Best Home Automation Ideas: 34 Smart Hacks

Smart home (or home automation) technology has been around in a serious way since the 90’s, but it was generally reserved for those with big budgets or for the really geeky types who live technology.  But, in the last several years, smart devices, standards, and more importantly, software, has gotten more and more mainstream.

Now, anyone can buy a hub, use open source home automation software from here and start adding small sensors and controls to their home for under $100.  More importantly, you (usually) don’t need to be a tech wizard or a programmer to create a great experience.

Even if you’re just starting out, you can find some home automation examples in our articles that you can try for yourself.

With that in mind, we set out to scour the web for the best home automation ideas that we could find and pull them into one location as a resource in case you are interested in automating some of the more tedious aspects of your daily routine. You can also check out our article about the best open source home automation software you can use to implement these.

For each idea, we’ve rated the usefulness and difficulty of implementing the idea on a 5 point scale. 

Most of these are an easy DIY job, but if you feel overwhelmed you can always find a pro using Amazon Home Services to do your smart home setup for you!

Before we give you our list of cool smart home automation ideas, be sure to check out the list of smart devices to implement all of them at the bottom!

Cool Home Automation Ideas for Z-Wave, Zigbee, BLE or WiFi

  1. Security Lights – Usefulness: 5
  2. Smart Home Security – Usefulness: 5
  3. Welcoming Party – Usefulness: 4.5
  4. Smart Garage Door Closer – Usefulness: 4.5
  5. House Warming – Usefulness: 4.5
  6. Goodnight Google – Usefulness: 4.5
  7. Automatic Leak Mitigation – Usefulness: 4
  8. Improvised Geofencing – Usefulness: 4
  9. Automatic Shower/Laundry Room Fan – Usefulness: 4
  10. Somebody’s Monkeying with my Safe – Usefulness: 4
  11. The Ultimate Alarm Clock – Usefulness: 4
  12. Laundry’s Done! – Usefulness: 4
  13. Power Down – Usefulness: 4
  14. Peace Out – Usefulness: 4
  15. Smart Water – Usefulness: 4
  16. Night Lights – Usefulness: 4
  17. Visitor Jingle – Usefulness: 4
  18. Move it, maggot! – Usefulness: 3.5
  19. Light the Beacon – Usefulness: 3.5
  20. Mail Call – Usefulness: 3.5
  21. Smart Shower Fan – Usefulness: 3.5
  22. Smart Stair Lights – Usefulness: 3.5
  23. Night Watch – Usefulness: 3
  24. Garage Butler – Usefulness: 3
  25. Personal Lighting – Usefulness: 3
  26. High Security Network – Usefulness: 3
  27. Automatic Fart Fan – Usefulness: 3
  28. Homework First – Usefulness: 3
  29. Smart Humidifier – Usefulness: 3
  30. Artificial Sunrise – Usefulness: 3
  31. Work Day Countdown – Usefulness: 3
  32. Movie Lighting – Usefulness: 3
  33. Perfectly Timed Weather Forecast – Usefulness: 2
  34. TV Zombies – Usefulness: 2

Looking for more inspiration? Check out our:

[sociallocker id=”2872″] Thanks! Here you go: The Best Home Automation Ideas on the Web[/sociallocker]

1. Home Security Lights AKA Smart Lighting

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Usefulness: 5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: I think this is the best home automation idea in the list, add some illumination to those late night peeks outside

How it works: You may already have motion-sensitive flood lights, but what if your dog barks at night but the light doesn’t come on? Since chances are good that when you open the door at night, you’ll need a light to see, why not automate one? You can install an automatic porch light to add security to your home especially at night. Whenever you open a door at night, you can set your home automation system up so that the exterior lights automatically turn on. You can even apply this idea to your LED soffit lighting to improve your home’s exterior lighting at night!

What you’ll need:

  • Entry sensor – Place it along the side of the door where opening it will separate the contacts.
  • AND time triggers – Set up the window to be every night from dusk to dawn.
  • AND a smart light switch – Either replace your current switch, add a smart switch, or use a smart bulb to control your exterior lights.

2. Smart Home Security

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Usefulness: 5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Get notifications when something’s amiss at home when you’re away, how cool is that home automation idea!

How it works: This may be obvious, but it’s worth repeating as the #1 reason people cite for their connected home system. They work great as DIY security systems. It’s important to remember that these are certified security systems (in most cases), but that doesn’t change the usefulness of getting a notification on your smartphone or SMS text when your door opens or motion is sensed at your home when you’re away.

