Students face many challenges as they navigate the sometimes turbulent waters of the modern educational system. With the back to school season very quickly approaching, today I’d like to help them out a bit by offering three smart technology suggestions that are sure to make student life easier as they get back to the grind of becoming broadly educated and well rounded individuals. Join me below as I consider smart lighting, item tracking devices, and smart voice assistants (both with and without a screen). Read on!
Make Student Life Easier with Smart Technology
Most of today’s top smart home products have numerous different features that are beneficial for various aspects of daily life. If you are a student, or have a student in your home, some of these technologies will be more helpful to their lives as learners than others. Let’s begin with a look at smart lighting:
Smart Lights Make Reading Easier on the Eyes
Reading in poor lighting conditions can be torture on the eyes, and it could possibly even lead to long-term vision problems later on. Sometimes in dorm rooms (or even at home), lighting conditions are simply not ideal for students to read comfortably without putting an undue strain on the eyes. Sadly, this problem may not even be fully perceived and understood by those experiencing it at the time. Perhaps even more sadly, it’s an incredibly easy problem to solve once one takes notice of the situation and understands the potential dangers.
All that’s really required is lighting that’s adjustable to a variety of different needs and circumstances, which is very easily accomplished by the addition of Smart Lights to one’s primary study area.
Something as simple as installing the Philips Hue A19 Smart Bulb Starter Kit could set you well on your way to an easier time seeing, reading, and therefore studying. These lights can easily be adjusted via an app on your smart phone to create ideal lighting for any situation. They’re also easy to install, will last for up to 25,000 hours (each individual bulb), and are compatible with top smart home ecosystems like Apple HomeKit and Works with Nest. This particular set also comes with everything you’ll need to get your new lights fully up and running (the Philips Hue Bridge, various cables, and four individual lightbulbs).
Item Tracking Devices Help You Keep Track of Your Stuff
When I was a student, there were times when I was so focused on getting my next assignment finished or studying for an upcoming exam that nearly everything else in life seemed to fade into the background. At times like these, I might easily have left my head behind somewhere if it hadn’t been attached! What I certainly could have used at such times were Item Tracking Devices like those available to students and everyone else today.
These handy devices inconspicuously attach to just about anything a student might want to keep track of, from keys and backpacks, to clothing and personal effects. You can even attach them to your most important textbooks if you like, though you may need to tape them into place in such instances.
While there are a variety of different manufacturers of these small item tracking devices, some of the key features of the Tile Sport Bluetooth Item Tracker are fairly representative of what you’ll get from these kinds of products in general. These include Bluetooth connectivity with a 200 foot range, an easy to use app (the Tile App) that allows you to track your missing items via your smart phone, and a loud musical alarm that allows you to easily locate whatever items it’s attached to.
If you’re the kind of person who frequently (or even occasionally) misplaces your most important belongings (and who isn’t?), an item tracking device is the perfect product for you—particularly if you’re a busy or absent-minded student.
Smart Speakers and Displays Help You Research More Effectively
Sometimes as a student, all one needs is a little confirmation of something he or she already knows to be true. Back in the old days, we used to have to go to the library or rifle through encyclopedias for every little detail of information that we weren’t quite sure about. If only we’d had an easy way to access the total sum of human knowledge without making that long (and usually cold) trek to the library! Thankfully, today’s scholars have both the Internet and a quick, easy, and convenient way to access it via Smart Speakers and Displays!
Smart speakers like the Google Home (featuring the Google Assistant) and Amazon Echo (with Alexa) have become increasingly popular over the last few years, and more recently we’ve seen the advent of something even better: Smart Displays.
The reason I like smart displays even better than ordinary smart speakers is because they not only offer access to ingenious smart assistants (like Alexa and the Google Assistant), but they also have built-in viewing screens so they can show as well as tell. In other words, you don’t just get the benefit of an audible voice telling you some important fact you simply had to know—you get crisp, clear images as well if they’re relevant to your query.
That’s right, the emergence of smart displays like the Google Nest Hub (with Google Assistant), the Facebook Portal 10.1″ (with Alexa), the Amazon Echo Show – 2nd Generation (with Alexa), and the Lenovo Smart Display (with Google Assistant) represent a real game changer in the area of smart information dispersal in an instant. Such technology is especially useful to students, who always have a need to know something.
And if that doesn’t make student life easier, then I’d be hard pressed to figure out what does! Each of the Smart Home technologies discussed here today offers innumerable ways to revolutionize all of our daily lives. If you’re a student (or you know a student) who’s life is in need of being made just a little bit easier, then consider these items and what they can do for you!
