One of the most exciting things about modern home automation is that creating routines has been simplified enough to allow most homeowners to master the basics. For instance, automating thermostat control is pretty simple. Anyone who is comfortable navigating a smartphone app should have no trouble coming up with the basic thermostat schedule. But what about more advanced routines?
Whether you call them ‘routines’, ‘automations’, or even ‘scripts’, these programmed commands put the ‘automation’ in home automation. More advanced routines can perform more advanced tasks. They can be tough to master. But learning how to create them is well worth the effort and time invested.
Basic vs. Advanced Routines
Before going any further, it might be helpful to define our terms. A basic home automation routine would be something like programming lights to turn on at the same time every day. I have done that. There are certain lights I have set to turn on every workday at the same time as my alarm goes off. That way, the house is illuminated when I emerge from an otherwise dark bedroom.
An advanced routine is not so static. It requires certain conditions or triggers. For example, I have a light switch in the living room tied to a plug into which a smart speaker is plugged. I never want that switch to be turned off. It is a smart switch, so I was able to program it to turn on automatically.
If my system detects that the switch is off, it waits 10 seconds. If it is still off after 10 seconds, the system automatically turns it back on. I have a similar routine for charging the lawnmower. When the smart plug the mower is attached to is switched on, the system monitors it for 4 hours. Once that time has elapsed, the system automatically turns the plug off.
Advanced Routines Change the Game
The thing about advanced routines is that they literally change the game. Imagine you had a professionally installed home automation and security system. Maybe Vivint Home Security is your preferred brand. As part of your system, you have a smart lock on the front door. You can activate and deactivate the lock with your smartphone. But what if you could program your system to lock and unlock the door based on your physical location?
It is possible with the implementation of geolocation. With a geolocation setup, you create a virtual fence around your property. Then you tie automations to the location of your phone. Given that your phone goes everywhere with you, those automations are triggered based on your physical location.
It Can Be Complicated
Geolocation routines can be complicated for a number of reasons. Right off the bat, think about homes with multiple occupants. It is just me and my wife in our home, but we both have separate phones. Any routines tied to geolocation must consider both. Otherwise, one phone could trigger an event that the owner of the other phone does not appreciate.
To make geolocation-based routines work for me and my wife, I need to create rules based on what I want to happen if we are both at home, we both leave together, or one leaves while the other one stays home. It gets tricky with more complicated scenarios.
Despite potential complexities, learning how to program advanced routines exposes just how much modern home automation can actually do. Programming will get easier as time passes. But even now, we can do amazing things with home automation if we just take the time to learn routine programming.