Being a security-conscious person, that’s a home automation idea I can get behind!

What you’ll need:

  • Location specific triggers – Smart home companies generally call this geofencing.  It uses the position of your smartphone to detect your location and use that to cue other tasks that you can control from your phone.  Even if your home automation hub’s features don’t include geofencing, you should be able to do something similar with location based tasking in another program such as IFTTT or Tasker.  You could even use hardware triggers such as RFID tags.
    • Geofencing – Your home automation hub’s features may support location based triggers directly
    • IFTTT – Use a location based trigger to control WeMo lights (others are added all the time) directly from IFTTT
    • Tasker – You could trigger the smart lights when your phone is in range of your home WiFi network or via GPS location with Tasker on Android
    • Presence sensor or RFID tags – Throw one in your car and your system can react to it when you get home (range up to 300′, YMMV).  There is a delay/battery life trade-off here though.
    • Motion sensors – You can use motion sensors in the house along with a time delay to determine when the house is unoccupied ( know how to wire a motion sensor to an existing light here).
  • OR manually arm your system when you leave
  • AND Entry sensors – Place it along the side of the door where opening it will separate the contacts.
  • OR motion sensors
  • OR a garage tilt sensor – To let you know if your garage opens when you aren’t home
  • OR doorbell sensor a great way to let you know when someone visits your house or a package is dropped at your front door

3. Welcoming Party

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Usefulness: 4.5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: “We’ll leave the light on for you” hospitality meets home automation ideas.

How it works: Any time you get home, your lights will come on so that you can see to get inside your house.  They can stay on for just a few minutes or until you go to bed.  Of course, we recommend that you also have motion sensitive lights to improve your home’s security in addition to automation.

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What you’ll need:

  • Location specific triggers – Home automation companies generally call this geofencing.  It uses the position of your smartphone to detect your location and use that to cue other tasks that you can control from your phone.  Even if your home automation system’s app doesn’t support geofencing, you should be able to do something similar with location based tasking in another app such as IFTTT or Tasker.  You could even use hardware triggers such as RFID tags.
    • Geofencing – Your home automation system’s features may support location based triggers directly
    • IFTTT – Use a location based trigger to control WeMo lights (others are added all the time) directly from IFTTT
    • Tasker – You could trigger the lights when your phone is in range of your home WiFi network or via GPS location with Tasker on Android
    • Presence sensor or RFID tags – Throw one in your car and your system can react to it when you get home (range up to 300′, YMMV).  There is a delay/battery life trade-off here though.
    • Motion sensors – You can use motion sensors in the house along with a time delay to determine when the house is unoccupied.
  • AND A smart light switch or bulb – There are connected wall switches as well as connected bulbs that can go into standard outlets.  Add these to your exterior flood or porch lights to illuminate your “landing strip.”

Like these automations? Read on!

4. Smart garage door closer

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Usefulness: 4.5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Automatically close your garage door if you leave it open.

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How it works: Yes, you can buy a Chamberlain garage door closer (expensive), smart garage opener controller, or even an automated closer that just detects if you leave your door up and closes it (more reasonable). If you integrate those with your home automation system, you can make it even more intelligent. You could then use a standard entry sensor on your garage door or a tilt sensor to tell when it’s open.  You could also use a vibration sensor, but I wouldn’t recommend it.  You can’t tell up from down, and it will be prone to false alarms in windy conditions.

Chamberlain MYQ-G0201 MyQ-Garage Controls Your Garage Door...
  • Monitor, open and close your garage door from anywhere with your smartphone
  • Choose to receive alerts/notifications on your smartphone when you garage door opens and closes
  • Works with most brands of garage door openers made after 1993 that have standard safety sensors....

I love home automation ideas that save me time! And, the first time this saves you a trip back home to make sure the garage door is closed, you’ll be glad you did this. A smart lock is good for that too!

Then, if you leave the house or arm your system, it can automatically close. But, it’s intelligent enough to know when you’re just working in the yard.

We’ve written a detailed article on how to make your own smart garage door opener that will work with any protocol.  Check it out too if you want to save a few bucks over the solutions above.

What would really be cool is if it triggered your robot vacuum when you left!

