Sustainable Living with Hive Smart Home*

This post is in conjunction with Hive but all thoughts are my own.

Last year, when all 31 seasons of The Simpsons dropped on DisneyPlus, my daughter binge watched them all and came away from it wanting to change the world for the better like her new hero, Lisa Simpson. At the time she was only eight, and this seemed like a big task for an eight year old who was already living through a pandemic and working towards her grade one in ballet, but she seemed determined and I felt it was my job as her mother to support this. We’re only a two person team so I was aware it was going to be small steps and small changes, but I did my research. We cut out a lot of meat as she wanted to work towards becoming a vegetarian; I looked into recycling properly not just throwing some cardboard into a blue bin every now and again; and I’ve been working towards making our home more energy efficient so it was great when Hive asked me to partake in their Sustainable Living, The Smart Way campaign. Smart devices for the home were an energy saving option I’d looked into, but hadn’t yet got around to implementing.

Who are Hive?

If Hive is a company new to you, here is a little bit about them. As more people in the UK are becoming aware of human impact on the environment, they’re looking for ways to do their bit and live a greener life by making their home eco-friendly. This is where Hive’s family of smart devices can come in. They increase your ability to control many parts of your home, including your heating, lighting and plugs. By doing this you’ll be able to save money and most importantly, reduce your carbon footprint.

Hive helps you make time for life’s best moments by taking care of the little things, which is perfect, given everything can be controlled from one app on a smart phone. And Hive even works with Amazon Alexa, Apple Homekit, Google Assistant, Philips Hue, along with other smart tech for your home. By using Hive’s smart devices you’ll be running your home as more energy efficient and thus, will lessen the impact on the environment. I really hope that I can raise awareness of the importance of having a smart home as a great step towards a sustainable way of life by sharing our experience with the Hive Starter Pack.

Getting Set Up

Having a smart home really is a thing of the future. For a long time for me it conjured up images of Tony Stark’s home run by Jarvis, but last year we finally succumbed by investing in an Echo Dot that would control our TV after we lost our Fire Stick remote. Although this really isn’t anything to push an eco friendly agenda, it was a start so I was feeling excited to dip my two further into having a home of smart tech.

The Hive Starter Pack has been amazing for helping me get my head around it. It comes with two dimmable bulbs, an active plug, a motion sensor and if you haven’t set your home up with Hive yet, you can also add a Hive Hub.

You need a Hive Hub to connect all your Hive devices; it plugs into your broadband router so you can control them remotely. I decided to spread these devices across my house, the two bulbs are in the lounge and LM’s bedroom as those are the rooms we’re most likely to need smart lighting. The plug I have popped into my bedroom as I have a paranoia about leaving hair tools on and accidentally burning down the house (it’s a thing, have you seen Ugly Betty?!) and it was so easy to do.

Using the App

Before getting started I needed to download and set up the app. As with everything else in my Hive Starter Pack, it was really easy to set up! I made an account and followed the instructions which told me how to link up my Hive Hub and connect the devices. The whole process took less than an hour, including the 15 minutes for the green light to stop flashing on my Hub. I have to admit, I’m not the most technically minded but not only was it so easy to set up, the app is so straight forward it’ll be easy to maintain.

Each individual box comes with instructions so you cannot go wrong. The first time I put in the bulb I couldn’t get it to link up, but it turned out you need to leave the light switched on and control it via the app. This is definitely going to take some getting used to. These particular bulbs can be turned on and off and dimmed. When you’re trying to be more eco friendly and save money on your electricity bill, leaving lights on and blasting them at a full power can be a lot. Being able to ensure the two most used lights in our house, and the ones that are often forgotten by a certain nine year old, are controllable by my phone is a huge bonus.

Not only this, when we eventually get back to living our lives, we often head off on holiday multiple times a year. Knowing I’m able to set up a timer on the lights in our house will mean it looks occupied even when we’re not in. For someone as safety conscious as myself this is amazing as usually I ask my mum to pop in and do the lights, especially during the winter. The socket was actually the easiest to set up, as soon as it was plugged in, the app detected it and it will give me some peace of mind that my hair tools are never left on again… now I just need one to control the kettle so it’s boiled before I get out of bed!

As of yet, I haven’t set up the motion sensor. I have a free roaming house cat who would be setting it off continuously, however, when we are away, I will be setting it up near our front door, just in case.

Linking with Alexa

One of my favourite features of Hive is the fact that I can link it to Alexa. We have two Dots, one in the lounge and one in Liv’s bedroom and we mainly use them to ask inane questions and run Spotify through. However while setting up my Smart Home I decided to link it with Alexa so LM will be able to control her light in her bedroom without the use of the app! Again, this was really easy to do as I already had the app on my phone and I just needed to add Hive to Skills and then use voice control to connect everything up. This just left me feeling so impressed with what Hive can offer and how seamlessly the two work together. I don’t plan on having Alexa in every room, so I’ll still be mainly using my Hive app to control everything and of course, while I’m out the house, but it’s nice to know LM will be able to control the lights at least without the use of my phone.

Hive App on the Left
Alexa App on the Right

Overall, I’m both excited and impressed by Hive and my journey towards running a more eco-friendly and energy efficient home that will see us reducing our carbon footprint and saving money.