4 Ways to Winterize Your Smart Home

Snow and ice covered the ground in 49 of 50 states this weekend so we think it’s safe to say that winter is officially here. Love it or hate it, the cold, wind, and snow that the season brings can have a challenging impact on both your home and daily routine. Luckily, winterizing your home couldn’t be easier thanks to a few connected devices and easy-to-set-up automations in the Wink app: 

Combat the threat of frozen pipes

The possibility of bursting pipes during this time of year is too high for any homeowner to take lightly. Avoid costly, inconvenient water damage by placing water sensors near potential trouble spots like the dishwasher or washing machine. We like the leakSMART Valve and Sensor Kit.

Connect the leakSMART Valve to your home’s main water supply and then place the Sensors throughout your home. Pair your valve and sensors to your Wink Hub, then using the Wink app, enable a Robot that will automatically shut off your home’s main water source if any of sensors detect a leak. 

In addition to leak detection, the leakSMART Sensors monitor room temperature so you can keep tabs on your home’s climate from afar (and remotely shut off your water supply if it gets cold enough to freeze pipes.

Keep your home well lit with Schedules

The days are slowly starting to get longer, but the sun is still likely setting well before you get home at night. With a Schedule in the Wink app, you can arrive to a bright home and make it appear like someone is there during those long work nights or (hopefully tropical) holidays. It’s easy to set up and will prompt all your connected lights to automatically turn on every night at sunset. Check out the lighting section of our partner product page for the full rundown of connected light bulbs that work with Wink. 

Avoid black ice on the front walkway with a motion sensor

It’s difficult and dangerous to detect ice and slippery surfaces in the dark. To combat the threat, combine the power of motion sensors with connected lights. The Ring Video Doorbell (which is great for seeing who is at the front door no matter where you are) can be connected with connected light bulbs on your porch with a Robot in the Wink app. From there, anytime Ring detects motion, the front lights turn on so your walk to the front door is safely lit. 

Save energy and money with a smart thermostat

Home heating bills skyrocket this time of year - it’s inevitable. Make your home more energy efficient (and save money along the way) with a smart thermostat like the one by Nest or ecobee. These thermostats let you adjust your home’s temperature from afar through the Wink app, learn your heating and cooling preferences over time, and automatically turn off when you’re away.

How are you using your smart home to tackle winter? Let us know in the comments — we want to hear!

What To Do With Your Smart Products When Moving

Moving is stressful. Deciding what to do with your smart home products as you’re packing boxes doesn’t have to be. We’re often asked for input on the best way to relocate smart home products into a new environment, along with what to do for those you intend to leave behind. Luckily the steps are simple so we thought we’d outline them for the most common moving scenarios:

OPTION 1: LEAVE EVERYTHING FOR THE NEW RESIDENT TO ENJOY 

Studies show that homes with smart products tend to sell faster than homes without. If you’re a homeowner and have decided to leave your Wink HUB and compatible products, it’s easy to wipe the slate clean for the next resident:

If you’re the one moving away...

• Navigate to the Hub settings page within the app and remove the HUB from your account (no need to do anything with the other Wink-compatible products).

If you’re the one moving in and inheriting a Wink ecosystem...

• Congrats - we hope you enjoy! Simply download the Wink app on your iOS or Android mobile device, create an account, and connect the HUB following the in-app instructions. 
• Once the HUB is connected, all of the previously connected products will become available (note - automations like Robots or Schedules that the previous resident created will not carry over).

OPTION 2: TAKE THE HUB, LEAVE THE PRODUCTS

Say you want to bring your HUB to your new home, but have products like door locks or thermostats that you’d rather not spend the time uninstalling. Decoupling your HUB from your current home while leaving your smart products behind is easy:

If you’re moving and taking your HUB with you...

• The first step is to restore the smart products you’re leaving behind to their factory default settings. The process is specific to each device, and you can visit our product page to find the manual for each Wink-compatible product.
• If you will be using the same router, SSID, and Wi-Fi password in your new home, simply plug in the HUB once you arrive and start connecting new products at will! 
• If you are using a new router or have a new SSID/Wi-Fi password, go to the Hub settings page in the Wink app and select ‘Update Wi-Fi’. 
• Once the new credentials have been entered, your HUB will successfully connect to your new network and you can begin pairing new products.