What you’ll need:

  • Entry sensor – Place it along the side of the door where opening it will separate the contacts.
  • AND Location specific triggers – Only shut the door if you aren’t at the house.
    • Geofencing – Your home automation hub’s app may support location based triggers directly
    • IFTTT – Use a location based trigger directly from IFTTT
    • Tasker – You could trigger the door when your phone leaves your home WiFi network or via GPS location
    • Presence sensor – Throw one in your car and your system can react to it when you leave
    • Motion sensors – You can use motion sensors in the house along with a time delay to determine when the house is unoccupied.  They won’t help when you come home though.
  • MAYBE time triggers – Relax the rules on Saturdays when you do yard work and make them more strict at night.
  • AND a connected garage door opener – Control the closer from your system (such as the Chamberlain MyQ enabled openers).
  • OR a connected garage IO module – Most garage door closers allow for auxiliary inputs to control the door that you can use to make your dumb controller a smart garage door opener.

5. House Warming

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Usefulness: 4.5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Warm up your house (or cool it down) a few minutes before you get home.

How it works: This one’s pretty easy. And, it’s also one of those home automation ideas that’ll make you smile when you step in the door.

Just use your location feature to turn your smart thermostat up or down 15 minutes before you get home. The tricky part is accounting for anyone without a presence sensor on them, like a phone or some other tag. Of course, you could have an override for when the system is placed in the “home” mode. The downside is that only you benefit from the warm welcome!

What you’ll need:

  • A smart thermostat – If you have the money for a Nest then go for it, but there are other options too.
  • AND Location specific triggers – Queue up the thermostat when you’re on the way home for the day.


6. Goodnight Google

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Usefulness: 4.5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: This is the easiest voice control command to add to your smart home

How it works: Once you have your lights set up with your home automation hub. This is just as simple as configuring your Google Home or Amazon Alexa enabled devices to run your goodnight routine with a voice command. You can learn more about how to create a smart home with Amazon Alexa or the list of Amazon Alexa skills for home automation on our separate posts.

What you’ll need:

  • Google Home – Great if you have Android phones and use Google software a lot or have Chromecast
  • OR Amazon Echo and friends – The original voice-operated personal assistance, could also be a Dot, Tap, or Dash Wand
  • AND a smart light switch – Living room lights or exterior lights are great candidates
  • OR smart light bulbs – Z-Wave or Zigbee smart bulbs in common area lamps (check out ZigBee and Z-Wave review)

Here’s a quick video showing you how to set it up on a Google Home:

7. Automatic Leak Mitigation

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 3

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The skinny: The water turns off if a leak is detected in the house.

How it works: This one is great for people with second homes and could save a lot of money for people that sleep too! You place water/moisture sensors around sinks, toilets, water heaters, clothing and dish washers to determine if there is a leak. Then, the leak can trigger a valve to shut off water to the entire house.

What you’ll need:

  • Moisture or leak sensors – Place them in likely leak areas in bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms
  • AND a smart water valve – Install this after the manual shut off for the water main to your house.
  • OR an electronically controlled valve and a smart control unit – If you don’t want to spring for a smart valve, you can use an IO module with an electronic valve.

Have home automation envy?  Your friends are here for you.

8. Improvised Triggers via NFC

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Work around software limitations and trigger automated actions through your phone.

Head’s Up

There’s a much better way to automatically trigger actions based on location. Check out this guide to setting up Tasker and AutoInput.

How it works: NFC lets you place your phone against a special tag and perform an action (with a compatible app, of course). You can use that to integrate with any of the other recipes above to enable location based actions with a little manual effort.

Such as:

  • Arm your alarm system when you set your phone down in the car or a tap on the door as you walk out
  • Turn on your ringer, WiFi, or Bluetooth when you get home
  • Turn them off when you leave
  • Turn on GPS and start maps when you get in your car and dock your phone
  • Turn off social network notifications when you’re at your desk working
  • On your nightstand to turn off your ringer and activate your alarm

What you’ll need:

  • NFC (near field communication) tags and a phone that supports them – Put this wherever you want the trigger.
  • AND Tasker or another NFC enabled app – The NFC tag can trigger a Tasker task.

9. Automatic Shower/Laundry Room Fan

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Your bathroom fan automatically runs when the humidity is high.

How it works: Mold is bad. Objections? In case you or someone in your family forgets to use the bathroom exhaust fan, you can add a humidity sensor in the bathroom and ]. Yes, you can buy a fan with a sensor for over $100 bucks that’s a pain to install. But, this is something you could get done for much less, and it’s more customizable.

What you’ll need:

  • Humidity sensor – You only want it to run when it’s needed.
  • AND A connected light switch – Just wire in a new WiFi, Z-Wave, or Zigbee switch in place of the dumb switch that used to control your fan.

10. Somebody’s monkeying with my safe

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: You get an alert when somebody messes with your safe.

