Build the smart office of tomorrow with these gadgets

Whether you’re working from home or a traditional office, you want to optimize your labor space and make it as efficient as possible. Home automation and other smart devices can add a futuristic touch to your smart office, add comfort, and possibly even save energy. Not to mention making small changes to processes and routines can potentially shave wasted time off your days and weeks.

Now that more of us are working from home, creating a smart office that automatically adapts to our needs can help us to complete more work more quickly, and be left with more time at the end of the day to spend with our families. Plus, you get to feel like Tony Stark in his crazy office!

The best smart office gadgets:

Smart display: Amazon Echo Show 10

Smart displays are super convenient to have in any space, but it can be especially convenient to have an advanced digital assistant in the office. You can use Alexa and the display to look at your meetings, calendar, and reminders. You can also ask Alexa for any information, news, weather data, and more.

If you really want to add a futuristic touch to your office, no smart display beats the Amazon Echo Show 10. The device has an awesome 10.1-inch display. And get this… the display can rotate and face you whenever summoned. It can also follow you in a video call, and you can even use it as a security camera to look around your office when away.

If you think a smart display is a bit too much for your smart office, you should at least get a smart speaker.

Smart cameras: Ring Stick Up Cam Battery

If you choose not to go with the Amazon Echo Show 10, surely, you’ll want to have cameras in your smart office. The Ring Stick Up Cam is smart enough to qualify for this list. It connects to your Wi-Fi, and the video feed can be accessed from any smartphone. You can also get motion alerts, and they have night vision. The battery-operated version can also run for months, depending on activity.

More: These are the best smart security cameras in the market

A good camera system will be a great addition, especially if you have plenty of expensive things in your office. You’ll want to know who enters and what happens in there at all times.

You should also take a look at our list of the best smart doorbells. Just in case you want to see who’s at the door, even when away from the office.

Smart Lock: August Wi-Fi Smart Lock

While we’re on the topic of security, you’ll also want an August Wi-Fi Smart Lock. It helps you avoid fumbling with pesky keys, and it happens to make entering and leaving your office a breeze. It’s beneficial for smart offices in which more people work with you. Simply give them access remotely, choose when to remove access rights, and simplify the experience.

Smart lighting: Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance Starter Kit

The right lighting is crucial for ensuring you can see what you’re doing, and setting the right mood and ambiance conducive to productivity in your smart office. Color psychology shows us colors can alter our mood and mental state, so using colored lighting might be an effective strategy for creating a highly productive environment.

More: The best smart lights you can buy

Using these Hue lightbulbs combined with a smart speaker or display, you’ll be able to create profiles for your room. Then, with a single tap or command, you can define an entire lighting setup. For example, you can use calming colors when you want to be creative and relaxed, or brighter colors when you want to be more switched on and focussed.

Smart plug: TP-Link Kasa Smart Plug

Got any dumb lamps or other devices around the smart office? Give them a touch of wit with a smart plug. These act as mediators between an outlet and a plug, granting or denying electric power to your devices. This means you can turn them on or off remotely.

Here: More smart plugs you should consider

There are many options out there, but we believe the TP-Link Kasa Smart Plug is a great balance between quality, functionality, and value. They cost less than most of the competition while still offering a great experience.

Powerline Ethernet adapter: TP-Link AV600

Using a Powerline adapter, you can get a wired Wi-Fi connection from a normal power outlet in your smart office. The first benefit of this is getting a faster and more reliable Wi-Fi connection in your office. I mean, a futuristic office has to have good internet, right? Secondly, you can now use wake on LAN.

Wake on LAN means that when your computer is powered down (on standby), you can send a command from a smartphone or even a smart device like Alexa to power it back on! What that means, is that you can wake your computer with a voice command.

To learn how to set this up, head over to the post we wrote a few years back. You can even use a similar trick to control your home office remotely from a coffee shop. You know, once you’re allowed out of the house again!

Could you be any more Tony Stark?

Smart thermostat: Glas Smart Thermostat

There may be more popular smart thermostats out there, but none look as cool as the Glas Smart Thermostat. The modern design is sure to catch plenty of eyes, and the translucent OLED touchscreen is as futuristic as things get. Smart features include smart occupancy monitoring, which allows it to keep the smart office comfortable when people are around, while saving energy when the space is empty. You can also control it with a voice assistant, and it can give you advanced data on air quality.

Gesture control: Leap Motion

If you were really Tony Stark, though, you’d be able to control your PC with gestures. So while you won’t be building an Iron Man suit out of holograms just yet, there is a device that would let you do something similar. The Leap Motion is a plug-and-play hand-tracking system that lets you do all kinds of cool things, such as controlling a mouse by pointing, or turning on your laptop with a wave of your hand.

It’s more about novelty than functionality, but if you have the extra cash and want something cool, it’s an option.

Coffee machine: Smarter SMC01

A truly productive smart office needs some serious coffee brewing action. Smart lighting and other fancy gadgets may be cool, but the real MVP here is the coffee machine! Place a coffee machine right in your office, and you’ll never need to leave. Not to mention it will keep you alert and active.

Next: These are the best smart coffee makers you will find

Smarter Coffee takes coffee into the 21^st century by adding smart features and voice assistant support. So now you can simply tell Alexa you want an Americano like… yesterday, and she’ll sort that out for you!

Robot vacuum: Roborock S7

Someone’s gotta clean at the end of the day. Let a robot take care of the grunt work. The hardest part to clean is likely the floor, and the Roborock S7 can vacuum and mop at once. This will ensure there’s always a clean environment to work in. It can be controlled remotely through the app or voice commands. The mapping software is very smart, and you can also schedule cleaning sessions.