Smart health devices have become an important part of our daily lives. We carry wearable tech like smartwatches, fitness bracelets, and other gadgets to keep ourselves active, but does health and fitness belong to smart home, too? We think so. There are many devices to keep track of your fitness and make sure that your home environment is safe. Here are some of the most important ones in 2022!
Why Health Matter in a Smart Home
One of the most important aspects of a smart home is that it helps with your daily routine. And since health and fitness constitute a crucial part of it, a growing number of smart devices can track health-related data, from heart rate to sleep quality.
While many of these have been around for a few years, they are becoming more popular. People are increasingly interested in building a smart home. Moreover, working from home has motivated people to stay active in their household. That's why many of them have rethought their surroundings and made them smarter.
Fortunately, plenty of so-called "quantified self" devices now connect with smart home systems, so you can see all of your health data in one place. This makes it easy to monitor your status or progress and make changes if necessary.
In addition, there are also dedicated smart home devices focusing on health in your household, for example, air quality monitors, gas leak detectors, and smoke alarms. Air purifiers and robot vacuums can also do a fair share of work when it comes to detecting and removing harmful substances from your surroundings.
Thanks to the accessories mentioned above, smart home platforms like Homey can run many types of automation to keep you healthy. For example, an air quality monitor can inititiate air purification, a sleep monitor can open your blinds as you wake up, and your lights and audio can automatically discourage sedentary behavior.
The Best Health Devices in 2022
In short, a smart home can help with your health and fitness in many ways. Take a look at our favorite health-related devices!
Brand | Model | Price | Dimensions | Protocol | Homey Pro Support | Homey Beta Support |
Withings | Body+ Scale | €99 | 327 x 327 x 23mm | Wi-Fi | Yes | Yes |
Netatmo | Healthy Home Coach | €99 | 45 x 45 x 155 mm | Wi-Fi | Yes | Yes |
Withings | Sleep Monitor | €99 | 637 x 190 x 5 mm | Wi-Fi | Yes | Yes |
Xiaomi | Honeywell Gas Detector | €35 | 80 x 29 x 20 mm | Zigbee | Yes | Yes |
Xiaomi | Aqara TVOC Air Quality Monitor | €57 | 42 × 76 × 14 mm | Zigbee | Yes | Yes |
Withings Body+ Scale
- Accurate and consistent readings
- Multi-user support
- Body posture guidance
- Home automation available
The Withings Body+ Scale is a high-end smart scale that offers an excellent balance of features, price and performance. It can track your weight, BMI, and body composition over time, as well give insights into your overall fitness. On top of that, the scale offers guidance on how the user should stand in order to keep a better posture.
Once your data is logged to the Withings cloud, it can trigger various automations around your home. For instance, you can display your weight or body composition on a LaMetric Time you keep in the kitchen, to keep yourself from overeating. With a contact sensor on your fridge connected to Homey, you can even remind yourself to stick to your diet with a notification showing your health data.
Like with other Withings devices, the downside here is that their smart scales can be expensive. However, the Withings Body+ is a high-quality smart scale that offers all of the features you need to stay on top your game. It's not cheap, but it does come with smart home integration, third party apps, and expert advice for developing better lifestyle habits.
This device is perfect for households with more people who want to keep track of their body. It supports up to eight users, with each person being recognized automatically by the device's software. In addition, any home automation can be set up for a specific user!
Netatmo Healthy Home Coach
- Multiple sensors
- Gorgeous design
- Quick responses to air quality changes
- Expensive
The Netatmo Healthy Home Coach is another important smart health device to watch for in 2022. Sure, it's been around for some time, but it's still a top-shelf option for monitoring your home environment.
Specifically, the Home Coach keeps track of the air quality, humidity, temperature, noise levels, and CO levels in your home. It connects to your home's Wi-Fi and can be controlled with a smartphone or other mobile device.
Of course, thanks to Homey, the Home Coach connects with other devices in your smart home, providing many options for automation with Homey Flows. For example, when CO levels reach a dangerous point, Homey will sound an alarm and send notifications to all family members. How neat is that?