How it works: Say you want to know if your kids are messing with the lock and trying to get into your safe. Or, you need an extra layer of defense for your security system. You can add a motion/vibration sensor to your safe to let you know when it’s being tampered with.

What you’ll need:

  • Motion sensor – Place it directly on the safe or where it will only be triggered by access to the safe.
  • OR vibration sensor – Same as the motion sensor, except triggered based on vibration as someone tampers with the lock.
  • AND notification integration – Get an alert when the sensor is triggered.
  • OR SMS integration – Get a text when the sensor is triggered.
  • OR email integration – Get an email when the sensor is triggered.

11. The Ultimate Alarm Clock

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Force yourself to get out of bed in the morning

How it works: This one speaks to me since I have a hard time getting moving in the mornings. You have to scan a tag with your phone to get the alarm to turn off. The catch is, the tag is by the shower!

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What you’ll need:

  • NFC (near field communication) tags and a phone that supports them – Put this in the bathroom.
  • AND Sleep As or Puzzle Alarm Clock apps – The phone goes off and requires a unique NFC tag to disable the alarm.

12. Laundry’s Done!

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: You get a notification when the laundry finishes.

How it works: Do you ever forget a load of wet clothes in the washing machine until the next day? Raunchy smell, right? If you’re outside, upstairs, in the shower or deaf, then you can use a notification or SMS message to remind you to put it in the dryer.

What you’ll need:

  • Vibration sensor – Place it directly on the washing machine and use the transition from motion to no motion as the trigger.
  • OR audio sensor – Same as the motion sensor, except triggered based on sound.
  • AND notification integration – Get a notification that the laundry is finished.
  • OR SMS integration – Get a text when the clothes are done.
  • OR email integration – Get an email when the clothes are done.

13. Power Down

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 2

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The skinny: Lock up, turn off the lights, adjust the thermostat, and arm the alarm when you go to bed.

How it works: This one is pretty straightforward. You could trigger it from your phone easily, but the wife-acceptance factor won’t be as high. Why not just leave a remote on the bedside table? Just hit the button when you’re ready to go to lock up and go to bed (whoever’s the last one) and your home automation system does the rest!

Plus, you won’t forget this one if you put it on a timer.

What you’ll need:

  • Smart locks – Putting a lock at every door could get expensive, but you can always start with a lock or two at the main entries.
  • OR Smart thermostat – Whether it’s Nest, Ecobee, or a Z-wave unit, turn down the temp.
  • OR smart outlets, plugs, and switches – Turn off the lights you use the most (a whole house could get expensive).
  • OR connected alarm – A panel that connects directly to your system or one that supports IFTTT integration with your home automation setup.
  • AND a smart remote – Something like a Z-Wave Minimote will do just fine.

14. Peace Out

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 2

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The skinny: Lock up, turn off the lights, adjust the thermostat, and arm the alarm when you leave home.

How it works: See the details above under “Power Down.” The only difference here is that it’s triggered when you leave. Never forget again! Normally, that can be a problem if your roommates or family don’t always go with you, but there’s a workaround for that.

What you’ll need:

  • Smart locks – Putting locks in at every door could get expensive, but you can always start with the main one or two.
  • OR Smart thermostat – Whether it’s Nest, Ecobee, or a Z-wave unit, turn down the temp.
  • OR smart outlets, plugs, and switches – Turn off the lights you use the most (a whole house could get expensive).
  • OR connected alarm – A panel that connects directly to your system or one like Konnected.
  • AND geofencing – I’ve already covered the details, so let’s just say your hub’s software, IFTTT, or Tasker can be your friends.


15. Move it, maggot!

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Usefulness: 3.5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: An extra kick in the pants to remind you to no be lazy before watching TV.

How it works: The TV won’t turn on until you log 10,000 (or your goal) steps on your fitness tracker. You use IFTTT integration with your fitness tracker to control a connected outlet.

What you’ll need:

  • Fitness sensor – You need one that integrates with IFTTT, like Fitbit, Misfit, or Jawbone.
  • Smart outlet – Just turn on the outlet when you meet your goal.  You’ll still have to turn the TV on manually, but it’ll actually turn on when the outlet is on!

These home automation ideas may not be the kid’s favorites, but they’ll still be fun!

16. Light the Beacon

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Usefulness: 3.5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Broadcast an alert to your neighborhood watch when your alarm is triggered.

How it works: For alarm systems with IFTTT integration, you can easily connect a community watch Facebook page and post an alert when your alarm goes off. This requires a neighborhood that’s more into Facebook that I am but maybe that fits your situation. But with IFTTT, you can post to Twitter with a unique hashtag, send notifications via Pushbullet and Slack, or stick with plain old SMS text. The choice is yours.

