10 Smart Home Automations Every Homeowner Should Try

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A smart home can make your life so much easier, once you allow it to. It’s cool to control the tech in your house with your phone, but automation is the real game in town. With a little technical know-how, you can make your advanced devices work in line with your schedule, interacting with each other to enhance the level of convenience and comfort you enjoy. The possibilities are endless — you can use sensors to trigger complicated commands, set up virtual boundaries with geofencing to decide how your smart home tech reacts based on where you are, use IFTTT (If This, Then That) applets to facilitate communication between two or more devices, and utilize good old-fashioned schedules to automate your smart home tech.

What can you achieve with all of this tech? Well, for starters, if you love watching TV and want to unlock the perfect home cinema experience, then you could configure your lights to dim and the smart curtains to shut whenever you turn on the device. You could also schedule your smart vacuums to sweep the house when you’re not around. There’s plenty of automations that are perfect for smart home enthusiasts to try, and we’ll explain a small selection of them here.

After a hard day at work, entering a home that lights up for you is like a warm, and welcoming embrace. This can be achieved with an IFTTT applet, in which your smart lock is the trigger that turns on your lights, with the time of day as an additional filter to ensure the action only completes when you enter the lock passcode after sunset. 

Alternatively, proximity can be another distinct IFTTT applet, for which you connect your smart lights to the IFTTT app’s map, and set a radius for the app to detect your presence nearby. This will send a signal to the smart lights and command them to turn on for you — again, if the time of day is appropriate.

With smart lights you can also enjoy the magic of automation via sensors. Some smart lights have motion sensors built into them, and can be triggered to turn on — and stay on — once you enter the vicinity. If your lights lack sensors, then you can get some of your own. Motion sensors from Aqara, Philips, or Sonoff are more than competent at getting the job done.

A smart thermostat is easily one of the best smart home upgrades for beginners. Manufacturers like Amazon, ecobee, and Google Nest offer models with a selection of helpful features, including energy-saving modes. In fact, you can use automation protocols to activate this without the need for continual manual input. Geofencing can turn your location data into a virtual switch that toggles how your smart thermostat operates — power save mode when you head out to work, and regular mode when you return home. This way, you won’t waste money on energy bills, or have to enter a home that is swelteringly hot or freezing cold — your thermostat will normalize the temperature for you.

Alternatively, you can use a simple smart contact sensor that registers you open the door once you’ve arrived back home, interfacing with your smart thermostat via a smart home hub, and switching it to normal mode instantly. Google Home, Amazon Alexa, or Apple Home lets you add such a routine in the automation settings.

One of the best perks of a smart home is how your safety can be prioritized, courtesy of sensors that detect an open door, or window, carbon monoxide (CO), smoke, or water leaks. The use of such sensors is a smart home gadget rule everyone should follow. If you want to make these alerts more effective, why not set your smart lights to work in tandem with them? If your sensors detect something alarming, then automating your smart lights to go red and start blinking is a great way to let the entire household know that there’s an emergency.

You can also configure a voice alert, so that your smart assistant will speak loudly, automatically. Both of these automations can be accomplished by setting up a routine on the smart assistant app of your choice. As a final touch, make sure that your smart sensors send priority-level notifications to your phone whenever a critical threshold is met. 

One surprisingly little-known fact about your smart home is the convenience enabled by smart kitchen appliances in your day-to-day life. Your smart coffee maker is no exception. With this device, you can set up an automation to get a warm cup of coffee made for you right before you have to wake up and get ready for work, giving you an instant pick-me-up. Keurig and Hamilton Beach make great coffee makers to fulfill this purpose.

If you’re worried that your cup of coffee may lose its heat — and, as a result, its freshness — because you were too lazy to pull yourself out of bed, you can take things a step further by automating your digital assistant to announce that your coffee is ready. This could be via a notification on your smartphone or as an audible announcement from your smart home hub. It’s like an alarm, of sorts!

