I forgot how much fun Home Automation can be!
When I moved into my previous house I went a little nuts with home automation. I had a blank canvas, I could do all the cool things I’d wanted to do, but never had the ability to before. It was awesome.
Most of the lights in the house were controllable via the automation system – including the outside lights. In fact – the system turned the outside lights on and off based on sunset and sunrise, which it knew the times for every day. I also had our thermostat hooked up to the automation system so it could automatically adjust the temperature based on a variety of factors.
The really cool thing – at least as far as I was concerned – was that my house would wake me up in the morning, read me the weather report, then start playing music while I got ready for work.
When we moved into our current house I never got around to doing anything with home automation. The longer I went without doing anything, the more mental resistance I built up.
A couple of nights ago I finally broke free of the resistance and started playing around with it again. Before long I had a half dozen lights configured and a flood of ideas for what I could hook up next.
Aside from the ability to control lights from my iPhone, this kind of setup actually has a practical use as well.
When we are going to be out of town we can set the house to “away” mode, where it will randomly turn lights on and off (but only after dark, and before the time we would normally go to bed). You can do something similar using timers, however that’s easy to spot because the lights always go on and off at the same time. By adding randomization it more closely mimics how it would look were somebody home.
Have a cool idea for home automation? I’d love to hear about it!











