Smart Apartments aren’t an amenity of the future, they are an amenity that can be easily deployed across your communities today.
Knowing which Smart Apartment devices are the best bang for your buck and how to deploy them across your property can be a big headache. But being an early adopter will make your communities stand apart from the competition.
A Smart Hub:
The smart hub is the brains of your Smart Apartment system. It is what communicates with your Enterprise Dashboard to control all the other devices that are installed in your communities.
Some features you will want to look for will be a hub that has cellular capabilities and a battery backup. Both of these features will ensure you are able to communicate with your devices in the case of a power outage. With residents moving in and out cellular capability is a must for a Smart Apartment to ensure you don’t have to rely on your residents WiFi or incur the cost of installing community wide WiFi. Even if you have community wide WiFi installed, putting these devices on the network can slow down the signal for other devices.
Smart Thermostat:
A smart thermostat is a great addition to a Smart Apartment ecosystem. It is great at keeping costs down in common areas and vacant units. Thinkenergy.com reports, “According to manufacturers, smart thermostats could help users take anywhere from 10 to 15 percent off their heating and cooling bills.”
Not only will a smart thermostat reduce energy costs, they will make your residents much happier. Being able to remotely control the thermostat helps residents feel even more in control of their homes and having “green apartments” is a great selling point. In a survey done by AMLI Residential they found, “The 2020 survey results revealed that 83% of residents believe living in a green apartment is beneficial to their health.”
Smart Locks:
Smart locks provide several benefits from easily giving access to new residents, simply deleting codes out of the system, reducing the need to re-key locks, to having a logged activity report of who accessed which lock and when.
When asked in a survey conducted by Wakefield Research they found, “86 percent are willing to pay more for a "smart" apartment,” and, “On average, millennial renters would pay about a fifth more for smart home features.” Being able to increase your rent by 20% is a large jump but is a great way to fight inflation.
Water Management:
The average insurance claim in the USA for water and freeze damage is $11,098. What if I told you that having some very inexpensive water sensors and a smart water shutoff valve could reduce that likelihood. A good Water Management solution is often looked over in a Smart Apartment ecosystem but it could be the solution that saves you the most money.
Smart Lighting:
It could be argued that smart lighting solutions are some of the most fun solutions in a Smart Apartment ecosystem. Being able to set up automations like “turn on the lights at sunset” can be a small pleasure of life.
While smart lighting can be fun it also can provide energy savings by turning off lights if motion is not detected in the room after 30 minutes. Or it can deter potential intruders by turning on a sunset so it looks like someone is home.
These 5 devices on their own are good, but when combined in a Smart Apartment ecosystem they are beyond great. These devices can increase your revenue, decrease your expense, and drive NOI for your portfolio. If you are interested in learning more about our Smart Apartment solution click here.