Peter lives in Oss, in the south of the Netherlands. Three years ago, he suffered a brain hemorrhage. He spent three weeks in a coma and lost the ability to speak.
He’s recovered a lot since then, but not completely. Getting around the house takes more effort, and his speech is slower than it used to be. He describes it as having to pull open drawers in his mind that don’t slide the way they used to. What he still has, though, is the smart home he set up before all this happened.
Two lights at dusk
Peter wanted his outdoor light and garden light to come on by themselves at dusk, so the place looked lived-in while he was away. For that, he went to ROBBshop, a Dutch smart home retailer, and bought a Homey Pro. For a while, that was all it did: two lights, on at dusk, off later. A hobby, really. After the hemorrhage, he started using his smart home differently.
Rebuilding with Rob
Rob from ROBBshop had known Peter from before. When Peter went back to the shop afterward, the conversation was different. It was no longer about keeping up appearances. It was about Peter being able to live on his own for as long as possible.
Together, they picked out the hardware, and ROBBshop handled the installation, including the motorized curtain tracks. “I find it rewarding to see that simple things can help make Peter’s daily life easier,” Rob says.
The point Rob keeps coming back to is that none of it is one clever gadget. “A smart home is a system where those devices work together, so that things can happen automatically,” he says. That’s the part Homey handles: the lights, the curtain tracks, the smart lock, the doorbell camera, a bedside remote, and his phone, all tied together with Flows.
One button by the bed
Some of the most useful Flows were the ones Peter built early on. “I built Flows back when I was still healthy,” he says. There’s a remote control next to his bed, and one button on it runs a Flow that turns off every light in the house at once. “Building these Flows is a piece of cake.”
The curtains he doesn’t touch at all. The tracks close at dusk and open again when it gets light in the morning, so the day starts and ends without him having to reach for anything.
For everything else, he uses his phone. It’s always with him, so he doesn’t have to spend physical energy getting to a switch. “If I’m sitting here having coffee with people and it gets dark, I don’t have to get up. I just turn on the light with the app.”
When it counted
Twice a week, Peter gets help around the house. They arrive in the morning, and instead of getting to the door himself, he unlocks it remotely so they can come straight in. The doorbell has a camera, so when it rings while he’s in the kitchen, he can see who’s there before deciding anything. “And yeah, that’s ideal.”
Once, it was more than that. Three months ago, Peter had a spasm. He fell and couldn’t get back up. He called his neighbor across the street, catching her before she left for work. She came over and rang the bell. “Then I unlocked the smart lock, and she could come in,” he says.
Peter started his smart home as a hobby, for garden lights and a lived-in glow. After the hemorrhage, it became part of how he gets through the day. “I’m so glad Rob talked me into getting a Homey,” he says.
