Looking for some great Home Automation Ideas to spice up 2021? Luckily for you, home automation is literally something I live and breathe.
This article will cover the best Home Automation Ideas I’ve had across 2021 that I think you should put into your own home.
Table of Contents
The Best Home Automation ideas for 2021
The key to good smart home automation is a great foundation and a strong controller/operating system.
Once you have this, you’ll find the possibilities are endless, remember to check out my Pinterest board on this too for more ideas!
Climate Control
Climatecontrol can be achieved in different ways such as using thermostats, sensors and timers.
You can control the cooling and heating of your home using these ways, let’s check out a few smart home ideas!
- You can schedule your smart home cooling system to turn on automatically before you arrive home after a hot day
- Automatic windows and blind closers are a great invention, it can help you to cool or heat your home without the usage of extra energy using smart home automation
- You can also light the fireplace using your smartphone without moving
- The smart sensors that are installed in the house can turn off the heating and cooling automatically when no one is in the room
- You can also receive notifications when your fridge is left open for a few minutes by using an open/close sensor installed in your fridge and connect it to your smartphone
- If the fireplace makes your room too warm, your home ventilation system automatically turns on and circulates air into the room by connecting it to a smart hub and temperature sensors.
Smart Lighting
- Setup Room groups so you can turn off all lights at once
- Setup controls like double-tap to change to brightness to a pre-set dim %
- Set lights to flash in rooms far away from your doorbell so you can see someone is at the front door
- Add a bedtime/late scene to your lights after a certain time to allow you to get ready for bed
- Set lights to turn on slowly as the sun sets
- Add sensors to turn lights on dim after a certain time so you can get to the bathroom in the dark!
- Turn off the lights automatically when all phones leave the Geo-located area (Your Wifi connection).
- Use sensors to check the natural lighting in the room, if it’s too low, turn on the lights
- When it’s night time, opening the garage door will turn on the lights
- Add an all off button in your bedroom to turn every single house light off.
- Add sensors so when you come in the front door, your living room lights turn on
- Receive phone notifications to confirm how long all lights have been on for the day
- Security Lighting is standard for a lot of security systems, but you can actually set these up yourself with routines! Set lights to randomly turn on and off whilst you’re not at home.
Smart Home Party Ideas
- Create a Party routine/scene where your lights change depending on the type of music or beat
- Get a phone notification when someone rings your doorbell in case no one can hear the door
- Use your smartphone/pad to tell when you’re out of drinks/ice, if ice, create more when it’s low!
- The more people that are in a room, the hotter it gets, use a sensor to control the temperature of the room!
- Use Alexa to run party games via third-party skills, like the following:
Bingo
Tic Tac Toe
Rock Paper Scissors
Smart Music Ideas
- Double tap a volume up button to turn off the music in that speaker group (Only Bedroom, Kitchen, etc).
- Change LED Strips / Lighting to match with your music
- Specific audio profiles so that your music is louder than someone else’s in the house
- You can install a waterproof wall mount to control this in your shower, I will have a blog post on a DIY version of this soon!
- Turn on speakers when you turn on the shower/bathroom lights
- Change the LED colour of your lights to match the mood of the music (This is done on a Genre metadata tag)
Home Theater / Living room Ideas
- Add a small light strip which blinks when you lose the remote or a small speaker to beep
- Did you pause your TV show? bright the brightness up a little!
- When you press Play, lights dim / go off
- Have a specific soundbar under a TV in the kids’ room get quieter as the night goes on and your child drifts off
- Lock all doors and turn off the doorbell functionality when you’re watching a film!
- Use a sensor to check when there’s not been any movement for 30 minutes to turn the TV off automatically
Securing the house
Whether you’re at home or away, with smart home ideas you can enhance the security of your house that will provide you and your family with safety and comfort. Here are some home automation ideas that can be implemented in your house and protect your family
- When motion is detected outside your house, you can immediately receive an alert text
- You can create personalized entry codes for family and friends
- You can automate a touch screen in your bedroom when the doorbell rings at your front door
- You can install automatic door locks and check to see if they’re locked or not even when you’re not at home
- You can set a security automated alarm when you’re asleep or away from home.
- Install a door sensor with tamper protection to protect your safe that contains valuables
- When the doorbell is pressed during the daytime, the speakers play “Who’s there?” and the security camera turns on next to the door
- When the doorbell rings during night time, the front door light turns on
- You can easily use your smartphone to monitor your home through the installed security systems in your house. If you want to be really fancy, grab yourself a ring indoor security drone!
Smart Home Medical Care
When you find yourself taking care of your aging parents, the in-home care may get expensive.
But with home automation ideas you are offered affordable alternations that allow you to monitor your loves ones with a peace of mind.
Let’s discuss a few smart home ideas below that make it easy for you to take care of medical needs:
- When you’re away from home, you can check on your loved ones on Smart Home video surveillance with the convenience of your smart devices and gain peace of mind.
- You can also track the activity of your loved ones with the help of medication dispensers that can easily alert you about the daily doses, whether they’ve taken it or not.
- You can also track the activity of other home appliances such as the faucet and make sure it isn’t left running or the stove isn’t left on.
- Medical alert buttons come in handy, your parents can wear it around their wrist or neck, it is able to sense whether the wearer has fallen and can’t get up, and it will immediately alert you.
- Connecting the sensors to your refrigerator can keep you updated on your loved one’s diet, whether they’ve eaten enough food or keeping themselves hydrated or not.
- You can take care of your parents with dementia and make sure they don’t leave the house with the help of smart security systems.
Smart Garage
When you’re away from and not sure whether you closed the garage door while leaving your house, that’s where a smart garage door closer comes in handy.
With smart devices you are able to check on your garage door from miles away using an app or Alexa, you can even open the door when you’ve arrived home.
- You can install entry sensors in your garage along the sides of the door which lets you know when the door separates.
- You can also set timers to close at a specific time every day like at 8 pm, so you’re sure the door has closed
- You can open or close your door remotely when you’re leaving or arriving back at home.
- Use Geofencing on your Smartphone to determine your location, when you leave your Wi-Fi network area, the system will be aware that you’re away and close your garage door automatically.
- With a smart garage door controller, you can also grant access to your friends and family to enter easily.
- You can receive real-time alerts on your smartphone, you can also set automatic alerts that notify you whether your garage door was left open then you can close it from anywhere using your smartphone.
To conclude
There you have it, my top Smart Home Automation Ideas. I will keep updating this list when I come up with more ideas, and yes, whilst some of these seem unrealistic or a bit odd, they are possible. What do you do which seems odd? Anything you can suggest? Let me know 🙂
