This is a series on home automation basics.
I’ll be covering some of the essentials like scenes & modes, automations, geofencing,
voice assistants, and how to secure your smart home devices.
In the last video I walked through scenes and how to set them up.
If you haven't seen that one yet, I’ll include a link in the description ... or you can jump
back one video in the home automation basics playlist.
In this video I’ll be jumping into routines and modes, which is where smart homes really
start to get fun.
While I will be giving examples from different systems like SmartThings, Google, Amazon,
and others, this is meant to be a platform agnostic view on home automation.
These core concepts apply no matter what system you’re using.
If you’re just getting started, then this is the series to watch.
If you’re already building out your smart home, this may still spark some ideas.
Before we dive in, take a moment and hit the subscribe button, so you don’t miss out
on the full series and other future videos like this one.
I’m Matt Ferrell ... welcome to Undecided.
Routines, routines, routines.
This is where I really started to get hooked on smart homes because routines can pull together
a wide grouping of random devices and trigger them all at the same time.
It’s routines that act as the glue between everything in your home and put a lot of power
at your finger tips.
The most common pre-configured routines you’ll often see in an app are things like “Good
morning,” “Good night,” “I’m leaving,” “I’m back,” and “Vacation.”
And those preset routines will usually cover 90% of what you need, but as you use your
system more you’ll start to have epiphanies for fun and creative routines to add in there
too.
“Watch a movie,” “Play a game,” “Have party” ... but don’t go nuts at first.
Start with the basics and grow from there as needs arise.
So let’s follow that premise and start simple and work on a good morning routine.
In SmartThings, you can tap on the “Automation” navigation and then make sure the “Routines”
tab is selected at the top.
Same thing for Apple Home.
Tap on the “Automation” navigation and you’re right where you need to be.
In Amazon Alexa, tap on the hamburger menu, and then tap “Routines.”
In Google Home, you need to tap on the “Routines” button, then “Manage Routines.”
If there’s a preconfigured “Good morning” routine, you can could tap into it to edit
or just create a brand new one.
To start fresh, tap the “create” or “add” button.
Now, what is it we want to do?
Let’s say that every weekday morning I get up at 6:00am and want my heating and air conditioning
system to kick on at 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
And before the rest of the world yells at me in the comments, I know ... the U.S. should
be using metric.
No argument from me, but we don’t.
So forgive the use of Fahrenheit.
And let’s say we want the bedroom lights to automatically turn on to a very dim level
to help as I wake up.
And maybe turn on the kitchen ceiling lights to help me as I stumble my way into the kitchen
for a cup of hot tea.
Oh, and maybe to start playing my the local news on smart speakers in the bedroom and
kitchen for the systems that support that.
In Apple Home, it’s easy to setup the lights by tapping “Create New Automation,” and
then “A time of day occurs.”
Set the time to 6:00am.
Turn off Sunday and Saturday because nobody wants to be waking up early if they don’t
have too.
And select “When I am home.”
This ensures the system doesn’t trigger this if you’re traveling and not home.
On the next screen you can select individual lights or a scene ... let’s choose the scene
we created in the last video.
Also select your thermostat, which for me is an Ecobee.
If you tap and hold on the thermostat, you’ll get the controls to configure the temperature
you want.
Save that out.
If you’re using Amazon, you tap on “When this happens,” then “schedule,” then
“at time.”
Set it to repeat on weekdays.
After hitting next you’ll tape on “Add action.”
Tap on “Smart Home,” then “control scene,” and find the scene you created for the Bedroom.
You can also add another device to control and select your thermostat, and then set the
temperature.
You also add “Play news” to your automation here to start playing your flash briefing.
And as you probably imagined, Smartthings is very similar.
You can link your bedroom scene that you created, set your thermostat and the temperature.
And for Google Home it’s a similar deal, but you can only schedule custom routines.
You can't use the preconfigured routines for scheduling, only for voice.
So tap the + button, tap “Set a time and day,” and configure this to the time you
want.
Tap the back button and then “Add action,” then “popular actions.”
On here you’ll want to check “adjust scenes” and “adjust thermostat.”
Be sure to also tap the gear icon next to each item to add specific scenes or devices
to control.
Back up to the new routine start screen again and tap “add action,” and type in “Play
news.”
This will automatically play your news briefing if you have one configured with Google Home.
You’ll also need to set a voice command for this routine, even if you don’t end
up using it.
While each of these systems have very different UIs, and sometimes slightly different terminology,
the basics are all the same.
You can create a routine to trigger at specific times, specific days, but only when you’re
home ... or away.
Or you could create routines that are only triggered manually by you through the app
or with a voice command to Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, or Siri.
So for the “good morning” example I just ran through, you could create and use the
voice trigger command instead of a set time.
Then when you wake up in the morning you just say out loud, “Hey what’s your name, good
morning.”
And everything you put in the routine starts up.
I’ll be diving into more details on voice assistants in a future video, so stay tuned
for that.
In the next video we’ll dive into geofencing, which is all about triggering routines based
on where you are.
This is where the “smart” in smart home really kicks in.
Drop any questions you have in the comments and let me know what kind of scenes and routines
you have setup and get the most use of.
And if you liked this video, be sure to give it a thumbs up and share with your friends
because it really helps the channel.
If you’d like to support the channel, there are some ways you can do so.
Want some cool t-shirts, like the one I’m wearing?
Check out my SFSF Shop for some cool Tesla, Space X, science, and Undecided shirts.
Every purchase helps to support the channel.
And a big thank you to all of my Patreon supporters.
You’re helping to make these videos possible.
If you’re interested in early access to videos, behind the scenes posts and polls,
check out my Patreon page for additional details and I hope to see some of you over there.
And if you haven’t already, consider subscribing and hitting the notification bell to get alerts
when I post a new video.
And as always, thanks so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next one.