What you’ll need:

  • Alarm system – You need one that integrates with IFTTT, like iSmartAlarm, Scout, SmartThings, or possibly WeMo.
  • Neighborhood watch – Again, the ability to integrate is key here. Obviously, you need an active group of friends and neighbors.
    • Email or SMS without IFTTT – You could send an email or SMS directly from the security system to an email list for your neighborhood watch.
    • Too many to list with IFTTT – You could post to Facebook, Pushbullet, Twitter, Slack, etc.  You get the idea.


17. Mail Call

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Usefulness: 3.5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Send a notification when your mail arrives.

How it works: Let’s say you regularly get important stuff in the mail. How do you know when it arrives when you can’t stand at the front window and watch for it?

Well, you could sabotage the muffler on your mail carrier’s jeep. OR, just add an entry sensor to your mail box.

What you’ll need:

  • Entry sensor – Attach one side to the door and the other to the body of the mail box.
  • AND a mail box – The only caveat here is that it needs to be within range of your network. You may want to put the transmitter on the door so that when it’s opened and tries to send a message to your hub, there’s less metal (AKA mailbox) in the way to attenuate the signal.


18. Smart Water

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Only water when you need to, no intervention required.

How it works: You’ll need a smart water valve and integration with a weather forecasting service.  Then, you schedule watering in the mornings when there isn’t rain in the forecast for the next couple of days or water more when the temperature is higher.  You can really raise the game of this idea by using a soil moisture sensor to determine when your grass and beds need water.

This will be one of the best home automation ideas for drier parts of the world.

What you’ll need:

  • A smart water valveInstall this after the manual shut off for the water main to your house.
  • OR an electronically controlled valve and a smart control unitIf you don’t want to spring for s smart valve, you can use a smart IO module with an electronic valve.
  • AND Weather forecast integration into IFTTT – There’s a channel that can pull forecast data from Yahoo Weather.
  • MAYBE a soil moisture sensor – There are WiFi and Zigbee units, but you may have trouble integrating them with your smart hub since they’re pretty new.


19. Night Watch

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 2

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The skinny: If you open an outside door at night, turn on exterior lighting.

How it works: This one is all time keeping and switches, integrated with your existing door switches. When you open a door outside at night, your system checks the time and turns on the outside lights on the side of the house of the door you opened. After you shut the door, the lights stay on for a few more minutes and then go off.

What you’ll need:

  • Entry sensors for your doors – If you’re into security, you likely have these already.
  • AND connected light switches – You’ll need switches for every outside light around your place.
  • MAYBE light sensors – You don’t usually want the lights coming on in the middle of the day. So, you can override the light trigger with a light sensor that determines if there is already adequate lighting.
  • OR time integration – You can set the trigger to only be active at night. The down side is that it won’t account for time changes or changing sunrise and sunset times. But, you can integrate with a forecasting service that has sunrise and sunset times.


20. Garage Butler

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 2

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The skinny: When you open the interior door to your garage, the door automatically opens. It closes once you leave.

How it works: Add an extra sensor to your interior garage door. That way, when you open it within the window of time you normally leave in the morning. After your phone leaves your home WiFi or exits your geofenced area, the smart garage door closes again.

What you’ll need:

  • Entry sensors for your interior garage door – What’s an extra entry sensor, right?
  • AND connected garage door opener – Control the closer from your system.
  • OR connected IO module – Most garage door closers allow for auxiliary inputs to control the door that you can use to make your dumb controller a smart garage door opener.
  • AND time integration – Only open the garage door if it’s the time that you normally leave for the day.
  • AND location specific triggers – Shut the door after you pull away.


21. Personal Lighting

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 3

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The skinny: Lights come on (and go off!) as you move about your house.

How it works: No explanation needed, right?  On the surface, this one seems like a 1 star for difficulty.  But in some rooms, you may sit pretty motionless for a couple of hours during a movie and you might want a light on while you do that.  And, you should also consider natural lighting.