A smart home isn’t just useful when you’re inside it — the added technology can also help you avoid any break-ins when you go on vacation. Most burglars scoping out houses will prefer breaking into those that look unoccupied. Blinds down and lights turned off consistently are a dead giveaway that you’re not there. Sure, you can set up cameras, locks, and other essential smart home gadgets to safeguard your house when you’re not around, but there’s also other smart home tech to fool burglars.

Most decent smart lights have some version of a vacation mode that you can turn on before leaving. This kind of setting automatically turns your lights on and off, periodically, mimicking your presence and making it seem like someone is in the house. With smart blinds you can go a step further and set up a schedule that automatically operates them in tandem with your lights, ensuring that no eyes settle on your home as an empty and vulnerable property. 

A fresh, maintained lawn can do wonders for your mood. This patch of greenery adds a touch of class to your home, but it does require a fair bit of work to look clean and aesthetic. Sprinklers can be scheduled to operate at a certain time every day, but smart sprinklers go further, working with built-in rain sensors to adapt irrigation depending on the weather. Aiper is one reliable brand with smart sprinklers that let you achieve this desired automation with ease.

On days of extreme heat, those who are very serious about lawn maintenance may also enjoy the convenience offered by smart soil sensors, that track your lawn’s temperature and humidity values. When interfaced with your smart home hub, these sensors can trigger an automated routine, activating your smart sprinklers to water the lawn a few extra times, because the temperature has crossed a certain threshold.

Smart vacuums, like Roombas, are a must-have in a modern household. They can automatically tidy your house every day, following a set pattern, so that that there isn’t a major buildup of dirt and dust. Usually, these smart vacuums go back to their charging station once they’re done with the cleaning process. However, you can take things a step further by automating your smart vacuum to stop near a garbage bin.

Most smart vacuums have an app that includes a map of your house and the route your device follows. Instead of letting it automatically go back to a charging state, you can customize this route to force your smart vacuum to shut down near a dustbin. Alternatively, you can connect your smart vacuum to a smart home hub and manually input the X and Y coordinates of your garbage bin, but this can get a little complicated. 

Whichever method you choose, you can instantly empty the device in a convenient manner before sending the vacuum to get charged. It’s a simple automation, but one that can save you from the headache of dealing with a clogged vacuum, since you forgot to clean the dust filter or empty its dirty innards.

Most people already have a voice-enabled smart assistant at home — after all, it’s one of the coolest smart home gadgets to upgrade your living room space. So, why not use this tech to cover for your forgetfulness? Your smart speaker can be configured with an automation to loudly proclaim a reminder whenever you unlock your smart lock to leave your home. Setting this up via your smart home hub is the easiest way. If you don’t have an advanced lock at home, then a contact sensor is more than up for the task.

Something as simple as a vocal reminder to check you have your phone, keys, and wallet — the leaving-home holy trinity — before you leave your house can make a world of difference. This way, you won’t be halfway to your destination before realizing that you forgot to carry your essentials with you.

Speaking of smart home assistants that love to talk, it’s also possible to use their multi-purpose functionality to give you a rundown of the day’s weather, just as you’re beginning it. The simplest way to do this is to set up an automation that could also double as an alarm clock, if you wish. Just instruct Alexa, Google Home, or Siri to inform you of the day’s weather forecast at a set time each day, letting you plan ahead accordingly. 

There’s an IFTTT applet that accomplishes this, too. Simply use the app, along with the smart home assistant of your choice, and add a command to let you know of the forecast at a suitable time for your morning routine. Regardless of which method you choose, this automation equips you with the knowledge needed to prepare yourself for how to tackle the day.

Smart cameras and locks are the kinds of devices you should prioritize for your house — so much so that we recommend you purchase these products first, before moving on to the other facets of your smart home. 

One automation that can help to give you peace of mind, is if your smart lock triggers the wider security system to enter high alert mode, as you leave the house. This automation can be implemented either via a smart home hub, or by using an IFTTT applet to communicate between the devices. 

Once the automation is set up, locking your door should send a command to your smart cameras to switch into maximum security mode, or the equivalent name for your devices. It’s then possible to be notified whenever your camera detects a human face, record any relevant footage, and enable two-way audio.