Your home provides shelter, comfort, and safe haven for the family – but it is challenging to stay on top of some of the maintenance and improvement projects to keep it safe, protected, energy efficient. Jason Davis from Tech2U is here with some tech tools that can help us all whip the home into shape with fewer headaches along the way. So do you have something tech-wise that makes a to-do list for me?

[sc_vimeo aspect_ratio=”16:10″ width=”100%” video_id=”153827202″][vc_column_text]We have an app called Homeslefe. It’s a FREE app for iOS and Android – you install it, you walk around your house, you answer a few questions in every room – it takes like five minutes – and then it creates a digital mock up of your home and it shows you areas that are contributing to your energy bills[/vc_column_text]
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Okay, that said, will it do things like tell me it’s time to change my batteries in my smoke detector kind of thing?

It will give you a free report that grades your home’s energy efficiency and show you saving suggestions, like local energy rebates or contractors that are in the area that can perform the improvements for you. So it’s really about getting the best return on your investment

And that said, what about routine maintenance on all those things?

For routine maintenance, you can go to Homezada.com, and you can create a property calendar for your home, your preferences and set up reminders or to-do lists. So if you have a pool, you can set a reminder for the springtime, get the pool ready for the young ones to go swimming.

Okay, so you have to program that in?

Right, but it can integrate with your Gmail calendar, your Outlook calendar or your Hotmail – any online calendar. You can get email alerts and also online notifications.

Does it do anything else in terms of things like insurance?

Yes, absolutely. You can get a digital inventory of your home uploaded on there. It is great to know if you have enough property insurance coverage and keep a list of all of your possessions in case of theft or an emergency, you can prove to your insurance company that you had it.

This sounds like it does a lot of things, what is the cost to our friends watching?

For the free version, that includes the home inventory tool, but for other tools like the maintenance calendar and project tracking and how-to’s, that is $5.99 a month, or $59.00 for a year.

Okay, and where would people find that?

That’s at Homezada.com

Not that that’s not great, but you also usually have an app of the week for us!

The app of the week is the Forest app. It costs 99 cents on ios, android and windows, but it’s really important because we all know that person who is always on their phone, can’t keep a conversation – or you walk into Starbucks and no one is talking to each other – everyone is staring at their phone. So with this app, you plant a seed and over the next 30 minutes, that seed will grow into a tree. But here is the catch: if you look at your phone within that 30 minute time frame, the tree will not grow – it will wither away. So basically the objective is to expand your forest, get as many trees as you can and then you can share it with your friends. But it is great to help you focus if you need a 30 minute block.

Who thought of that, some dude in Oregon? Where did that come from?

I don’t know, but it is really useful for people who are glued to their phone.

If you say so and that’s the app of the week, it must be good![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]