EE - Smart Home Technology

Smart home technology is changing life for British families

Smart home technology is helping parents to juggle jobs and home life – and even helping people cope with challenges such as ADHD. Families are now installing ‘smart’ gadgets (electronics that are connected to the internet) ranging from smart doorbell cameras to connected cat flaps to improve the way they live.

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The range of technology and the everyday issues they solve are far ranging and households across the country are starting to use smart home technology in very different ways – from a family whose Christmas lights switch off if you say the word, “humbug”, to a woman who says that smart home technology helps her juggle a busy job and family. The benefits of smart home technology can be as simple as feeling safe, thanks to a connected camera which stores footage online, to saving on bills by having room-by-room control of heating. When it comes to finding the right tech for you, the new EE Tech Store has tools and services that can help you, and there are exclusive offers for EE customers.

Smart home technology has a surprisingly long history: with the cupboard-sized ECHO IV (Electronic Computing Home Operator) first installed in 1966 by a Westinghouse Electric engineer in the US. ECHO IV could control the TV, air conditioning and the stereo and did simple educational computer programs (although it was the size of a cupboard and drew three kilowatts of power). For decades thereafter, smart home technology, such as multi-room sound systems or automated blinds, existed, but the tech was extremely expensive, made by specialist manufacturers and largely confined to a rich few. The dawn of the smartphone era and ubiquitous WiFi suddenly made smart home technology accessible to ordinary people. Britons first fell for smart speakers, followed closely by smart thermostats and lighting, according to YouGov research. The number of smart homes in the UK has tripled since 2017, and looks set to continue growing at 30 per cent this year, with 5.7 million households set to own at least one smart home gadget by the end of 2023, according to Statista’s Market Insights report. EE full fibre broadband allows families to connect up to 190 devices at once, making it easy to make a home become ‘smart’. It delivers a fast connection even when several devices are connected, with speeds of up to 1.6Gbps. The way households use these gadgets isn’t simply telling a smart speaker to play a favourite track: one in six users already uses these gadgets from outside the home, taking control of everything from heating to cooking, according to research by Smart Home Week.

Smart home technology has been widely hailed as game-changing for people with limited mobility or living with disabilities, as it allows many home functions to be automated or controlled simply from a smartphone screen. A 2022 report by the All-Party Group for Assistive Technology described smart home tech as a “huge opportunity for disabled and older people to take control of their lives”. One woman who says that smart home technology helped her manage her autism and ADHD is writer and cyber security expert Lisa Ventura MBE, who says it has been a “marriage saver”. Lisa was awarded an MBE for services to cyber security and diversity in King Charles’s first birthday honours list, having been diagnosed with autism in 2018 and ADHD in January 2023. She says that she struggled with focusing on household tasks until her web-developer husband helped her set up automated dashboards to control technology including the heating, washing machine and lighting in her home. He set up smart thermostats, smart light bulbs, energy monitoring devices and smart speakers, with phrases such as: “Turn on Poppy light”, which turns on an LED light over the crate where their dog Poppy sleeps. She says: “My husband would get very frustrated with me for starting a task but not finishing it and abandoning it halfway through, for leaving lights on, or turning them off when other people were in the room.” Her husband has automated household gadgets with routines to ensure that they turn themselves off automatically after a period of time if she forgets about them. "I also use smart home technology for setting reminders for things I need to do, for example, if I am cooking boiled eggs, I set a 10-minute countdown timer when they are ready, otherwise I would forget about them and boil the saucepan dry.” Lisa says she can’t take medication for her ADHD – due to a clash with eye drops she has to take for eye pressure – so having the technology able to help with her ADHD has been an “absolute game changer” in her home life. She says: “My husband has coded and set up the dashboards that we run on a tablet that lives in our kitchen. These allow us to turn on and off our washing machine, dishwasher, and tumble dryer. “He and I also joke that he should put together a ‘smart home manual’ for me, detailing all the technology we have in our house and how it works in case anything happens to him.” For families, EE’s Smart Hub Plus makes it easy to boost your network, set up guest networks, and ensure the house is running as efficiently as possible – with the ability to ‘group’ devices and control them together. Lisa says: “I have time blindness from my ADHD, so I set reminders and automations to ensure I never miss a call or meeting. For me, it works an absolute treat, otherwise I would miss vital appointments. “Smart home technology can improve the independence and quality of life greatly for those who are neurodivergent and live with conditions such as autism and ADHD as I do.” She says that anyone thinking of installing smart home technology should think about their needs and shop carefully, thinking about how the tech can help in their day-to-day lives.

