How to control almost everything in your home with your phone

Want to have the coolest home on the block? Then fill it with all the latest smart home devices.

"A lot of people are familiar with smart home, and they have bits and pieces of it, but are looking at expanding," said Steven Toews, general manager of Best Buy's Deerfoot Meadows location.

According to Toews, smart lighting is the top-selling smart home category.

Geoff Snider and Micaela Mailath found the perfect mix of size and location in South Calgary townhome

Geoff Snider and Micaela Mailath are "downtown people" who appreciate living in an area with a cosmopolitan vibe – close to restaurants, pubs and grocery stores. But they also love nature and what Calgary has to offer when it comes to sports. In fact, Snider is a former professional lacrosse player, who currently plays on Team Canada. He is also an entrepreneur with two businesses. Both he and Micaela, who is in sales, work from home, so when their 600-square-foot Eau Claire condo started to feel a little cramped, they began looking for a larger space. They found the perfect mix of size and location in South Calgary, where they purchased a townhome by inner-city homebuilder RNDSQR.

Smart alarms provide connectivity and peace of mind 

A smart home needs to be a connected home, but the fact that a home is connected doesn't necessarily make it smart. When it comes to safety, though, there really is a new level of intelligent connectedness available in today's generation of smart smoke alarms.

At their most basic, and cheapest, they can alert you remotely via a mobile app when an alarm is activated. In fact, a device like the Roost Smart Battery can smarten up any standard, functioning smoke detector – as long as it's battery-powered or has a battery backup – for about $60. This deceptively simple device is a lithium nine-volt battery with a Wi-Fi chip and a microphone that "hears" your alarm.

Not only will you get an alert when the alarm is activated, you'll also get one when the battery needs replacing. No more annoying low-battery chirps, and yes, you can just swap in any standard 9-volt cell when it's time.