If you don’t have a HUB and are moving into a home with existing smart products...

First, download the Wink app on your iOS or Android device and create an account. 
Then, pick up a Wink HUB on our website, The Home Depot, or Amazon, and follow the in-app instructions to connect it with your Wink account.
From there, you can start connecting the smart home products the previous resident left behind in a pinch.

OPTION 3: TAKE THE HUB AND MOVEABLE PRODUCTS WITH YOU

If your smart home consists of products that are easily moveable - light bulbs, cameras, and plug-in modules - you’re in luck! Transitioning them to your new home, is almost effortless. 

• If you have the same router, SSID, and Wi-Fi password, simply plug the HUB in and start placing your smart products in their new locations. No need to reconnect them to Wink. 
• If you are using a new router or have a new SSID/Wi-Fi password, go to the Hub settings page in the Wink app and select ‘Update Wi-Fi.’ Once the new credentials have been entered, your HUB will successfully connect to your new network and you can begin pairing your products.

Have you recently moved in, or out or a smart home? Feel free to share your own tips in the comments below! 

Spring Cleaning - Smart Home Style

Forget the lion or the lamb, spring is finally here! Now is the perfect time to update your home for the longer days and warmer nights ahead. While the actual spring cleaning may be a bore, adding new products, and taking care of smart products you already have shouldn’t be. Check out the list our team has compiled to start this season off on the right foot:

1. Add smart lights to outdoor fixtures. And while you’re at it, set up a Sunrise/Sunset Schedule in the Wink app. With the days getting longer, you don’t want to burn electricity while it’s still light out. Wink Schedules are a great (and easy) way to avoid that.

2. Switch thermostats to AC mode. As the weather warms, the need to turn on the heat diminishes. Before the temperature skyrockets. make sure your air conditioning is functioning properly, and your smart thermostats are changed to to proper cooling mode. Don’t forget to update your Shortcuts/Robots accordingly!

3: Activate outdoor water lines. If you have a yard, turn on any garden hoses and make sure your Rachio smart sprinkler system is up running. You can create watering zones within the Wink app to prepare the soil for early spring grass seeding, and monitor water usage right from your home.

4: Give your outdoor lighting a colorful refresh. Check out the OSRAM Gardenspot lights. They can be used to light up paths in the yard or even complement the color of what’s blooming in your flower boxes (if you have daffodils sprouting you can adjust them to a soft yellow).

5: Install door/window sensors. With the weather starting to warm up, you’re likely to be opening and shutting doors and windows around the house much more frequently. A few door and window sensors can give you peace of mind by sending an alert to your phone when abnormal activity is detected so you can either investigate, or ignore because you know your house guests are just airing out the downstairs.

6. And of course, break out the elbow grease and start cleaning. Dust light fixtures and fans, sanitize door knobs, wash wall switch plates. Even your automated blinds can use a tune up; most recommend light dusting but some can even be vacuumed. Check the manuals of all your smart products, and be sure to clean each one appropriately. 

Did we forget something? Let us know how you’re updating your home for spring in the comments!

How Smart Homes Can Save on Heating Bills

The air is crisp. The leaves are falling. Fall is here in full force. For many of us up north, that means facing a noticeable uptick in energy bills for the next few months as we crank up the heat in our homes.

According to the Department of Energy, heating and cooling account for nearly half of the average household’s monthly energy bill. Luckily, there are a few ways you can use your smart home to make that bill a little easier on the eyes, and your wallet:

• Install a smart thermostat: If you don’t have one already, now is the perfect time to buy a smart thermostat like the Carrier Côr. With Côr, you can set smart schedules so the heat isn’t on when you’re not home. It has a smart setback feature which lets the thermostat intelligently adapt beyond manual programming for greater efficiency, while still meeting ideal comfort levels. It even uses your home address to gather local weather data so it can make even smarter, energy-saving decisions!

• Check the settings on your water heater: Fun fact: most water heaters run 24/7 and at a scalding / unnecessarily high temperature. Adjusting the settings is easy and can go a long way to saving energy. If you’re in the market, pick up a Rheem EcoNet which can be adjusted from afar through the Wink app to lower your monthly bill even further.