What you’ll need:

  • Motion sensors for every room – They make “dumb” motion sensor switches, but you’ll need smart ones to override the timer in rooms that you stay in without moving a lot or to alter the level of lighting in the middle of the night, etc.
  • OR presence detection fobs – Some home automation and security companies offer key fobs that are used to determine where you are.  They have the advantage of covering your whole family.
  • OR Bluetooth presence detection – If you’re by yourself or don’t care if your family stumbles around in the dark, you could use Bluetooth on your phone to let your system know where you are.
  • AND A connected light switch or bulb – Again, there are connected wall switches and connected bulbs that can go into standard outlets that you could use.  The wall switches will likely make the most sense for the amount of lights that you would want to automate.
  • MAYBE light sensors – You don’t usually want the lights coming on in the middle of the day.  So, you can override the light trigger with a light sensor that determines if there is already adequate lighting.
  • OR time integration – You can set the override to be time dependent.  The down side is that it won’t account for cloudy days, time changes, or changing sunrise and sunset times.  In other words, you’ll have to fiddle with the times several times during the year or manually turn on the lights when it’s overcast outside (Ugghh!  Who wants to operate a light switch? /sarcasm).


22. High Security Network

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Your WiFi network is disabled when you aren’t home.

How it works: So maybe I’m the only paranoid one, but I love this idea.  We all know that home wireless networks (and business networks too) can be hacked fairly easily by capable criminals.  Once they’re in, they could sniff network traffic to get passwords to your bank accounts and do all kinds of nasty things.  So, why not have a switch to turn the WiFi off when you aren’t at home.  If other things in your home depend on WiFi to have a constant connection or your internet router and WiFi device are on shared hardware, then this would obviously be a lot harder to implement (check out our post about the advantages and disadvantages of wifi for home automation).

What you’ll need:

  • Location specific triggers – Your home automation system needs to be able to tell when you’re away from home.  That could be with the location feature on your phone, a presence sensor, when your phone is not connected to the network, or some other RFID tag.
    • Geofencing – Your home automation hub’s features may support location based triggers directly
    • IFTTT – Use a location based trigger to control WeMo switches (others are added all the time) directly from the program
    • Presence sensor or RFID tags – Throw one in your car or on your key chain and your system can react to it when you get home (range up to 300′)
  • OR alarm/home automation system integration – You could control the switch for your router whenever you arm your alarm system.
  • AND A smart bulb or switch – There are connected wall switches as well as connected bulbs that can go into standard outlets.  Add these to your exterior flood or porch lights to illuminate your “landing strip.”


23. Automatic Fart Fan

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Your bathroom fan automatically runs when the ODOR is high.

How it works: How many times have you forgotten to turn off the exhaust fan?  Have guests that you wish would use the exhaust fan when they shower or drop a load?  Worry no more!  This home automation tip is just for you.  How does it work, you might ask?  You can use motion and humidity sensors in the bathroom to determine occupancy and activity, and then run the exhaust fan to evacuate unpleasant odors or lower the humidity and protect your drywall.  In a half bath, you wouldn’t even need to bother with the humidity sensor.  You could just turn the fan on when somebody stays there longer than 5 minutes.

You can debate whether or not it’s a feaux pas to automatically turn the fan on when your guests stink up your bathroom in the comments.

What you’ll need:

  • Motion sensors in the bathrooms – Determine when the room is occupied
  • OR Humidity sensor – Also run the fan when the humidity is high.
  • AND a connected switch – Just wire in a new WiFi, Z-Wave, or Zigbee switch in place of the dumb switch that used to control your fan.

I can almost imagine the scramble to get this going in smart homes across the country now!

Great ideas are perfect for sharing!

24. Homework First

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 2

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The skinny: Your kids have to send an email or text saying their homework is done before playing games or watching TV.

How it works: Use a text or email trigger to activate a switch that controls the TV, gaming console, or computer. The software looks for a code phrase (eg. “#homework”) and then turns on the switch to the TV or computer, allowing it to be turned on. Of course, there are workarounds, but sometimes just a hurdle is enough of a deterrent.

What you’ll need:

  • Smart outlets – Control power to the devices that you want to restrict
  • AND SMS integration – Use IFTTT SMS integration to trigger off of a text with #Homework.
  • OR email integration – Similar to SMS, send an email to [email protected] with subject #homework.

25. Smart Humidifier

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: No more dry skin and nose bleeds in the winter, run the humidifier only when it’s needed.

How it works: Use a smart humidity sensor in a bedroom to control a connected outlet that has the humidifier plugged into it.

What you’ll need:

  • Humidity sensor – Soggy carpets are bad, only run the humidifier when it’s too dry.
  • A smart outlet – Control power to the humidifier when you want it to come on and off

26. Perfectly Timed Weather Forecast

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Usefulness: 2

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Set the color of your lights when you open your closet to tell you what tomorrow’s precipitation and temperature forecast will be like.

