Smart Tech You’ll See Around Ireland

Find out all the details about the smart tech boom and how it is affecting your home and city. Title image credit here. Guest post by Veselina Dzhingarova.

First, there was the smartphone, now the smartphone is a jumping off point for a wide range of smart technological advancements that can be found all over. Soon, even your city will become smart with smart tech being implemented in cities around the world in an effort to make everyday life easier, more advanced, and energy efficient. Read on for all the details of smart tech that you might have already seen around Ireland.

The cashless society is coming

It seems that solid hard cash has been shunned over the past few years – and it makes sense. With the arrival of contactless payment methods, less and less cash is being withdrawn. Increasing numbers of stores prefer electronic payment instead of cash payments.

We were already spending half our paychecks online without cash. Why would we handle germ-infested notes and coins when contactless payment methods and smart cards allow us to tap with a bank card or phone? No PIN required makes the process a lot faster, making the queues go in faster, making your shopping experience smoother.

There is also your travel experience to think of. Railway stations are being fitted with smart card readers for travel cards, and buses are also embracing the smart card payment. Even airport security has gone smart, with passport gates that check your ID with a reader and a camera.

Smart cards aren’t just affecting payment methods. They’re also being embraced as a form of security, replacing keys in places of work and you will likely have seen them in hotels and spas. Because they contain all your data, and can be changed to open whatever they need to quickly, they are being used as keycards to hotel rooms, as well as offering exclusive access to mini-bars, safes, access to facilities etc

Control everything with your phone

Your phone has turned into a modern magic wand over the years. Gone are the says when all you could do was make phone calls or send texts. With a modern smartphone in your hand you can search and find your favourite mobile slots, adjust the heating in your home remotely via an app, make video calls to almost anywhere in the world and watch silly cats do their thing on YouTube – all at the same time if that is your thing.

Smart technology’s main advantage is that it can all be controlled by the device you always have in your hand anyway. Entire “smart houses” are wired up so that you can control your lighting, heating, appliances, entertainment, security and more with a ‘tap of an app’ on a smartphone.

Already, you can be on your commute from work and decide that the heating better get started now so that you can come home to a cosy house, or you can turn off the oven from your office now that the chicken is finally done. Answer the postman with your package through your home security system which has a camera that feeds into your phone, or unlock the door to let in your children who forgot their keys. Smart technology is the next step in everyday advancement, making a lot of small changes that will make you feel like you’re living in an episode of The Jetsons.

Creating a cleaner tomorrow

All these smarter technologies have an underlying purpose beyond just making everyday life easier: making the world cleaner. Everything from contactless payment to your smart thermostat is designed to cut down usage by making them easier to control. They are all designed with energy saving-solutions, such as energy saving LED lights in your home. And now that smart apartments are starting to become the norm, governments are working on “smart cities”, such as Dublin, which offers a public Trello card to allow you to see all the innovative plans to make Dublin a smart city.

Smart city strategies include features like intelligent street lighting which will use less energy and less light pollution, but also detect air pollution and emit wi-fi. There are also insulation projects to fit out and make every home as warm as it can be without the use of energy.

More about the author

Veselina Dzhingarova, co-founder ESBO, currently works as a branding and marketing consultant, bringing together the knowledge and intuition that she has developed over many years spent working in relevant fields. She has long experience in internet marketing and SEO. Veselina is a regular contributor at many online publishers. She is the co-founder of Techsurprise.com

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