‘Smart home tech helps me manage my autism and ADHD’

My husband has coded and set up the dashboards that we run on a tablet that lives in our kitchen. These allow us to turn on and off our washing machine, dishwasher, and tumble dryer.

How smart home technology is changing every room in the house

Hover on tiles to learn more

Children’s bedroom

Smart speakers allow parents to stay in touch with children, calling them down for dinner by announcing through the speaker

Smart cat flaps allow families to ensure that cats don’t wander onto the road during busy times

Cat flap

Smart alarm clocks wake up users with gently brightening screens, reading the morning news

Bedroom

Smart doorbells mean you will never miss a delivery again as you can talk to delivery men ‘through’ the doorbell’s speaker

Doorway

Smart heating systems learn your habits automatically so the house is warm when you wake up, and you don’t waste energy when you are out

Thermostat/radiator

Smart lighting means you can turn off lights in the whole house with a simple voice command

Lights

Smart blinds can be set to open automatically at certain times of day, or controlled directly via an app

Blinds

Connected appliances mean that the family can set the cooker on when not at home, so families can arrive to a perfectly cooked meal

Kitchen

Many smart home devices connect users to previously ‘dumb’ devices such as heating systems and lighting – meaning that users can take control from anywhere via their phone. For parents juggling busy working lives with family responsibilities, this means smart home technology enables them to look after the house, even when on the move. One mother and entrepreneur who says smart home technology helps her to cope is Harriet Kelsall, a jeweller and single mum who says that she ‘started gradually with smart technology.

‘My apps help me juggle work and family’

You don’t have to pre-think or turn down the heating before you go out, so I save money and I know I’m doing my best for the environment

In the future, generative AI may mean that every home has an AI assistant that families can talk to and control everything from lighting to the TV

An AI butler

Multiple companies are currently developing humanoid robots to do chores in the home from washing up to tidying up

Robots

Virtual and augmented reality are set to be the new frontier of entertainment, offering households the chance to lose themselves in personalised programming

Virtual-reality rooms

The potential future of smart technology

Hover on tiles to learn more

Homes of the future may analyse people's behaviour and offer tips on how to stay healthy

A personal doctor

The homes of the future will ensure occupiers don't use too much energy, and will have solar panels and home batteries so they can sell energy back to the grid on hot days

Green homes

Smart speakers can work in multiple rooms in the house, allowing families to communicate – even with family members outside the home. They are particularly useful for families with young children: research by Kantar found that parents with primary school children are 82 per cent more likely to have smart speakers, and parents with secondary school children are 62 per cent more likely. The gadgets are an invaluable tool for staying in touch with young children, says Deep Bajwa, a luxury strategist and consultant from Sunbury-on-Thames. Deep and her husband Bhavin started off with just one smart speaker to play music – then added smaller speakers through the house as they had children. None of it was deliberate,” Deep says. "It wasn’t a conscious effort to buy everything all at once. In my job, I focus on delivering excellent experiences, and I realise smart speakers were a way to upgrade the way our family communicated.” “We came to this house and realised we were shouting up the stairs constantly, and we didn’t really want to be,” says Deep. “We speak to the kids in their rooms to say it’s dinner time or to ask what they are doing – but they do use it to reply to us which we get very annoyed about.” Deep says that the family uses their smart speaker when doing homework together – and to stay in touch with her parents. EE’s Smart Hub Plus allows parents to control devices from phones to laptops to iPads easily in one go, applying parental internet controls or turning off WiFi. Guests can also be invited to share the WiFi instantly using a QR code thanks to Smart Hub Plus. “My parents are retired, so we bought them a smart speaker with the screen,” says Deep. “My kids can video-call their grandparents in our kitchen. They don’t have a phone, they are too young, but they can use this thing themselves. If they have a babysitter, they can call us.”

