BrightNest – Happy Home Maintenance Wrapped in an App

Schedule your tasks! 

Most homeowners have the standard issue maintenance tasks to tackle on an ongoing basis. These tasks range from replacing filters to changing out batteries, and more. We all know we have to do these things, to make sure that every piece of equipment that makes a house a home runs smoothly and without hiccups. The issue is remembering when to do them.

You could put it on an e-calendar with all the other things you’ve got going on, but a calendar doesn’t quite have all you need to annotate each job, nor does it provide the support you need should you have questions along the way.

BrightNest does. BrightNest not only lets you schedule the tasks that need to get done, it makes sure:

• that they are done as often as they need to be done, based on the nature of the task
• offers advice on when best to take care of things
• provides sources for any questions you may have

When you first startup BrightNest, it will ask you some fairly generic questions about your home, so it has an idea of what types of appliance you may have, to make sure they are all accounted for and get the maintenance and attention they need. After you create an account, you will gain helpful information and house-maintenance tips from the BrightNest web service.

The neat thing about this app and the service is that it not only helps you manage ongoing projects and maintenance, it helps you make improvements by suggesting tasks you can tackle throughout the year, according to the time of year, what else you have going on, and more.

Examples of maintenance projects you can manage include:

• air conditioner
• water heater – standard and tankless
• pools
• smoke alarms
• refrigerators

You can even search for and learn about an expanded library of house-related jobs, backed by difficulty ratings, overviews of why to perform them, and detailed guides to help step you through them. You can tap on one to see these details, mark it for later use, or just tag it as read, so you’ll know you’ve already looked at it.

BrightNest also provides tips and tricks for other areas of your home, such as Spring Cleaning, money-saving advice, and reusing products to be green. The neat thing about BrightNest is that you can link it to Facebook and open up a new world of references. Friends will know what you are up to and may even suggest helpful hints to supplement the app’s guides.

The one downside in the mobile app is the inability to create a customized job that you cannot find in their pre-existing library. You can, however, add it through the website, though.

Developer: BrightNest

Price: Free