The Smart Home – A Jewel in the Crown of Technology

The smart home –something fancy or, more and more, a modern lifestyle... There is no doubt that in the days of the technological boom smart solutions will also take over our homes. The smart home uses Internet-enabled devices that allow remote control and monitoring of appliances and systems for lighting, heating, cooling. Smart Home technologies automate the household, provide reliability, comfort, convenience and energy saving, being controlled by its occupants  through a smartphone or another networking device. The smart home is already a reality.

Award

At the end of 2018, the National Contest “Building of the Year” awarded a complex of three single-family smart houses. Their investor is Aleksandar Aleksandrov and the company managed by him – STP Property and Assets Management. Aleksandrov has been in this business for a short time, but has achieved remarkable results. They say that a good manager is like a “hewn stone”, they bring to a successful end everything they do. That is why it is not a surprise that Aleksandar Aleksandrov has achievements in this area as well, which is new to him. He first entered a smart home 10 years ago, and today, he enjoys the professional recognition of his colleagues with years of experience in the construction business.

Team

Building of smart homes began as a hobby for Aleksandar Aleksandrov and his family, but it is on its way to becoming a serious family business. The complex of three houses was built only for a year and three months. It is located at the foot of Vitosha Mountain, near the Film Studio in Boyana neighbourhood. Everything is well thought out – starting with the design and getting to the last detail before the buyer receives the key from the fully completed house, which is an excellently-made product. The people from the team already know each other; they have worked together on other sites, too. The main contractor is Elite Building Company. The architectural solutions were chosen by the architects Katerina Toncheva and Atanas Panov. “Only people who love innovation and technology can design, build and inhabit such homes,” Aleksandrov says.

Comfort

“It is a pleasure to invest in smart homes in the technological era when we have not yet turned every home into a smart one. But it is difficult to explain the benefits to people who have not had access to such amenities. It sounds frightening at first, but three months are enough for them get entwined with  this comfort. I myself live in a smart home, at first, it was unusual to me, too, but automation changed my habits and even my thinking. The smart home allows everything to be programmed according to the personal needs of its occupants. A frequently asked question is what happens if the automatic control fails, can I then be able to turn on the lights. Of course you will be able to; everything works also as a conventional system. But automation is its advantage,” says the investor.

Efficiency

Smart homes is a concept that shows the way they are managed, otherwise,  they can just be beautiful from the outside. The smart systems quickly “get to know” the habits of their owners and start adjusting to them. This is an emanation of technology because they allow the management of every element in the home through a tablet or a smartphone. The most important is energy efficiency – how to manage heating and cooling, maintenance of the pool. This is the key to saving resources, since only a smart home is able to optimise and save as much energy as possible. In order to achieve such a technological level, during the design process, the latest generation of materials and technologies are utilised, different than those used in traditional construction.

Opportunities

The smart home is an upgrade to the passive house, characterised by a minimum energy consumption, since the process management inside it is even more efficient. New technologies are created to facilitate people. If you decide to buy a smart home, you will have to make a bigger investment at first, but later, you will have a comfortable life at optimal cost. Artificial intelligence will also become part of the smarter management of the home. This is a niche in which Bulgarian companies, which have already made progress in the creation of artificial intelligence, can find their place.

The Home of the Future

Technology will enter everywhere; homes will become more and more automated. Comforts will increase. But Aleksandar Aleksandrov believes that what is going to change is the way homes will be used. After the shared services and the shared cars became a reality, we will soon witness shared homes used not only for vacation and tourism. The new generations will feel less that their home is their fortress. It is possible that they will be more willing to rent and share a home than to buy it for investment purposes. A home puts limitations, and they will be mobile cosmopolitans who will travel a lot. The smart home is for people who have a dynamic life. If you have a smart phone, a smart computer, a smart car, you work in a smart office, it's time to feel the comfort of a smart home. It's a jewel in the crown of technology, related to your personal convenience.

Aleksandar Aleksandrov is the Manager of STP Property and Assets Management. He has consecutively been the Chief Executive and Administrative Officer of Stomana Industry. Before that, he worked for 15 years at Oltanking Bulgaria AD, where he was the Executive Director and Business Development and Project Manager. His business experience also includes Operational Manager of Unilever Bulgaria and Logistics Manager at Ericsson Telecom Bulgaria OOD. He has worked in the Bulgarian-American Investment Fund.