How it works: If you go into your closet to pick out your clothes for the day, the light initially comes on at a particular color to let you know what the forecast is calling for. As an alternative, you could have this task triggered at a certain time every day when your alarm goes off.

What you’ll need:

  • Entry or motion sensor for the closet – You could either put an entry sensor on your closet door or use a motion sensor in the closet (that may come in handy to keep an eye on other valuables too).
  • AND A color enabled smart bulb – You could set blue to be cold, red for hot, green for rain . . . you get the idea.
  • AND Weather forecast integration into IFTTT – There’s a channel that can pull forecast data from Yahoo Weather.

I can see this as one of the popular home automation ideas in the northeast, brrr!


27. TV Zombies

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Usefulness: 2

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Difficulty: 4

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The skinny: Your kids are reminded to take a break from the screen when on the computer or on gaming consoles.

How it works: Use a power sensor on the TV or computer to determine when they’re on in the afternoon before you get home from work. Then, every 20 minutes or so, you flash the lights as a reminder for them to pause what they’re doing and walk around a bit. I don’t see this idea actually working, but you can try!

What you’ll need:

  • Power sensors/switches – Determine when the devices are on
  • AND a connected switch or bulb – Use these for the light that you want to flash.
  • AND time integration – If you don’t want to be interrupted in the middle of your movie, you’d better set up an override.


28. Night Lights


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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Automated night lights for your late-night bathroom runs, kitchen trips, or visits to the baby’s room

How it works: Whatever your reason for getting up at night, it’s nice to have some subtle lighting to avoid stubbed toes. With motion sensors in the right places, that’s not hard to accomplish.

I love home automation ideas that just work, without a lot of fuss.

What you’ll need:

  • Motion sensor – You can mount a motion sensor just under your bed to pick up on your legs when you step out.
  • OR a bed occupancy sensor – This is a bit tricky if you have someone else in bed with you, but a sensor under both sides could work too.
  • AND time triggers – Set up the active times for the routine for every night from 12 to dawn.
  • AND a smart dimmer – After all, you don’t want to completely ruin your night vision
  • OR a smart light bulb – I wouldn’t recommend one in bedrooms, but they can work OK in other spaces (see when I recommend bulbs versus switches).


29. Smart Shower Fan

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Usefulness: 3.5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Your bathroom fan automatically runs when the humidity is too high.

How it works: Those bathroom exhaust fans are there for a reason, but it’s SO easy to forget to turn it on and off, right? Even if you remember better than I do, chances are your spouse, kids, and visitors don’t. So, let your smart home do it for you.
What you’ll need:

  • A Humidity sensor – Also run the fan when the humidity is high.
  • AND A smart light – Just wire in a new smart switch in place of the dumb switch that used to control your fan, but be sure to check the current draw of your fan and switch first.


30. Smart Stair Lights

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Usefulness: 3.5

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Stay safe on that late-night trip downstairs

How it works: This one is pretty simple. Use motion sensors to trigger lights on your stairs. The only down side is that you’ll need them at the top and the bottom.

This is one of those home automation ideas that may save a trip to the ER!

What you’ll need:

  • Motion sensor – Mount your motion sensor to cover the approach to the stairs and the top to get coverage on the way up and down.
  • AND time triggers – Set up the active times for the routine for every night from dusk to dawn.
  • OR a luminescence sensor – Or, buy a 3 in 1 sensor with a luminescence sensor
  • AND A connected light switch – Just wire in a new smart switch in place of the dumb switch that used to control your stair lights
  • OR a smart light bulb – You can optionally just plug in a smart bulg for your stair light.


31. Artificial Sunrise

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 3

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The skinny: Use your bedroom lights to simulate a sunrise and wake up more gently than an alarm. Plus, you can add in a weather forecast.

How it works: Once you have your lights set up with your home automation hub, you just have to set up the timing for your routine. Depending on your hub’s software, you may be limited on how long the ramp up can be for your smart lights.
What you can do instead, is trigger multiple routines a few minutes apart to gradually increase the brightness of the bulb. If you want something more complicated like a weather report, you’ll likely have to use a more capable software like HomeAssistant or tie in third-party software like Stringify. From there, it’s just a matter of triggering blue lights when it’s going to rain, red for hot weather, or whatever you like.

What you’ll need:

  • A smart bulb with RGB colors – You’ll need a smart bulb in your lamp, be warned that power outages are a pain


32. Work Day Countdown

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 3

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The skinny: Use color changing lights in your kitchen to let you know when you wrap up breakfast and head out the door for work. Plus, you can add a traffic tie-in to account for delays getting there.

