The home of the future is here today. “Smart Home” products help to deliver connectivity between users and the different devices in their home like never before, offering incredible control. The most popular categories to pay attention to when building a Smart Home are lighting, sensors, smart hubs & kits, temperature control, surveillance, and door locks & access control, but there are even more out there. The main idea behind Home Automation is to enable devices to automatically communicate with one another, to achieve your perfect balance of life while delivering peace of mind.

Imagine that you go to leave for work in the morning, and your door automatically locks behind you. The lights in your house turn off, the thermostat turns off, the garage door opens, and your surveillance system heightens the camera sensitivity, all without you lifting a finger. If anything happens when you are at work, from a motion detection on surveillance cameras or a leak under your kitchen sink, an immediate mobile notification is sent and other devices can even be put into action—that’s your Smart Home. There are several considerations when it comes to building out a Smart Home like device protocol, device purpose, and more, but the dream has now become a reality.

Being a Maker is all about having the innovative mindset to put inspiration into action and build something. The thrill of creating something from an idea, pushing the boundaries, asking questions and never being satisfied is what drives the Maker to discover. The overall Maker category is pretty diverse, encompassing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) learning for kids, programmable boards that are mini computers with full customization, drones, robotics, and 3D Printing, with new innovations pushing this category further than ever before.

STEM toys and activities are becoming rapidly popular in schools around the world, to help develop early skills in critically important fields. A blend of learning and play enables students to build strengths in high-demand fields that help plant the seeds of success. Maker boards (like Raspberry Pi, Intel Edison, Intel Joule, Matrix Creator, NVIDIA Jetson, Arduino, and so many more) offer the freedom for developers and programmers to create literally anything they can think of. You name it, it can be done with a little board and a lot of hard work, like automating programs, creating robots, developing apps, and bringing imagination to life. With 3D printing many companies and individuals are discovering fast, precise, and compact new ways to create models and products with never-before seen accuracy. The collective of all these dynamic segments is what the Maker category is all about, the only question is “What will you create?