Ahhhhh college, a time of learning, partying…and living in a very small space with a stranger. If you’re lucky, your days of living in the dorm are carefree: your roommate is neat, clean, quiet, and respectful. Good luck that.
No matter your roommate situation, your college dorm living situation doesn’t have to be bland if you know just how to spice things up with technology. If I was heading to my new home on a college campus this fall, here’s the smart technology that I would use to pimp out my dorm room.
Voice-Activation
I would definitely be getting a device like the Amazon Echo or the forthcoming Google Home to up my cool level at college. I’d be able to play and control music with simple commands, basically like a rock star. Though I don’t yet know what types of skills Google Home will have, I do know that the Amazon Echo has plenty of skills to keep a room full of college students entertained for hours – sober or drunk. I would also show off by ordering pizzas and Ubers with my voice. College conquered.
Smart Plugs
I’d use smart plugs for everything: my lights, fans, coffee maker. I want to be able to control everything with my smartphone, tablet, or voice. I’d use IFTTT to trick me into getting out of bed in the morning by having my coffee maker turn on and trigger my lights to turn and my fan to turn off. It’ll be bright and hot. Pair that with the smell of fresh coffee and I’d probably be able to get out of bed for class.
Smart Curtains
Just in case that plan doesn’t work, I might spring for some smart curtains so that I can open and close them on demand, and put them on a schedule that will help keep me from failing classes. If I am already in bed and don’t want to move, I can close the blinds using my voice or an app.
Smart Scale
Cause…the freshmen 15. Only for me, it was the freshmen 25. I’m all for having a scale that measures my results in an app and helps me track my progress, or my decent into freshmen failure.
Roomba
College dorms are dirty. Who knows who lived there before me and what they did to the floors. Who knows what my roommate and their friends are doing when I’m not there. I’d definitely want a smart floor cleaner to be working non-stop in my room.
Humidifier
Again…dorms are dirty. There are a ton of overworked, overtired college kids wandering around like zombies, spreading their germs. There are going to be strange odors that you can identify, and that you can’t sources, and your Costco sized bottles of hand sanitizer aren’t going to clean the air. I’d be getting a smart humidifier that I could control with an app, and I’d be tracking pollen and allergens and running the humidifier as needed.
What smart tech would you use in your college dorm?
Photo by: Eirik Newth
