10 Smart Home Gadgets for Work-Life Balance

To help you discover the best smart home gadgets for a balanced work-life, we asked ten professionals from founders to marketing specialists. Their insights range from the convenience of a robot vacuum to the screen break offered by an at-home printer. Dive into their experiences and tips to enhance your work-life balance with smart home technology.

Want quick answers? Here are the expert opinions on “Smart home gadgets for work-life balance.”

• Robot Vacuum: Unseen Helper at Home
• Apple Watch: Personal Assistant for Work and Wellness
• Wireless Router’s Time-Scheduling: Balancing Work and Me Time
• Amazon Echo: Seamless Task Management
• Motorized Blinds: Regulating Circadian Rhythms for Balance
• Moleskine Set: Combining Physical and Digital Note-Taking
• Smart Thermostat: Remote Control for Comfort
• Smart Lighting: Boosting Productivity with Natural Illumination
• Stand-Up Desk/Walking Pad: Fostering Mental Clarity
• At-Home Printer: Screen Break for Work-Life Balance

Robot Vacuum: Unseen Helper at Home

I never imagined that a small home gadget like a robot vacuum could have such a significant impact on my work-life balance. Running a home-based business is no small task, and there’s always something to do, whether it’s work-related or a household chore. The robot vacuum has become my unseen helper, tirelessly cleaning my apartment while I focus on other important tasks.

This smart device is programmed to clean automatically every day. Whether I’m deeply focused on work or out running errands, I know my home will be clean when I return. It’s not just about having a clean home, but about the time I save. I can invest this time in my work, personal growth, or even just relaxing. One less thing to worry about.

Juliet Dreamhunter, Founder, Juliety

Apple Watch: Personal Assistant for Work and Wellness

The Apple Watch plays a key role in maintaining a healthy work-life balance. It serves as a personal assistant for both work and leisure. 

During work hours, it keeps me updated with notifications, emails, and meeting reminders, ensuring I stay up-to-date without being stuck to my computer. Once work is done, it helps me transition seamlessly to support my personal wellness goals. It prompts me to stand, move, or exercise, keeping me active even during busy days. 

Its mindfulness app encourages me to take much-needed breaks, guides me through deep-breathing exercises, and even reminds me of my early morning meditation, supporting me to cultivate a more peaceful, focused, and productive mindset.

Bayu Prihandito, Psychology Expert, Life Coach, and Founder, Life Architekture

Wireless Router’s Time-Scheduling: Balancing Work and Me Time

I’ve been working from home since 2010, and I’ve always struggled with balancing time spent working with “me” time. I always find myself in front of the monitor at 8 PM, or even later in the evening. Setting an alarm clock doesn’t seem to work, especially if I’m doing something that I’m focused on. I always say, “I’ll stop once I finish this,” and I never do.

This changed once I found out about the time-scheduling internet access function of my wireless router. It hid in the Parental Controls section, but once I found it, I knew this was what I needed. Here’s how it works and why it’s so effective: you select a connected device, add it to a list of controlled access, then set a time interval where the device can connect to the internet. 

I always set this interval to cover my work schedule, plus a few minutes to ensure I have enough time to save my work. The beauty of this method is that it’s “set and forget.” No need to fiddle with the settings.

Ionut-Alexandru Popa, Editor-in-Chief and CEO, JPG MEDIA SRL

Amazon Echo: Seamless Task Management

An intelligent home assistant, like Amazon Echo, is a smart-home gadget contributing to a better work-life balance. It helps by managing reminders, setting schedules, and providing hands-free assistance, allowing users to stay organized and focused on work and personal tasks seamlessly. 

For example, voice commands can set timers for work breaks, create shopping lists, and check calendar appointments, making juggling work responsibilities and personal commitments easier.

Deepika Adhikari, Team Leader, The Nature Hero

Motorized Blinds: Regulating Circadian Rhythms for Balance

The motorized blinds, although mundane, have significantly transformed the way we manage work-life balance. They automate tedious everyday tasks and impact our wellness and productivity. 

By simulating the natural day-night cycle, they help regulate our circadian rhythms. As the sun rises, the blinds gradually lift, inviting the morning light and subtly signaling the start of your workday. 

When it’s time to unwind, the slow descent of the blinds marks a clear boundary between work and personal life. This subtle but effective scheduling helps prevent work from seeping into our downtime.

Motorized blinds have quietly taken a front seat in fostering a better work-life balance, showing us it’s the little things, sometimes in the background, that can make the biggest difference.

Oliver Hudson, Director, BlindsByPost

Moleskine Set: Combining Physical and Digital Note-Taking

The Moleskine Smart Writing Set has been a game-changer. As someone who prefers taking physical notes, it helps me retain information better and stay more engaged. With the job requirements, the notes taken have to end up stored digitally for record-keeping eventually, so for a while, notes were taken on Google Docs. 

However, the Moleskine Smart Writing Set now allows the use of a physical pen and “paper” to jot down notes, and then those notes instantly get saved digitally. This cuts back on the time it would take to retype the notes if a traditional pen and paper were used. This is highly recommended to everyone.

Brittany Mendez, CMO, FloridaPanhandle.com

Smart Thermostat: Remote Control for Comfort

One smart-home gadget that has significantly contributed to achieving a better work-life balance for me is a smart thermostat. With the ability to control the temperature remotely through a mobile app, I can adjust the thermostat before leaving the office to ensure a comfortable home environment upon arrival. 

This feature has helped me save time and energy by avoiding the need to adjust the thermostat when I get home manually, allowing me to focus on personal tasks and relaxation.

Aviad Faruz, CEO, Know Mastery

Smart Lighting: Boosting Productivity With Natural Illumination

Using smart lighting has redefined the concept of work-life balance for me. This type of lighting system can illuminate indoor spaces in the same way natural lighting can. This contributes to an increased level of productivity and helps me to focus on my work-related tasks. 

The impact of lighting on one’s energy levels is significant. If you work in low light, you’re bound to feel unmotivated. To prevent this from happening, I’ve invested in a smart lighting system. It has been a game-changing addition to my life. This has helped me to manage my personal and professional work in a much better way.

Jasen Edwards, Real Estate Agent and Coach, Agent Advice

Stand-Up Desk/Walking Pad: Fostering Mental Clarity

Creating a work-from-home environment that drives productivity and promotes a better work-life balance involves considering the things that help you stay connected to yourself and committed to your work throughout the day.

The gadget that has helped achieve this balance the most is definitely the stand-up desk/walking pad combination. Exercising and staying active play a huge role in maintaining mental clarity and living up to potential in the workplace, so having a work environment that allows for this while staying productive at work has been critical.

This not only helps keep the working mind clear and focused to complete tasks on time, but it also makes it easier to clear the resting mind if a reset or some time to oneself to rejuvenate thoughts is needed.

Nan Parrish, Team Lead and Content Marketing, Surety Systems, Inc.

At-Home Printer: Screen Break for Work-Life Balance

My at-home printer is an extremely helpful device that I use while working from home. Its ability to get me away from the screen helps me in several ways, including—believe it or not—my work-life balance.

The ability to print off certain aspects of the work I’m doing and edit it on paper, rather than on a screen, is something that has really helped me.

A lot of work-life balance is about getting away from screens and technology, ‌so my printer is an enormous asset in helping me do that.

Alberto Palumbi, President, Premium Toners

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