How it works: The implementation is going to depend a little on your software, but you’ll definitely need something more robust to get the traffic report to. The simplest approach is to use a time-based
routine to change your smart bulb from yellow, to orange, to red when it’s time to go.

What you’ll need:

  • A smart bulb with RGB colors – It will be tough to find a fluorescent type bulb for kitchen lighting, but you could use a flood type bulb in your recessed lights or even under-cabinet lighting. Or, a color bulb in a lamp will work too.

33. Movie Lighting

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Usefulness: 3

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Difficulty: 2

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The skinny: Turn off the lights when your movie starts, dim them if you press pause, and turn them back on when you hit stop.

How it works: To get a great tie-in with your home entertainment system, many people use the Harmony ecosystem. But, you can get Kody integrations for HomeAssistant too.

What you’ll need:

  • A smart remotemany people swear by Harmony remotes, but I haven’t used them personally
  • OR a media player integration – like the Kody plugin for HomeAssistant
  • AND smart light switches – to control your living room or media room lights
  • OR smart light bulbs – in your lamps or overhead lights


34. Visitor Jingle

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Usefulness: 4

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Difficulty: 1

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The skinny: Play a tune when a visitor comes to your front door (or a garage door for family members) for a head’s up about delivery men and visitors.

How it works: Ever miss a package because you didn’t make it to the door on time? Well, you can use music to announce new visitors
and won’t miss it like you could a simple push notification. Just use a motion sensor or security camera at your front door to trigger a tune on your Sonos speakers or another smart speaker. If you have an old phone, you can get the best app to turn old phone into security camera!

What you’ll need:

  • A motion sensorwhether this is a standalone motion sensor or a security camera with a sensor, it doesn’t matter if your home automation software can integrate will with the camera
  • A smart speaker – you’ll need a speaker like an Echo to trigger a tune when motion is detected

Well, did you love those home automation ideas? If so, here are the tools you’ll need to implement them.

Resources (What You’ll Need)

35. Home Automation Software



IFTTT


This is a great (free) app to help you automate all kinds of interactions but watch out for latency between triggers and actions

Available Channels that are Helpful:

  • Location
    • Android Location
    • iOS Location
  • Alerts
    • Android SMS
    • iOS Notifications
    • iOS Reminders
    • SMS
  • Date and Time
  • Systems
    • Homeseer
    • Honeywell evohome
    • Honeywell Single-zone Thermostat
    • iSmartAlarm
    • Nest Protect
    • Nest Thermostat
    • Netatmo Weather Station
    • Philips Hue
    • Revolv (bought out: not open to new customers)
    • Scout Alarm
    • SmartThings
    • WeMo Ecosystem

NFC Apps

  • NFC Task Launcher (can also trigger Tasker)

Tasker

Tasker is an Android app (paid, but worth it) that lets you automate tasks on your phone

36. Smart Hardware

Home Automation Systems

We’ve got reviews for the DIY contenders for the best smart system:

Wink Review

SmartThings v2 with a Wink Vs. SmartThings comparison

Staples Connect – now retired

Smart Bulbs with Colors

We’ve moved these!

See our full comparison of smart bulbs of all types.

Presence detection tags

Bluetooth presence detection

  • The only solutions I’ve seen are very home grown – please help me out with suggestions

Humidity sensors

Vibration sensors

Water/leak sensors

  • Use the sensor comparison tool to see the latest information on companies that offer leak detection sensors
  • Some examples:
    • Honeywell
    • FrontPoint
    • Insteon
    • Iris
    • SimpliSafe
    • SmartThings

Water Valves

Garage Door Openers


We’ve moved these!

See our full comparison of smart garage door openers

Credits:  Several of these were pulled and improved from other places like the home automation subreddit and CocoonTech forums.  Check them out too.

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Last update on 2024-03-15 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

4 thoughts on “Best Home Automation Ideas: 34 Smart Hacks”

  1. When my Alexa weekday alarm goes off, it also turns on the heater in the bathroom and the coffee maker.

    When I turn on the bathroom exhaust fan for my morning shower, my smart home controller checks if it is a weekday before 8 am, and if the outside temp is below 45. If it is it sends a signal to my remote starter to start my car and warm it up for me while I shower and get dressed for work.

    If I tell Alexa “Trigger I’m leaving the house” she turns off a “scene” that includes all the non-essential lights and smart outlets that have energy-vampire transformers plugged into them and sets the thermostat back 8 degrees. If I tell Alexa “Trigger I’m home” it does the opposite.

    Reply

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