The only con we can think of here is the price, but the device is premium through and through. As one of the leading brands of the smart home industry, Netatmo has been manufacturing accessories for years, and their high-quality, designs are well-known. The Home Coach is no exception, as it looks gorgeous in its rose gold finish.
Withings Sleep Monitor
- Many useful automation triggers
- Consistent data
- More comfortable than a smartwatch
- Mains-powered
- Expensive
Sometimes even a good mattress can't provide a good night's sleep. Here's where the Withings Sleep Monitor can help. It's a great device for people who want to track their sleep quality – you'll be surprised by how much information this little device provides!
It's easy to use and has a wide range of features. In addition, it connects with other quantified self devices, so you can get a comprehensive view of your health data. Thanks to Homey, Withings devices also talk to your smart home, so you can run useful automations as you fall asleep or wake up.
One downside of this device is that it requires constant connectivity and mains power in order to work properly. It might also be a bit awkward to keep an electrical device placed under your head, but there's nothing to worry about in regards to safety.
There are some minor inaccuracies in estimated wakeup times when compared with other trackers, but the overall consistency was solid. This innocuous gadget is still the perfect solution for you if you take your health tracking habits seriously, but don't want anything bulky or uncomfortable on your wrist.
Xiaomi Honeywell Gas Detector
- Affordable
- Small form factor
- Single-purpose sensor
Xiaomi is a Chinese company that makes a wide range of smart home devices, including security cameras and light switches. It is one of the most popular smart home brands worldwide, and affordable devices like the Honeywell Gas Detector are the reason why.
Gas leaks in the home can happen quite quickly and unexpectedly, but they're often preceded by warning signs. That's why the Xiaomi Honeywell Gas Detector is another important smart health device for 2022.
This device is quite simple – it monitors the gas levels in your home and warns you if there is too much methane, the main component of natural gas, present in the air. That means that this device will find its best use in a kitchen with a gas stove or in any room with a gas heater.
The Honeywell Gas Detector connects to your Homey Pro or Homey Bridge via Zigbee, and just like other accessories, its data is accessible from a smartphone, a tablet, or a desktop computer. Accordingly, when a gas leak is detected, Homey can immediately notify you and your family.
At the same time, the local connection over Zigbee ensures that any data that's transmitted from the sensor stays local, providing increased privacy and peace of mind.
Xiaomi Aqara TVOC Air Quality Monitor
- Affordable
- Multiple sensors included
- Average design
While we usually keep an eye on the weather, there are many things in our home environment that can affect us as much as torrential rain or a heatwave. Air quality and humidity levels in particular make for a less than optimal living space where illness may flourish if not monitored properly. That's where the Aqara TVOC Air Quality Monitor comes into play.
This small device connects to your Homey Bridge or Homey Pro via Zigbee and sends over data on temperature and humidity. It also helps you avoid the adverse effects of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) – harmful pollutants that evaporate at normal indoor conditions. With an overview of the VOCs at hand, you'll ensure that you're not accidentally inhaling these carcinogenic compounds.
The Aqara TVOC Air Quality Monitor is a great device for people who are concerned about the air quality in their home. When connected to Homey, this device talks with other smart home accessories, so you can get a comprehensive view of your home's air quality and run actions based on this data.
The local Zigbee connection ensures that any data transmitted from your sensors is only accessible to Homey, and not shared online.
Improve Your Health with Your Smart Home
The quantified self movement is gaining traction around the world as people seek to improve their health with wearable technology. Of course, you can run Homey Flows from your wrist with an Apple Watch and add automatic Flow triggers with Siri Shortcuts. However, home automation is also a lot of fun with dedicated smart home devices like smart scales, sleep monitors, air quality monitors, and more.
These accessories can help you monitor your health and make sure you're staying on top of it by tracking things like how much weight you've lost or gained over time; how many steps you take each day; whether or not your blood pressure is high.
With Homey, these devices can communicate with your entire smart home, so you can get a comprehensive view of your health, and see how your home affects it.
Keep in mind that aside from the devices listed in this article, accessories like smoke alarms, air purifiers, and robot vacuums can also come in handy in your smart home. Moreover, great new accessories will be coming out in 2022, so keep an eye on the market.
Hopefully, this article has helped you discover new possibilities of your smart home. We hope you stay healthy and fit with your Homey!