‘It helps keep our family in touch’

My kids can video-call their grandparents in our kitchen. They don’t have a phone, they are too young, but they can use this thing themselves.

What can EE do for you?

EE helps to make homes smarter with a variety of connected home packages that include everything from reliable, high-speed broadband to advanced home security solutions with an emergency response time of 60 seconds. For older people, EE offers a wealth of resources, help and advice. This includes computer tips, and advice on avoiding online scams – for example, EE’s partnership with Norton protects against viruses, ransomware, spyware, malware and other online threats.

Learn more

Smart home technology holds the potential to reduce energy use in the home by up to 30 per cent, according to the International Energy Agency. With energy prices still high, and 76 per cent of UK adults concerned about climate change, smart home technology offers a way for families to take control of energy use. Smart plug devices allow families to control any device with an app and their WiFi network, and mean that it’s easy to integrate any device into a home network for voice control. Gordon Weston lives in West Linton, Scotland, with his wife and two children, and says that smart plugs are now cheap enough for anyone to take advantage. The smart plugs allow Gordon’s family to switch off TVs and stereos when not in use to save energy. “I’m too lazy to walk down the stairs otherwise,” Gordon admits. He says he has commands set up so he can say: ‘’Let there be dark,” and the power goes off all through the house. Gordon says the flexibility of smart plugs means he can create fun functions using his smart speakers. The family also uses the speakers for alarms and reminders, and to nag his 15-year-old twin daughters to come downstairs. "We use the tech to set screen-time limits for the girls, because otherwise they’re on them all the time,” Gordon says. For families, WiFi controls within the EE app mean that parents can switch off children’s devices when it comes to bedtime. “But like most teenagers, they are great with tech, so they constantly use the home automation things and alarms. I think smart home tech is just becoming the norm – that’s how people operate,” says Gordon.

‘Smart plugs help me control my electricity use’

We use the tech to set screen-time limits for the girls, because otherwise they’re on them all the time

The convenience and ‘special powers’ offered by smart home gadgets mean that British households are adopting the technology at record speed – and this is set to continue.

The future of smart homes

users will have at least some smart home technology, according to Statista’s Market Insights Report

Smart home technology holds the promise of changing people’s daily lives, dealing with challenges and helping families communicate, while also controlling energy use. For families in Britain, it’s already a life-changing technology, and that’s only going to grow in future.

2028

34.8

million

around

To find out how your home can run smarter with smart tech

Check out EE Home

The evolution of smart tech in the home

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Produced by Telegraph Media Group Project Manager: Tom Gadd | Writer: Rob Waugh | Commissioning editor: Rupert Murray Photography: Amit Leon, Hayley Benoit and John Garon | Sub editors: Tim Cumming and Viv Watts Video and photography manager: Alex Kelly | Designer: Sylvia Szekely Web editor: Natalie Wain | Illustrator: Jamie Cullen at Making Pictures

Lisa Ventura MBE says smart home technology helps with managing her autism and ADHD

Smart home devices help mother and entrepreneur Harriet Kelsall manage all aspects of her life

The Bajwa family uses smart speakers and gadgets to communicate with each other around the house

Gordon Weston and his family use smart plugs to control devices via apps

The benefits of smart home technology range from feeling safe and connected to saving money on bills

