The future has been here for a while, and it’s thanks to home automation. 

Home automation means setting everyday devices to work on their own. That can look like using motion sensors or connecting your devices to the internet to control them more easily with voice commands or an app. 

Since 2011 saw the advent of the Nest Learning Thermostat, house automation has taken homeowners by storm. In came smart lights, smart locks, smart fridges—even smart toilets. 

Smart devices like these can give you a sense of security and control over your time. They can alleviate the pressure of remembering to perform dozens of small tasks, especially if you lead a busy life. 

In this article, we lay out some useful (and quirky) home automation ideas that work throughout the house to inspire you to start making your own smart living space. 

Remember, These Ideas Are Completely Customizable

Home automation software like IFTTT or Home Assistant connects your apps and devices. It’s important to remember that most of these ideas are customizable using this software, smart hubs, and voice assistants. 

With the virtually endless capabilities of an automated home, you’ll find that only your imagination limits your options to make life more convenient. 

What About Cost?

While some of the smart devices we refer to are expensive, the payoff in terms of saving time and energy is worth it. If you’re on a budget, use this article to generate ideas to use with an affordable voice assistant or home automation software connected to devices like smart plugs. 

Smart plugs are incredibly useful devices that can make any electronic device with a plug “smart” by connecting it to a smart hub like Amazon Alexa or Google. 

Lighting Automation Ideas

Illuminate your home more intentionally with the addition of smart lighting, which comes in all shapes, sizes, and types.

Smart LED light bulbs are versatile and add convenience to your everyday life, lasting much longer than your normal incandescent bulbs and using much less energy. 

Some of the best smart light bulbs include Wyze Bulb Color, Philips Wiz Smart Wi-Fi LED Color Bulb, and Meross MSL120 Smart Wi-Fi LED Bulb. All three are compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. 

Here are some of the best home automation ideas to make the most out of your smart lighting. 

  1. Schedule porch lights: Use automated porch lights that turn on reliably every evening so you don’t forget if you come back from work in the dark. 
  2. Sync with your doorbell: Flash one of the lights in your house when the doorbell rings in case you don’t hear it with headphones on. 
  3. Adjust based on natural light: Set your lights to adjust their brightness based on the amount of natural light coming into the room. 
  4. Adjust for movie watching: Connect lightbulbs to your TV with home automation software to automatically dim them when you watch a movie. 
  5. Adjust for reading: Set a reading light for nighttime by adjusting the brightness. Use a voice assistant like Amazon Echo to turn your reading light setting on whenever you ask. 
  6. Wake up peacefully: Create a “sunrise alarm” that wakes you up by gradually increasing the brightness of your bedroom lights. 
  7. Switch up the mood: Set your light to a different color to change the mood. You can set it to blue at night, along with water sounds from your voice assistant, to feel like you’re at the beach. 

Security Automation Ideas

Safety is a top priority for homeowners—but there’s a lot to keep track of. Forgetting to set the alarm or lock the backdoor is a scary mistake you don’t want to make too often.

Equipping your home with smart security devices like Vivint and Ring Alarm Pro, smart locks, and smart detectors can take care of many of your worries about safety, especially if you have children at home. 

Here are some ideas to start making your residence more secure. 

  1. Detect motion: Use your smart security device to detect motion at your front door and send a live video feed to your smartphone no matter where you are. 
  2. Stream security feed: Send motion sensor video feed to your TV via a streaming device like Fire Stick or Chromecast if you left your phone in another room while watching TV.
  3. Look like you’re home: When you’re away on a trip, set your light schedule to vary throughout the week to make it seem like you’re still home to potential intruders. 
  4. Secure while away: Arm your alarm system from anywhere with the help of other devices like a smart thermostat that uses motion sensors. 
  5. Detect open doors: Use a smart lock like August that detects and alerts you if someone leaves the door open.
  6. Lock from anywhere: Lock your doors automatically with a smart lock after you reach a certain distance from your house if you forget to lock your door. 
  7. Customize home access: Use codes to access through your smart lock specifically for babysitters or house cleaners that offer access to your home during only set timeframes. 
  8. Detect gas and smoke: Equip your home with a smart carbon monoxide detector like Google Nest Protect to alert you about gas leaks or smoke. 
  9. Detect leaks: Detect moisture if you’re away from home and your pipes leak, with water sensors that alert your phone.

Climate Control Automation Ideas

It can be both frustrating and inefficient to manually control your home’s temperature. 

Sometimes setting a temperature that everyone agrees on can feel downright impossible with multiple family members. And outside weather that can affect how it feels inside is difficult to account for. 

Luckily, smart thermostats like Ecobee and the creative use of other smart devices help you get your home feeling comfortable for everyone. 

Here are some cool home automation ideas for “controlling the weather” inside your home. 

  1. Room-by-room temperature: Use a smart thermostat that uses motion sensors to learn which rooms are occupied at certain times to adjust the temperature accordingly.
  2. Location tracking: When you’re on the way home, your smart thermostat can track your location to adjust the temperature by the time you come home. 
  3. Allow cold air inside: Use a smart sensor or smart thermostat to allow cold air inside the house at night with the help of a ventilation system.
  4. Detect open doors for AC: Use motion sensors to notify you when a door is left open to prevent cool air from escaping. 
  5. Detect open windows for AC: Connect window sensors to your smart thermostat using a smart hub so that your thermostat goes into energy-saving mode when the windows are open for a set amount of time. 
  6. Control sun exposure: Extend or retract smart blinds automatically with IKEA’s FYRTUR or Lutron’s Serena Shades to help block the sunlight heating the inside through your windows. 
  7. Customize bed temperature: Automate your bed for a perfect night of rest with products like Smartduvet, which lets you and your partner preheat or cool the bed based on the preferences both of you set via an app. 