• Create an ‘Energy Saving’ Shortcut or Robot: By bringing together your lightbulbs, Carrier Côr thermostat, and other smart products within a Wink Shortcut, it becomes much easier to turn off or adjust everything. With one tap in the app, you can lower the temperature and turn off the lights for bedtime. Or you can connect products together in a Wink Robot so that when you leave the house in the morning, your HVAC system knows to lower the temperature.

Hopefully this helps keep the wallet a bit fuller this winter!

4 Ways to Make Your Smart Home Part of Halloween

Hard to believe, but Halloween is just around the corner. Whether you plan to be out trick-or-treating with the kids in the neighborhood, dressing up yourself, or hunkering down at home to hand out candy, there are a bunch of ways you can make your smart home part of the night!

Here are a few examples:

Turn your smart light bulbs orange: With just a few Philips Hue bulbs, you can really amplify your home’s Halloween spirit. Try adjusting those closest to your front windows to really get the mood going. Even better, if you have a porch, swap out the bulbs outside. Check out how Wink user Robert Czeizinger from Delaware is doing just that:

Use a door sensor to up the spook factor: If you have a sensor installed on your front door, try this party trick. Set up a Robot in Wink that triggers all the smart bulbs in the front of your house to turn on when the front door is opened (adjust them to orange for maximum effect). Then, make sure the lights are all off when a trick-or-treater approaches, slowly open the door when they knock, and voila! 

See who's at the front door before you answer: If you’re on candy duty, a smart doorbell like Ring can help you distinguish between trick or treaters and the inevitable ding dong ditchers. They feature a camera so you can see who’s at the door right from your phone...and decide if you want to get off of the couch.

Keep an eye out for pesky tee-peers: Let’s face it, they exist, and we may or may not have all done it at one point in time. If you have a smart camera, simply move it to a front window facing the yard. From there, you can quickly see what’s happening from your phone wherever you are.

If you have creative ways that you’re integrating your smart home into Halloween, we want to hear about it! Let us know in the comments.

Smart Home Glossary

With the smart home comes terms, phrases or descriptions that you might not be familiar with. So, we wanted to define, in easy-to-understand terms, five of the more common smart home terms you might encounter.

1. Hub: A smart home hub translates different protocols into a unified language so that all your smart devices can work together.
2. Geofence: Geofencing uses the GPS, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in your smartphone to create a virtual boundary around a real world location. It can then be used to trigger something in your smart home to happen - like your lights or air conditioner turning on - as soon as you (and your phone) enter or exit that boundary.
3. Pairing: Synonymously known as ‘provisioning’ or ‘learning mode,’ this is the process through which your smart devices establish a line of communication with your hub, so that you can monitor and control them through apps like Wink.
4. Platform: A smart home platform is like the foundation of your house or apartment building. It’s the underlying technology layer upon which different products from different brands are integrated together (usually with the help of a hub) and then controlled through a single app. We at Wink consider ourselves to be a smart home platform first and foremost.
5. Protocol: A protocol is a set of standards and rules - we like to think of them as languages - that smart devices use to communicate with one another. Among the more popular protocols are Z-Wave, ZigBee, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Wi-Fi.

Hope this helps! We’ll be adding to this list over time. If there are smart home terms you’d like to better understand, let us know in the comments section!

5 Ways to Make the Most of Your Smart Lights

We’ve seen that many Wink users start out on their smart home journey by installing a few smart light bulbs. With that in mind, we wanted to share five things you can try to get even more out of your bulbs (and make your life easier along the way):

Turn them off when you’re not home:

We’ve all had that “did I turn off the lights?” moment after we’ve left the house. Smart lights eliminate the guesswork. You can quickly check their status within the Wink app and turn them on or off accordingly to save energy and money.

Automatically dim lights at night for better sleep:

We live in an age where bright lights, television, computers and phone screens keep us up late into the night. By scheduling your smart lights (check out OSRAM LIGHTIFY) to slowly dim at night, you can simulate the natural rhythm of the sun to help your body gradually adjust to sleeping. Just a few taps in the Wink app enables your lighting to move from a bright white during the day to a softer yellow at night.

Have your lighting match your mood:

With tunable bulbs, like those from Philips HUE, you can customize the color of your home's lighting to enhance your environment. A full spectrum of color ensures your light is in line with what you're doing at home, whether that's cool blue for morning coffee in the kitchen or a vibrant yellow while reading on the couch.

