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Smart homes are so called because they make life easier, safer, and more fun. Over the past few years more and more people have been making their homes incrementally smarter by adding one device at a time. This contest is your chance to give your home’s IQ a major boost. We are giving away over $5000 in prizes!

We are familiar with other forms of intelligence; mental IQ and Emotional Intelligence, EQ, are based on the work of Frenchman Alfred Binet who was tasked with creating a way to assess which children needed educational assistance. If Binet could time travel to 2016 to create a method of estimating “Domestic IQ” he would probably begin by looking at how smart the average home is in each area of Canada, then look at the smartest homes and the things that make them smart and arrive at some sort of scale to meaningfully bridge the gap.

Domestic IQ

We don’t have the benefit of the expert Binet to create a Domestic IQ scale so I will have to propose one. We know that millions of Canadians already have at least one smart home device, though many homes are still without any, so that must be the lower extreme; many other people have their homes loaded with smart lights, locks, cameras, sensors etc. Your home is probably somewhere between the two extremes. I listed 6 basic types of smart home categories and some examples of products in each.

  1. Give yourself a point up to a maximum of 2 per category for each device in your home,
  2. add them up and
  3. look at the scale to determine how smart your home is:

 

Lights and switcheslutron

e.g., Philips Hue, Lutron Caseta

Locks and doorbellsaugust

e.g., August locks, Ring Doorbell, Yale Locks and Door Viewers

Security Camerasarlo1

e.g., Nest Cam, Arlo Cameras, Logi Circle

Temperature and environment controlnest-thermostat

e.g., Nest thermostats and smoke detectors, Ecobee thermostats, Netatmo

Security alarms and Sensorsismart

e.g., Skylink, iSmart Alarms, D-Link Water Sensor

Otherchamberlain

e.g., Circle with Disney,Chamberlain Garage Door Openers, Rachio Sprinklers

scale-en

 

Is your house a GENIUS?  Enter this contest and with over $5000 in prizes your home will be well on its way to becoming really smart if you win.

HOW TO ENTER:

You can submit a maximum of 2 entries for this contest.  In a comment at the bottom of this blog article, tell us how smart your house is using the scale above: is it slow, average, clever, smart, or a GENIUS.  In a separate comment, tell us one smart home product found at Best Buy that you would like to add to your home in the next year.

WHAT YOU CAN WIN:

We will randomly draw 10 winners. One person will win the Grand prize, one person will win the second prize and 8 people will each win one of the 8 individual prizes. The Prizes are shown here and also in the Rules and Regulations posted below.

Grand Prize Second Prize
ARLO SMART HOME 2 HD CAMERA SECURITY SYS
August Smart Lock 2 – Silver – HomeKit edition
August Doorbell Cam – Dark Gray
AUGUST CONNECT 2 EN
August Keypad – Dark Gray – EN
LUTRON CASETA WRLSS SMART LIGHTING KIT
ECOBEE3 HMK ENABLE SMRT THRMSTAT W/RS
ECOBEE3 EB-RSE3PK2C-01 REMOTE SNSR 2 PK
Circle with Disney
Dog & Bone LockSmart Silver Keyless BT
D-LINK DCH-S160 WI-FI WATER SENSOR
ARLO SMART HOME 4 HD CAMERA SECURITY SYS
Ring Video Doorbell Pro
YALE KY FREE LCK PSH BTTN SATIN NCKL
Circle with Disney

 

Individual Prizes

Ring of Security Kit- Satin Nickel
Nest Cam Outdoor Security Camera
Circle with Disney
YALE LOOK DIGITAL DOOR VIEWER WIFI
YALE  VDF KY FREE LCK PSH BTTN BRONZE
LOGI CIRCLE PORTABLE HOME CAMERA BLK
D-Link DCS-5010L Pan/Tilt Camera
SKYLINK SKBB-2S SECURITY KIT

 

The contest runs from October 21st until November 3rd.

 

Remember you can enter twice, in separate comments below this blog article.  Be sure to tell your friends and family so they too have a chance to raise the Domestic IQ of their homes.

 

Good Luck

 

How smart is your home contest rules and regulations

Martin Renaud
Editor in Chief
Martin loves working with the talented editors and writers on the Best Buy Blog as Editor-in-Chief. During his spare time he is either working on his next novel, cooking up a masterpiece in the kitchen, or adding some smart tech to his new home on Mayne Island in British Columbia.

2278 COMMENTS

  1. For next year I think I would like to add some security cameras. It looks like BestBuy has a million options. Nest is a famous brand of home tech. But is the pricier Netgear stuff the way to go? This will take some research.

  2. I would love to add a key free lock to my security system features (we currently have cameras and record all activities).

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