I take my home very seriously, and since moving into our house three years ago, I have spent every waking minute curating it into the cozy yet stylish space of my dreams. And, with my tech background, I know all the right gadgets to help create that.
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Whether you are sick of using “the big light” or want more functionality in your home’s design, I’ve rounded up all the gadgets I’ve used and/or recommend to add ambiance and coziness — plus, they are all on sale for Memorial Day weekend.
Best Memorial Day home deals
The best lighting upgrade I’ve done in my house is switching out almost all the cool-blue LED bulbs for GE Cync color-changing light bulbs. They connect to your home via Wi-Fi, and you can control the colors and brightness via Bluetooth using the Cync app.
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I can make my living room bright when hosting family over, dim orange when watching a movie, or even have a flickering candle effect for our annual Halloween party. You also don’t need a smart home hub for these–just the free Cync app.
Aside from lighting, I’d say music and sound is the second most important aspect of adding ambiance to any home–but you have to have the right speaker. The Sonos Era 300 is a sleek speaker with multi-room support and spatial sound, which enables the speaker to project sounds in every direction in the room.
Review: The Sonos Era 300 is close to a perfect smart speaker
Displaying photos of family, friends, and memories makes any home more personal, but an excess of personal photos can distract from your home’s overall decor. To still display those personal touches, I use a digital photo frame that blends in nicely with my home decor while not being overbearing, given a wall full of family photos.
Review: As a millennial, I love this digital photo frame to display memories
The Nixplay Touch Digital Photo Frame is one I really like because friends and family can easily share photos with it, and it automatically rotates photos based on whether they’re horizontal or vertical. I also like the playlist feature, so that, for example, around Christmas time, I can display all our holiday memories in one album.
I absolutely love lighting candles, but sometimes they can irritate my guests or me with the smoke or fragrances. This smart scent diffuser by Pura plugs into any outlet to discreetly waft clean ingredient scents throughout your home.
Adaptive diffusion technology reads the room’s temperature and adjusts according to your preferences for a consistent, reliable scenting experience. You can also adjust the fragrance intensity, easily switch between scents, set schedules and timers, and more through the app.
Setting the mood for a movie night is always a must, and these TV backlights add light effects behind your TV that even sync with the movie itself. Its camera and mic capture the colors, movement, and audio on the screen and automatically project real-time, reactive bias lighting onto the wall behind via an RGBIC strip light and two light bars.
And let’s not forget about the bedroom–adding ambiance to your bedroom and reducing blue light in there before bedtime will improve your ability to fall and stay asleep. The Hatch Restore 3 is my go-to for the bedroom, since it provides soothing lights and soundscapes to add to your nighttime routine.
This specific bundle gets you the Hatch Restore 3 alarm clock and Hatch’s portable sound machine, the Hatch Go.
Review: This sunrise alarm clock helped improve my sleep routine
I love a product that serves many purposes in one, and looks good doing it. The SwitchBot Air Purifier Table is a convenient side table you can put next to your bed or in a reading corner, but it also is a fully functional air purifier with a three-layer filtration system, including a washable pre-filter, a HEPA filter, and a third carbon filter, to keep the room clean and breathable.
Review: The viral Air Purifier Table is my smart home’s MVP
Not only that, it also acts as a wireless charger (you simply place your compatible device on top of the table to charge) and a color-changing night light.
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