Smart home technology has been widely hailed as game-changing for people with limited mobility or living with disabilities, as it allows many home functions to be automated or controlled simply from a smartphone screen. A 2022 report by the All-Party Group for Assistive Technology described smart home tech as a “huge opportunity for disabled and older people to take control of their lives”. One woman who says that smart home technology helped her manage her autism and ADHD is writer and cyber security expert Lisa Ventura MBE, who says it has been a “marriage saver”. Lisa was awarded an MBE for services to cyber security and diversity in King Charles’s first birthday honours list, having been diagnosed with autism in 2018 and ADHD in January 2023. She says that she struggled with focusing on household tasks until her web-developer husband helped her set up automated dashboards to control technology including the heating, washing machine and lighting in her home. He set up smart thermostats, smart light bulbs, energy monitoring devices and smart speakers, with phrases such as: “Turn on Poppy light”, which turns on an LED light over the crate where their dog Poppy sleeps. She says: “My husband would get very frustrated with me for starting a task but not finishing it and abandoning it halfway through, for leaving lights on, or turning them off when other people were in the room.” Her husband has automated household gadgets with routines to ensure that they turn themselves off automatically after a period of time if she forgets about them. "I also use smart home technology for setting reminders for things I need to do, for example, if I am cooking boiled eggs, I set a 10-minute countdown timer when they are ready, otherwise I would forget about them and boil the saucepan dry.” Lisa says she can’t take medication for her ADHD — due to a clash with eye drops she has to take for eye pressure — so having the technology able to help with her ADHD has been an “absolute game changer” in her home life. She says: “My husband has coded and set up the dashboards that we run on a tablet that lives in our kitchen. These allow us to turn on and off our washing machine, dishwasher, and tumble dryer. “He and I also joke that he should put together a ‘smart home manual’ for me, detailing all the technology we have in our house and how it works in case anything happens to him.” For families, EE’s Smart Hub Plus makes it easy to boost your network, set up guest networks, and ensure the house is running as efficiently as possible — with the ability to ‘group’ devices and control them together. Lisa says: “I have time blindness from my ADHD, so I set reminders and automations to ensure I never miss a call or meeting. For me, it works an absolute treat, otherwise I would miss vital appointments. “Smart home technology can improve the independence and quality of life greatly for those who are neurodivergent and live with conditions such as autism and ADHD as I do.” She says that anyone thinking of installing smart home technology should think about their needs and shop carefully, thinking about how the tech can help in their day-to-day lives.

Smart cat flaps allow families to ensure that cats don’t wander onto the road during busy times

Cat flap

Smart alarm clocks wake up users with gently brightening screens, reading the morning news

Bedroom

Smart doorbells mean you will never miss a delivery again as you can talk to delivery men ‘through’ the doorbell’s speaker

Doorway

Smart heating systems learn your habits automatically so the house is warm when you wake up, and you don’t waste energy when you are out

Thermostat/radiator

Smart lighting means you can turn off lights in the whole house with a simple voice command

Lights

Smart blinds can be set to open automatically at certain times of day, or controlled directly via an app

Blinds

Connected appliances mean that the family can set the cooker on when not at home, so families can arrive to a perfectly cooked meal

Kitchen

Many smart home devices connect users to previously ‘dumb’ devices such as heating systems and lighting — meaning that users can take control from anywhere via their phone. For parents juggling busy working lives with family responsibilities, this means smart home technology enables them to look after the house, even when on the move. One mother and entrepreneur who says smart home technology helps her to cope is Harriet Kelsall, a jeweller and single mum who says that she ‘started gradually with smart technology. She says: "I’m a single mum and I also run the UKs leading bespoke jewellery company — Harriet Kelsall Bespoke Jewellery — so I'm out a lot. So I'm trying to manage everything and I also have an Airbnb flat that helps pay my mortgage. I’m always trying to juggle all of those things. My hours can be quite unpredictable.” Harriet says smart home technology saves her from having to think about things such as heating. “You don’t have to pre-think or turn down the heating before you go out,” she says. “So I save money and I know I’m doing my best for the environment.” Harriet’s two teenage children are in and out of the house at different times, and she is able to control the heating in their bedrooms, rather than having to run up and down the house switching radiators on and off. She uses programmed shortcuts on her phone to turn on pumps and lights via voice control, and then uses apps to adjust individual rooms. “The ability to turn down the heating in one room by half a degree or a degree can make the most enormous difference if it's just for a couple of hours, you know, even so that it sort of gives you a lot more power than a conventional central heating system as well,” she says. EE’s Advanced Web Protect helps to ensure the security of smart devices such as smart doorbells and cameras, ensuring that criminals can’t interfere with them. Harriet’s children particularly enjoy the smart cat flap. "One of our cats was run over, because we live on quite a busy road. And so we're able to lock the cat flap at the times of day when it's busy.” The cat flap pings the family’s phones when cats go in and out (based on their microchips) so everyone gets a message saying: “Luna just came in the cat flap.” Harriet says: “My son loves seeing those notifications when he is at school.”