Save time by using widgets on your phone:

Turning your Wink-compatible lights on and off can be done even faster when you create a Shortcut - consider a Goodnight Shortcut that turns everything off when you’re ready for bed - and enable widgets on your phone. From there, simply swipe down the notification center on your iPhone, or go to the home screen on your Android phone.

Connect lights with your other smart products:

Smart homes can be most beneficial when all of your products are working together. If you have multiple devices, consider setting up a Robot so that one action automatically triggers a series of others. For example, you could have your bedroom lights turn on if smoke is detected to help you wake up and leave the house safely.

Back to School - How the Smart Home Removes Some of the Stress

Between buying new school supplies, sorting out carpool logistics and coping with first-day jitters, back-to-school can be a stressful time to say the least!

While the lives of parents will soon become a lot more hectic, there are a number of ways to easily cut out some of the stress. And you won’t find them in the flashy activity tracker or newest ‘phablet,' but rather in your smart home. 

Here are a few ways how:

• Your child forgot their keys at home: Let’s face it, we’ve all done it once. This is where smart door locks - like the Schlage Touchscreen Deadbolt - can really work their magic. You can give your child a unique code they can use in place of a key and receive an alert when that code is used. And if your child forgets their code, no matter. A quick tap within the Wink app can unlock the front door no matter where you are. 
• You’re sick of returning to a tampered thermostat: Traditional thermostats with lots of buttons are an open invitation for children to make the temperature go haywire. Keep tabs on your home’s climate and schedule it to adjust right when school gets out with a smart thermostat like the Emerson Sensi. You can also get alerted if anyone tries to mess with it.
• You want to make sure everyone got home safe: Smart cameras - like Nest Cam - are a great way to quickly see what’s going on at home. Set one up in your living room or kitchen and connect it with Wink for real time monitoring no matter where you are. It’s a great way to get peace of mind that the kids got home safe and the pets haven’t run off into the wild. 
• Everyone is finally in bed, but is everything turned off?: Sure it’s dark in your bedroom, but what about the downstairs hallway? Was the TV turned off? Is the garage door still open? Create a ‘Good Night’ Shortcut in Wink to lock up the house and turn everything off with just one swipe.

A few simple steps with your smart home can go a long way in re-introducing some sanity to the start of the school year!

5 TIPS TO GET YOU STARTED ON YOUR NEW SMART HOME.

Ready to take the smart home for a spin but not sure where to start? Many have the misconception that the smart home is complicated, inaccessible, or unaffordable. But that’s not the case! Anyone with a smartphone and access to the Internet can have a comprehensive smart home for very little money and effort. While it still may seem a little daunting, we’re here to make the journey as streamlined and smooth as possible. If you’re just starting out, here are five helpful tips to consider:

1. Understand why you want to have a smart home

Is it to save money on energy? To manage home security when you’re away? To keep tabs on your family from afar? Taking the time to answer this question for yourself will go a long way in helping you select which products to purchase.

2. Don’t buy into a closed platform

Before diving in, check to make sure the platform you’re looking at works with a wide variety of products (locks, lights, garage door openers, etc.) from leading, trusted brands. This will enable you to more easily determine what works best for you and your lifestyle, while giving you far more opportunities to add to your smart home ecosystem over the years. Wink connects with hundreds of devices from scores of leading brands including Cree, Nest and Chamberlain.

3. Start small

People think you have to invest thousands of dollars and purchase tons of devices to have a comprehensive smart home. We strongly believe that you should start out with a few connected devices (or even just one), and add more over time. For example, a few smart light bulbs can be turned on from your phone for added security if you’re having a late night at work, or be programmed to turn off automatically when you’re ready for bed.

4. Select products from the brands you trust

You’d be surprised by the number of recognizable brands that are making smart home devices. From GE to Schlage to Philips, leaders in product categories are working together to make the smart home a reality. When building your own smart home, stick with the companies you know. It’s always best to have a trusted partner in crime in case you ever need to troubleshoot or ask questions!

5. Utilize triggers and automation

Most smart home platforms let you group multiple products together so they perform at once with a tap on your phone. Use it! Automation is one of the best perks of having a smart home. For example, if you’re going to bed, you could trigger your lights to go off, blinds to lower, and thermostat to adjust—all from your smartphone. How’s that for convenience?