrigation for the exterior of the dwelling, I wanted to go further. 

That’s when I discovered Moen Flo; it’s a real game-changing product that monitors water usage throughout an entire home from the incoming service. This device detects leaks, running toilets and other inefficiencies, allowing me or it to automatically shut off the water and prevent damage. With a connection to the incoming cold water, it’s installed like a traditional water meter or valve but requires a nearby power source and Internet connectivity via Wi-Fi. 

This neat device didn’t only provide peace of mind; it offered real-time data and remote access to my plumbing. It tracks water use down to individual fixtures, helping us better understand how we consume water on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. It’s a well-made, small-format device that takes very short timestamps of flow to determine the amount of water being used, then categorizing it as an occupant using a household fixture. 

This level of insight is invaluable, especially as the industry rethinks water usage and sizing ideologies for plumbing systems. 

Although the high computation rate of lawn sprinklers sometimes gets confused for a leak, you can respond back to it through the app with feedback. By being able to respond that you were watering the lawn or washing the car, the device can use machine learning to remember why it measured an unexplained amount of water, based on past use. 

Other benefits of these inline devices are that they can monitor line pressure and give you real-time thermal data of the incoming municipal water. This type of information helps protect your home from potential disasters, while also giving you more control over your water consumption.

The Future of Automation and Energy Management

Smart home technologies have come a long way since the debut of connected lighting and speakers. Today, water management is becoming a major focus in the smart home ecosystem. 

Products I’ve tried, such as the Moen Flo and Rachio, allow us to control and conserve water more efficiently than ever before. As consumers demand more sustainability, control and security, I’m excited to see how these innovations continue to evolve.

You either love technology or you don’t — even with all its shortcomings, I’ve enjoyed training my systems to get better and better, hoping that machine learning would soon aid in my routine organically. 

For me, smart home solutions are about more than convenience; they’re about creating sustainable and data-driven environments that can adapt to our lives and be helpful and solutions-driven.