Kitchen Automation Ideas

If your house were a city, your kitchen would be downtown. It’s always bustling with beeping appliances, clanging utensils, and snacking family members.

When you lead a busy life, switching to smart devices that assist you with cooking or preparing for a grocery trip is a game changer. A voice assistant like Amazon Echo, Google Assistant, or Apple HomePod is the perfect little helper in the kitchen. 

We whipped up some ideas to get you thinking about a smarter kitchen experience.

  1. Detect open fridge doors: Use a smart fridge to let you know when you’ve left the fridge door open. 
  2. Track expired foods: Use a smart fridge to keep track of when foods expire. 
  3. Detect egg freshness: Use a smart egg carton to notify you when you’re running low on eggs or when an egg is no longer fresh.
  4. Monitor meat cooking: Monitor the internal temperature of the food you cook on your smartphone with a smart meat thermometer like the one from Yummly.
  5. Control your microwave: Talk to a smart microwave like the GE Smart Countertop Microwave Oven to control how you heat your food.
  6. Make coffee in bed: Connect a smart coffee maker like a Hamilton Beach Coffee Maker to your voice assistant to ask for coffee how you like it from your bed. 
  7. Make ice from anywhere: Tell your ice maker to start making ice from your phone. 
  8. Control your dishwasher: Control and monitor your dishes from your smartphone with a smart dishwasher. 

Bathroom Automation Ideas

The bathroom is a place to refresh after a long day, so it makes sense to want a pleasant and comfortable experience. 

An expensive smart toilet like one from Kohler may be out of the question, but why not make it even easier to recoup with some other restroom automations?

Here are some ideas to set you down the path of bathroom automation paradise. 

  1. Prevent humidity: Replace your bathroom fan switch with a smart switch that can detect when to start blowing based on humidity levels after a shower. 
  2. Listen to music: Ask a voice assistant-enabled showerhead like the Kohler Moxie to play your favorite playlist while you shower. 
  3. Change the mood: Set colored light strips in the bathroom for a fun shower experience that you can control from an app. 
  4. Improve midnight trips: Use strip lights with a motion sensor in the bathroom that turn on dimly when you have to go in the middle of the night.
  5. Look ahead: Prepare for the day with a smart mirror like BYECOLD that tells you the weather and time. 
  6. Protect your teeth: Brush your teeth more effectively with a smart toothbrush like the Oral-B 7000 Series that uses Bluetooth to track your habits and provide feedback. 
  7. Stay sanitary: Close the toilet lid gently without touching it using a smart toilet seat like this one from Simple Project.

Cleaning Automation Ideas

Maintaining a clean house is necessary for a habitable living space, but it can be a hassle. The last thing you want to do after work is come home to vacuum a dirty floor.

And if you have pets or kids, sometimes it feels like you have more grime than time. 

Here are some cleaning automation ideas that will save you time and stress. 

  1. Automatic window cleaner: Wash your outdoor windows with the help of an automated window cleaner like the Hobot Window Cleaning Robot.
  2. Automatic vacuum cleaner: Replace your manual vacuum with an automated one connected to Wi-Fi, like the iRobot Roomba.
  3. Automatic mopper: Mop your floor with the help of one of these top robot moppers.
  4. Touchless trash can: Use a smart trash can to self-seal and automatically replace the trash bag. 
  5. Automatic toilet bowl cleaner: Use an automated toilet bowl cleaner like Flush ‘n Sparkle to automatically bleach and clean your toilet as you flush, although it’s not electronic. 
  6. Combo washer and dryer: Skip the manual transfer of wet clothes with an all-in-one washer and dryer combination that automatically turns from a washer into a dryer. 
  7. Smart air purifier: Reduce the amount of dust, dander, and pathogens in the air with an air purifier like Levoit.

Outdoor Automation Ideas

Your yard may not be the first place you think to implement home automation, but there’s still an opportunity to make your life easier outdoors. 

Here are some ideas to automate activities outside. 

  1. Grill easy: Control your grill’s temperature with your phone with a smart grill like Timberline 850. 
  2. Clean your grill: Scrub your barbecue grill using an automatic grill brush like Grillbot.
  3. Skip mowing: Maintain a trimmed lawn with an automatic lawn mower like the Landroid M. 
  4. Keep your grass alive: Manage the health of your lawn better with a smart sprinkler system that you can control from your phone, like Orbit. 
  5. Monitor moisture levels: Monitor your plants’ condition with a moisture sensor like ECOWITT. 
  6. Clean the pool: Eliminate unwanted grime and debris from your pool with an automatic pool cleaner like the Dolphin Nautilus. 
  7. Walk safe: Light up the path to your front door with smart lights that turn on with a schedule or motion sensors. 

Automation Is for Everyone

Whether you’re excited or unsure about adding smart home automation ideas to your living space, there’s something for you. 

You don’t have to fill every crevice of your life with robots. Maybe you’re satisfied with manually locking your door and turning your lights off but could benefit from a smart thermostat that lowers your electric bill. 

The glory of home automation is that the customization possibilities are endless. It’s up to you to decide how you want to automate your life. The more personalized you get with your home automation decisions, the closer you’ll be to creating a life of comfort at home. 
You can even ask Alexa or Google for more home automation ideas.