In the future, generative AI may mean that every home has an AI assistant that families can talk to and control everything from lighting to the TV

An AI butler

Multiple companies are currently developing humanoid robots to do chores in the home from washing up to tidying up

Robot

Virtual and augmented reality are set to be the new frontier of entertainment, offering households the chance to lose themselves in personalised programming

Virtual-reality rooms

Homes of the future may analyse people's behaviour and offer tips on how to stay healthy

A personal doctor

The homes of the future will ensure occupiers don't use too much energy, and will have solar panels and home batteries so they can sell energy back to the grid on hot days

Green homes

Smart speakers can work in multiple rooms in the house, allowing families to communicate — even with family members outside the home. They are particularly useful for families with young children: research by Kantar found that parents with primary school children are 82 per cent more likely to have smart speakers, and parents with secondary school children are 62 per cent more likely. The gadgets are an invaluable tool for staying in touch with young children, says Deep Bajwa-Bhagalia, a luxury strategist and consultant from Sunbury-on-Thames. Deep and her husband Bhavin started off with just one smart speaker to play music — then added smaller speakers through the house as they had children. None of it was deliberate,” Deep says. "It wasn’t a conscious effort to buy everything all at once. In my job, I focus on delivering excellent experiences, and I realise smart speakers were a way to upgrade the way our family communicated.” “We came to this house and realised we were shouting up the stairs constantly, and we didn’t really want to be,” says Deep. “We speak to the kids in their rooms to say it’s dinner time or to ask what they are doing — but they do use it to reply to us which we get very annoyed about.” Deep says that the family uses their smart speaker when doing homework together – and to stay in touch with her parents. EE’s Smart Hub Plus allows parents to control devices from phones to laptops to iPads easily in one go, applying parental internet controls or turning off WiFi. Guests can also be invited to share the WiFi instantly using a QR code thanks to Smart Hub Plus. “My parents are retired, so we bought them a smart speaker with the screen,” says Deep. “My kids can video-call their grandparents in our kitchen. They don’t have a phone, they are too young, but they can use this thing themselves. If they have a babysitter, they can call us.”

She says: "I’m a single mum and I also run the UKs leading bespoke jewellery company – Harriet Kelsall Bespoke Jewellery – so I'm out a lot. So I'm trying to manage everything and I also have an Airbnb flat that helps pay my mortgage. I’m always trying to juggle all of those things. My hours can be quite unpredictable.” Harriet says smart home technology saves her from having to think about things such as heating. “You don’t have to pre-think or turn down the heating before you go out,” she says. “So I save money and I know I’m doing my best for the environment.” Harriet’s two teenage children are in and out of the house at different times, and she is able to control the heating in their bedrooms, rather than having to run up and down the house switching radiators on and off. She uses programmed shortcuts on her phone to turn on pumps and lights via voice control, and then uses apps to adjust individual rooms. “The ability to turn down the heating in one room by half a degree or a degree can make the most enormous difference if it's just for a couple of hours, you know, even so that it sort of gives you a lot more power than a conventional central heating system as well,” she says. EE’s Advanced Web Protect helps to ensure the security of smart devices such as smart doorbells and cameras, ensuring that criminals can’t interfere with them. Harriet’s children particularly enjoy the smart cat flap. "One of our cats was run over, because we live on quite a busy road. And so we're able to lock the cat flap at the times of day when it's busy.” The cat flap pings the family’s phones when cats go in and out (based on their microchips) so everyone gets a message saying: “Luna just came in the cat flap.” Harriet says: “My son loves seeing those notifications when he is at school.”