Gadgets for your Smart Home

We Pick a Selection of Gadgets that can move you into the smart-home era without rewiring the house.

Smartphone Meter Readings

Ecofront  is an energy monitor designed for both residential and commercial properties. It reads gas, electricity and water use, all in real time, and then publishes the data for users to access online via the web or a smartphone. The idea is for the user to identify waste, set usage targets and overall save money and reduce the dreaded "carbon footprint". !n the case of the Eco-front Pro, building automation can even be included in the overall benefits.

Turning a Tablet into an All-in-one Remote

A number of recent Android tablets -the Sony Tablet 5 or Motorola Xoom 2, for example - have shipped with built-in infrared transmitters, allowing you to control your TV. set-top boxes and other AV equipment from the tablet's touchscreen.

The more esoteric brands of equipment may require you to train the tablet using your existing remote controls, but most should work straight out of the box once you've identified the precise model of your television, amplifier and so on.

If your tablet doesn't have an integrated infrared transmitter, the Griffin Beacon ($95) will step into the breach. This uses Bluetooth to connect to your smartphone or tablet, and then converts the relevant commands into infrared signals for your various bits of AV equipment. It works with the free Dijiit app for iOS or Android, which claims to be compatible with more than 200,000 pieces of AV equipment. It worked superbly in our tests.

Record TV Remotely

Working late and forgot to record the football? There are plenty of ways to set your PVR to record without being in front of the TV. The Foxtel app for iOS, Android and Windows Phones presents the Foxtel electronic programme guide (EPG) on your screen, allowing you to scroll to the relevant programme and hit Record to send the instruction to your set-top box. You can also search for a specific programme by name up to a week before it airs.

Apple TV users will no doubt already be very familiar with the Remote App that turns any iOS device into a remote control for both Apple TV and iTunes.

The popular Boxee box also has a number of remote control apps available on the Apple and Google stores - from both Boxee Inc and more unofficial app creators.

Keep an eye on your Home from your phone

Want to check if your teenagers have arrived home safely? Or that the cat isn't shredding the sofa while you're out? Or even if that courier claiming to be outside your door is really standing there? D-Link's IP cameras, coupled with the company's mobile apps. should provide the answer.

The mydlink service allows you to watch live footage from the IP cameras installed in your home from a PC web browser, or via dedicated Android and iPhone apps. The website's dependence on ancient ActiveX controls and a Java Runtime Environment means that accessing your cameras via a PC browser is a box-clicking chore the first time around, but picture quality and the degree of advanced controls on offer are excellent once installed.

Matters are much simpler with the smartphone apps. which - once you've entered your username and password - provide a live video feed over both Wi-Fi and 3G connections. There's a digital zoom feature, plus the option to save a snapshot from the camera's feed to your phone's photo library, if you need evidence of a break-in (or some other teenage misdemeanor) at a later date, There's even a port for a speaker cable, letting your voice boom out to the unwary, we tested the D-Link service with the company's DCS-930L Wireless N Home Network camera, which is just one of the options available. Setup was ridiculously simple thanks to the cameras one-touch WPS button - it literally was two button presses to get the camera up and running on the network. The DCS-932L and DCS-942L are the "enhanced" versions of the above. The 932L has built-in night vision, while the 942L can work in complete darkness at distances up to 15 feet and you can also record directly to Micro SD if you crave backup.

The infrared night-vision model can function as a high-tech bedroom monitor allowing you to keep a watchful eye on a sleeping baby.

D-Link also provides a number of networked storage solutions for backing up footage.

Clean up the House while you're out

No smart home would be complete without a robot cleaner. Samsung's NaviBot SR8855 (also available in the SR8845 model) threatens to add to job-centre queues by getting on with the vacuuming while you're at work.

The NaviBot has a variety of modes. It can be set to clean every room on the floor automatically, weaving Its way around in an orderly fashion; it can be set loose on a particular area, such as where the kids have been sitting on the carpet with their lunch; or you can set its timer to get on with the cleaning while you're out, or even at night - it's quiet enough to not disturb people sleeping upstairs. You can even use the remote control to steer it around your carpet manually, although that seems a little too labour-intensive for our liking.

The NaviBot is fitted with a barrage of sensors to help it avoid crashing, including a top-mounted camera that (allegedly) scans the ceiling to help it work out the best way to clean every section of floor. In our tests, in an open-plan office with obstacles aplenty, the NaviBot navigated around the carpet effortlessly, occasionally bumping into chairs and desk legs, but quickly re-orientating itself and cleaning the floor in a logical pattern. Once or twice it got snagged on a loose cable or magazine left lying on the floor, but provided a cursory clean-up of the room was undertaken before setting the NaviBot -loose, we'd have few concerns about leaving it to its own devices. Especially as Samsung provides two battery-powered "virtual guards" in the box, which can be placed at the top of staircases or near a nest of cables, and beam an infrared "invisible wall" that the NaviBot won't pass.

Indeed, we left it locked overnight in a medium-sized room with crisps and cake crumbs scattered across the floor, and by the time we came back in the morning, the floor had been completely cleaned without mishap. Impressively, when it's close to ' . running out of juice, the NaviBot navigates its way back to its docking station - even if you've picked it up and moved it in between.

For $999, this could certainly pay for itself if you're currently employing a human cleaner - it even has a mop attachment for cleaning hard floors. Although, like the Daleks, it doesn't handle stairs.