Running a household can be a lot of things, including complicated, expensive, rewarding and of course fun. Whether it's saving money, scheduling time or tackling chores, there's an app for that. Let's take a closer look at a few.
SONOS
Run your music for parties, bedtime, podcasts and general ambiance via the SONOS app, and you'll feel like you've really got it together. You can add a speaker on the patio, one in your nursery, one in the bedroom and one in the dining area and design your vibes accordingly.
Nest
Nest allows you to automate and customize your home's temperature, conserving energy and saving money at the same time. When you're out for the day, Nest changes your thermostat to save energy, and you can set it to start re-cooling or re-heating to have your home at a designated temperature when you arrive at the end of the day. Mother Nature and your energy bill will thank you.
Rachio
Keeping on the conservation train, Rachio connects with satellite weather and sensors to keep your sprinkler system from overwatering. When the weather has been too wet or it's going to rain, Rachio will keep your water bill in check.
IFTTT
Once you start using IFTTT, you might not want to stop. IFTTT stands for If This Then That, and it's a sort of short code. You can use the app as a practical personal assistant to send you notifications on tomorrow's weather, back up your iPhone contacts to a Google doc or get a rain alert. Little shortcuts go a long way toward making your life easier.
Mothership/ChoreMonster/Landra
When getting kids to do their chores gets tough, make it a game! Mothership is the parents' app for creating and assigning task lists and rewards, and ChoreMonster and Landra are for little kids and teens to use, respectively. Give them a try; they might improve your odds at a cleaner, well-run household.
Family Organizer by Picniic
If you've ever tried to organize the schedules of multiple kids, their afterschool activities, birthday parties and playdates, you understand why this app exists. Family Organizer makes it easy to organize your family's calendar and share between you to make sure everyone is where they need to be on time.
Cooklist
Having dinner on the table every night is hard enough, but trying to figure out creative ways to use what you've already got in your fridge without a trip to the grocery store is another challenge entirely. Enter Cooklist. You tell it what you have, and it gives you easy recipes you can make with those ingredients,. And when you are ready to go shopping, Cooklist helps out with an easy-to-use shopping list and a connection to stores you use based on loyalty accounts.
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