When you’re at home, you may expect a lazy and easy lifestyle that the bedroom light on the second floor can be turned off while you sitting on the sofa on the first floor. When you’re not home, a little nagging doubts may start to crowd your mind. Did I turn off the fan? Did I set the security alarm? What are the kids doing when I’m away? Own a smart home, you could quiet all of these worries with a quick glance on your mobile phone or a tap on one control source. You’re able to connect home appliances and smart devices in your home so they can interact with each other and with you. Additionally, a smart home can save up to 15% of your electricity bill per month and will save you more money. Additionally, a smart home can save up to 15% of your electricity bill per month and will save you more money.
With smart devices,  the question of how to control your home then comes into play? Below are 10 ways of how to control a smart home.

1. Physical switch control

Before accessing a smart home, homeowners often use physical wall switches to make the light turn on and off. It’s a little unaccustomed for homeowners that a smart lifestyle crops up by their sides. Moreover, when your smart home control system runs in an unsmooth way or you want to control the light with losing internet connection, a physical wall switch will appear to be particularly vital in this case.

SONOFF MINIR2 allows you to connect dry contact sensors and various types of external switches to control your light or home appliances,  such as SPDT switches and NC/NO push button switches. Enable the LAN Control feature and the light is able to be turned on and off through the external ordinary switch connected with MINIR2 in the case of the network outage.

2. App remote control

App-based smart home technology uses your Cloud to communicate with the home network. Convenience is a strong motivator for homeowners to switch to a smart home, but there are far more benefits to a smart home than ease alone. Mobile APP control seems like a basic smart control way in smart home technology. When you’re away home, the mobile phone is always taken with you, so it is absolutely a no-brainer to control the home appliances with a tap on the app of your mobile phone.

All SONOFF smart devices are controllable that you can manage the home appliances connected with SONOFF smart devices in eWeLink app. The home appliances that can be controlled refer to roller shutter, lights, blinds, heater and so on. The most convenient benefit of App remote control is that you can check the status of home appliances and turn on or off them through a single tap on App, which helps save money on your monthly electricity bill, and enhances security when you’re away from home.

3. 433MHz RF control

433MHz is a wireless radio band and a frequency on which household devices are allowed to send the signal.  433MHz is used to control switches, motorized roller blinds, garage door, ceiling fans with lamps, lights and all other sort of devices. Compared to infrared, it has an obvious advantage as a remote control technology that it can go through the wall. Some smart home companies use 433MHz to make products that have a remote control. Examples are RFR2 DIY smart switch, RFR3 DIY smart switch, 4CHPROR3 4-channel smart switch with RF control, SlampherR2 smart lamp holder, RM433 RF remote, some of TX  series smart touch wall switches, T2EURF wireless RF remote, DW2-RF wireless door/window sensor, PIR3-RF motion sensor from SONOFF. These devices adopt 433MHz wireless technology to control the connected home appliances. The overall range is the biggest advantage of 433MHz technology. 433MHz is a very low frequency compared to Z-Wave (868-928MHz), Zigbee (2.4 GHz) or Wi-Fi (2.4 or 5.8 GHz), which means it holds less information but is better able to move through the wall.

4. Passive Infrared control

The motion sensor in your home is like another pair of eyes watching the places you can’t see. The most common motion sensor used in home is a passive infrared sensor, called THE PIR sensor. The type of sensors are used in home security or are used to provide the convenience that the light can be activated or inactive through detecting human movements, such as SONOFF SNZB-03 ZigBee motion sensor and PIR3 motion sensor. Both these two motion sensors can be installed on the hallway, corridor, balcony and even in the corner with a 3M adhesive or screws to create a scene that the light is activated when a movement is detected, otherwise, these two sensors gives you the ability to build your smart home security system, which there is an alarm message being pushed to your mobile phone when any suspicious movement is detected.

5. Central scene control

Interact with your home through a smart control panel or in Home Assistant. One of the most common ways people communicate with smart home systems is the smart control panel. It is more than a handful of buttons and an LCD display, and is the main hub that creates a seamless smart home experience. With it, you can easily control thermostat settings, manage all smart devices in your home to turn on and off them on a control source.

Plus, Home Assistant is a free and open-source platform for smart home that is designed to be the central control system for smart home devices. You can access this control platform via a web-based user interface and add smart devices into one place to manage.

