Smart Technology in Interior Design

Picture the scene: your morning begins with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee in the air, the blinds gently ascend and brighten the room whilst the overhead lighting gives way to beneficial natural illumination. Your favourite music is drifting through the house, the humidity and temperature are maintaining themselves at perfect levels, and, as you leave through the front door, it locks itself behind you - ready to automatically unlock itself when you arrive home. All of these things, and so many more, are taken care of by smart technology.

The concept can make your life significantly easier, but can it also extend to your interior design goals? Can it transform your space aesthetically into one that you love and even one that regularly changes to suit your mood and desired atmosphere?

We would say yes, but we’re a little bit biased. In this blog post, we hope to convince you that smart technology has an important part to play when it comes to interior design, but first, it’s important to clearly define what smart technology in the home means.

What do we mean by smart technology in the home?

Smart technology in the home refers to the integration and interconnectivity of intelligent and automatic devices that can enhance different aspects of daily life. It encompasses a wide range of things including automatic lighting systems, integrated entertainment suites, door locks, heating, air conditioning, security cameras, and almost any appliance you can think of.

Smart home technology has been featured in plenty of films and TV - including Tony Stark’s space-age J.A.R.V.I.S (voiced by Paul Bettany)in Iron Man and the outlandish Back to the Future Part II - but its capabilities are not limited to the silver screen. Instead, they exist in our everyday lives and continue to evolve as our technology improves and our needs change.

For many people, those needs include the need to make their house a home through effective and impressive interior design. This then begs the question…

How can smart technology enhance interior design?

In the world of interior design, smart home technology has been quite transformative, encouraging bolder, more dramatic concepts to come to life, and blending timeless aesthetics with time-saving functionality. Here are a few of the ways that it’s doing exactly that.

Smart lighting

Climbing out of your favourite armchair just as you were getting comfortable or tearing yourself away from a show just as you get to the juicy part, you wonder if there is a better way to illuminate your home.

A smart lighting system could be the answer that you are looking for. Far from an on-off solution to darkness, you might programme your lights to slowly compensate for the reduced light levels, making the changeover from daylight to evening a much more gentle one. But lighting isn’t restricted to lamps and overhead illumination, it can also highlight architectural features by spotlighting pillars or vertical wooden beams, for example, or illuminate the edge of a particular piece of art or textile that you love and want to showcase to friends and family.

Designers have known for a long time that light - specifically its intensity and warmth (or lack of it) - has a substantial impact on colours. Because natural light can be so changeable, you might like to compensate for the changes by introducing a smart lighting system that ensures a harmonious and consistent colour palette throughout the day. Alternatively, you might programme the light to reflect activity: bright, invigorating, cooler light throughout the working day, and dimmed, warmer light to invite you into the relaxing evening.

Smart light systems can be as versatile as you like, and they’re not just limited to the indoors. For many people, the outside world is their passion, an area that can all too easily become shrouded in darkness. Spotlighting a specific raised bed, a piece of outdoor art, or a seating area can drag the viewer’s attention across the space, making it a feature even at night time. Aside from illuminating to enhance the aesthetics of the garden, you could also deploy a motion-sensor lighting system that brightens the path as your guests navigate it, safely guiding them across the greenery.

Smart shading

Balancing privacy with the desire for natural illumination can sometimes be quite tricky. We might want to look out at a particularly impressive view - even incorporate its appearance into our design vision - but we might not necessarily want that view (and those who occupy it) to look back at us and into our homes.

A smart shading system can come to the rescue, detecting light levels inside and out to deploy blinds and curtains in the appropriate manner. It can also work in tandem with an artificial light system to change the warmth, brightness and temperature of illumination in a room, all of which contribute to our interpretation of colours and textures within a design. The shades and curtains, too, can be customised to add to the overall atmosphere you hope to create within a space.

Minimalistic interfaces
Gone are the days when a smart home system required a control panel that looked like it came straight from a NASA rocket launch. Today, controls are easily recessed into the wall, can take the form of an unobtrusive, portable sleek device, and could even be eliminated entirely, replaced instead by motion detection or voice receivers that activate technologies based on your hand movements or a particular phrase.

As a result, a control panel is no longer the white elephant in your interior design project that it once was. This means that you can focus on colour, texture, lines, and architectural principles, without having to accommodate a clunky box with lots of bright buttons and dials. On the other hand, because these controls are quite stylish, their appearance and even prominence could contribute to the project by making the space feel especially modern. Placing the controls in an easy-to-spot location also has the added benefit of being easy to find for your guests.

Using audio to elevate the design

Interior design might be about how a room appears to us, but you can enhance the concept with the addition of a smart audio system. Imagine Vivaldi following you from one room to another, Sinatra serenading you in the bathroom or the Smiths providing a backdrop to your household chores. Hearing these pieces of music as you gaze at your design can elevate the experience to a new level, making colours feel more vibrant and giving depth to your overall enjoyment.

You might also, for example, have divided areas within an open-plan room for different activities; there might be a desk for working, a seating area from which to watch TV and a kitchen. If someone is working at the desk, they might want quiet, whereas those watching TV might like the volume to be loud, and the chef in the kitchen might prefer to listen to the radio, rather than the TV. With a standard audio system, these activities simply don’t work together. With a smart system, however, you can use ‘zoning’ to isolate audio in one area from another.

Smart mirrors and pictures

Mirrors might be able to tell you who is the fairest of them all, but they also have an important part to play in your interior design efforts. They can reflect patterns, make a space look much larger, and draw the observer’s attention to a particular area (such as a deliciously decorative ceiling, for example). The mirrors of today, however, those that are termed ‘smart mirrors’, can go even further by displaying information (such as the time, weather, and any unread emails), suggesting outfits, and even acting as the central hub for all of your other devices. 

But how does a smart mirror relate to interior design? We’re glad you asked. A smart mirror can illuminate a space and can even display an image or series of images when its reflective qualities aren’t required. The digital artwork that you display can change depending on your mood and taste, allowing you to thematically select a Monet, a Rembrandt or even a Picasso depending on the occasion.

Conclusion

Whether it’s adapting the warmth of your uplights to the time of day, introducing audio that matches the vibrancy of your colour scheme, or making a space feel modern with the addition of a sleek control panel or an interactive, changeable mirror, smart home technologies can undoubtedly contribute towards your domestic design goals. Good interior design shouldn’t just be seen; it should be lived. Speak to our expert team who can help you help you to bring a space to life today.