The thought of working from home can seem like a really intimidating and unusual experience for many people because it is so new for so many Americans today. In reality, at-home offices have the potential to provide you with an awesome and more relaxed working experience, allow you more control over your working conditions and external distractions, and can potentially cut out your expensive and time-consuming commute to work! Additionally with the amazing new smart technology devices on the market now, there is no limit to how awesome and successful your time working from home can be!
When it comes to working in general, reducing distractions is key to being successful in whatever it is you are doing. So finding devices that will help you reduce clutter and unnecessary distractions is highly recommended. The market is full of IoT (Internet of Things) devices to help you with this. From our experience as a smart home company we have learned that a lot of these devices are so worth the investment while there are also a good amount of products that are seriously pointless. Today, we’ll tell you which smart devices will actually improve your working from home environment.
WIFI and Connectivity
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Having a good WIFI connection should be your first priority when beginning your work-from-home lifestyle. If you are working from a small-ish apartment or studio, a single router with antennas should be enough to give you good connectivity. However, if you are working from your house which is on the larger size with multiple rooms, one router will definitely not suffice. For our clients who are living in a big home and are constantly struggling with connecting to the internet, we suggest investing in a WAP. And no, we are not talking about the Cardi B song. A WAP stands for a Wireless Access Point and it works by connecting to your router, over the Ethernet, and communicates with your Ethernet-less devices over wireless frequencies. Basically, WAP(s) are successful in providing your home with instant access to wifi regardless of how large your house is. When it comes to working from home, being able to connect to the internet, pull up information quickly, and respond to people through email, texts, or phone calls is at the utmost importance, and wouldn’t be as easy to do without good wifi.
Smart Speaker
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Before investing in anything else, do yourself a favor and buy a smart speaker for your home office. Today there are tons of smart speakers available and some of our favorites include the Amazon Echo, Google Assistant, and the Bose Home. A smart speaker triples as your digital personal assistant, an extension of your phone, and a hub to control all your other smart devices. They help with productivity because you can use your voice to control them rather than having to pick up your phone which opens the door to other distractions. For example, let’s say you want to play some classical music while you’re working. You can simply tell your speaker to play the music for you so you don’t have to pick up your phone and get pulled into answering the multiple texts and emails you have. The two most popular smart speakers come from Google and Amazon and they both have awesome features. Google Assistant is a speaker that is featured within the Google Home products. Google Home is available on more than 5,0000 smart home devices which includes Logitech connected cameras, LG home appliances, and General Electric bulbs.
Google Home is a great option for synching many services together such as Google Calendar and Google Keep. Once you’ve synced these devices to your Google Assistant speaker, you can do so much more such as creating to-do lists, creating reminders, and streaming music or white noise with Spotify, Google Play, or Apple Music. On the other hand, Amazon Echo lets you manage calendars, create tasks, listen to music or podcasts, order supplies, and even set reminders and timers so you can easily switch from one task to another without missing a beat. There are so many possibilities with smart speakers today.
If you are just transitioning to working from home or simply looking for some tips to enhance your productivity at home, start by making sure you have a great WIFI connection and a smart device such as a smart speaker. Once you begin to install smart home devices you can easily add and sync up more devices over time.