In SONOFF, smart devices with DIY mode can be integrated into HA through mDNS discovery, and other smart devices without DIY mode allow you to use “eWeLink Add-on” to add them into HA  through binding with your eWelink account. Thus, either of control ways is able to put your SONOFF smart devices into a place of your home to gain easier management.
See our “NSPanel smart scene wall switch”. This is a brand-new product that allows you to place your home in a place to manage.
You can click here to learn about how to add SONOFF on Home Assistant.

6. Voice-activated control

Voice-activated control is common for us to assume that speech recognition is fairly straightforward which is because it offers a hands-free way to operate lights and home appliances when we get hands wet, hands, get arms full, and juggling multiple household tasks at once in daily life, or just in the middle of other things when the doorbell rings. At these moments, you don’t need to stop what you’re doing, voice control can help you free your hands up to get to the various controls.

Almost all SONOFF smart devices have the availability of voice-activated devices through working with voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Yandex Alice. Such as SONOFF DUALR3 allows you to open or close the curtain through a spoken command, SONOFF DW2-Wi-Fi supports to check the opening and closing status of door or window with a voice command, SONOFF TH10/16 gives you the ability to check the temperature and humidity of devices with a simple command, etc.

By virtue of SONOFF smart devices and your own smart voice assistant, your home appliances will understand you and carry out your command to get you and home appliances a hands-free interaction.

7. Cross-device control

How easy and convenient is your experience on the control of device? Is your experience the same when you control the home appliance through different devices, on a mobile device or a smart wearable device? Which one do you prefer on smart control on the mobile phone and the smart watch (e.g. Apple Watch)?

When it comes to cross-device control, it seems easier for users to access their smart home. Imagine that you can control your home appliances on the Apple Watch, which means that you can not only track health and fitness, send messages and call, but run your smart home on it.

Cross-device control refers to technology that enables the control of users across multiple devices such as smartphones, PCs, desktops, tablets, smart devices like Chromecast and Apple TV, wearables and more. It enables you to have the ability to manage multiple devices through various devices. For instance, SONOFF single gang smart devices can be added to Apple Watch so users can control the home appliances connected to them via tapping on their Apple Watches once the Apple Watch’s account is linked to SONOFF’s mobile app. No matter where you are, your home appliances can be always controlled on your wrist anytime, including single device control, group control and smart scene control, etc.

You can click here to learn about how to control on Apple Watch.

8. Smart scene control

Scene control is one of the fundamental ways in smart home control. Scene control is also called scene setting that indicates you can customize a device to control a scene that you set, for example, the hallway is lighted when you push the door at night. Using scene control in smart home system also simplifies your routine by allowing you to activate multiple settings with one-button commands. The scene is usually used in custom-programmed automation systems, and even you can DIY smart home system for varying degrees of scene creation. For SONOFF SNZB-01 Wi-Fi wireless switch button and 4CHPROR3 4-gang smart switch, a scene can be created that SNZB-01 can work as a moveable RF remote to control your blinds connected 4CHPROR3 in your home. One of the bonus elements of setting scenes in home automation system is that the scenes are not limited to the scene with a single device as the perform condition. SONOFF SNZB-02 temperature and humidity sensor can be the trigger condition in a scene to make more than one device turn on or off at the same time. As shown in the picture below, when SNZB02 detects the temperature is not less than 28?, then the smart plug and Fan are turn off simultaneously.

9. Web-based control

In addition to classic remote control function through the mobile app on the smartphones, there are many devices can be controlled remotely through a web browser. Generally, the web-based technology to remote control devices does not require you to download and install anything, just access the website and log in to your account.

Before logging into the webpage of the mobile app, there is a key point that you have to consider is compatibility. SONOFF’s mobile app “eWeLink” has a web version that has strong compatibility that almost every SONOFF can be controlled on eWeLink web V4.2.0. On the web version, you can check device status and control devices on a web client.

10. Widget control

Widgets are a vital aspect of home screen customization. With widget control, you can get an at-a-glance view of the smart device, smart scene or the customized group that is accessible right from the home screen of your smartphone. You’re able to move or delete widgets across your home screen. To make you quickly access the control of SONOFF smart devices, just simply tap “Add to Siri” in eWelink app to add the devices or scenes as the widgets of the home screen to control!
You can click here to learn about how to use widgets to control your home on iOS 14.