Ideas for automations and shortcuts that make your home smarter and your life simpler
The idea was to turn my dumb house into a smart house. It's a job that's never complete, but it's reached a high level. When I go to a house without automation, I already miss it. I'm sharing some of the shortcuts and automations I have that might give other people ideas for improving their homes.
Shortcut - GETTING HOME
One click on smart button (S200B) DO:
- Turn ON power socket (Tapo P100) where I have connected an old cell phone with the Tapo app (With widgets on the main screen, which allow me to control the lighting throughout the house and aspiration. This screen stays on for 10 minutes and doesn't lock. )
- Execute shortcut "Vision zero" -> Move the camera (TC70) to a position with no vision -> This way, even with privacy mode disabled, no one can see my house.
- Turn OFF other 15 automations
- Turn ON 2 celing lamps (L610) during 2 minutes
- Pause 5 seconds
- Turn ON privacy mode on camera (TC70) -> the 5 seconds are esencial to move the camara before activate the privacy mode
- Turn ON other 15 automations
- Send a notification "Welcome Home"
- Pause 55 seconds
- Execute shortcut "Turn off celing lights slowly) -> This shortcut reduce 10% off light by second form 100% to 0% -> Turn on bright 100% ->Pause 1sec-> Turn on bright 90% -> repeat until Turn off)
- Pause two hours
- Turn OFF power socket (Tapo P100) where I have connected an old cell phone with the Tapo app
Shortcut - LEAVE HOME
Dobble click on smart button (S200B) DO:
- Play a sound on smart hub (H100)
- Turn OFF all plugs and lights of the house
- Pause 5 seconds
- Turn OFF privacy mode on cameras (TC70)
- Pause 5 seconds
- Execute shortcut "Cam normal position" -> Move the camera (TC70) to a preset position
- Turn ON other 15 automations
- Turn OFF other 15 automations
- Pause 2 seconds
- Send a notification "alarm active"
Important Automations
Automation - Move camera to House divisions
Note: Sometimes the motion tracking is a bit slow, especially if there are animals in the house, the camera (TC70) has a hard time following the movement.
Solution I found: Only when I'm away from home
If movement is detected in the sensors (Tapo T100 ) installed in each room, it moves the camera to that room. Previously configured in the camera's "pan and tilt" options. This way, even if the camera is pointing at a room, it moves to where there is movement, even outside the field of view. Even if a room has one camera, the other cameras move in the direction of that room. Each division is automated.
Logic:
IF movement is detected on Tapo T100 "room Y"
THEN
Move the camera to "room Y"
Automation - Turns on the ceiling light when I open the closet door
Logic:
Efective time = always
When = Tapo T110 detect door open
THEN
Turn on Tapo L610 during 10 minutes - (The 10 minutes are important - if I forget to leave the door open, the light won't stay on forever.)
Important:
But if I forget the door is open, I have another automation.
When Tapo T110 open more then 10 minutes
THEN
Send a notification "Closet Open"
When I close the door, it does the opposite
PS:If I open the closet door "after sunset" I don't want the movement detected by the room sensor to interfere with the automation of the closet door.
So: When, in the shortcut "Turns on the ceiling light when I open the closet door" I cancel the automation of the room light on if it detects movement.
When I close the closet door, the motion automation becomes active again.
Automation - When the sun goes down, and if you're at home, the living room lighting is activated until 23:59
Logic:
WHEN - Sunset
THEN
Turn ON Tapo P100 + Tapo L610
And all the motion sensors activate the lighting if they detect movement in the other rooms of the house until sun rising
Logic:
WHEN - Sunset
THEN
Turn ON Tapo P100 + Tapo L610 during 1 minutes
UNTIL – 23:59
Temperature control
Shortcut - "Temp Auto ON" -> When the sensor (T310) detects -22 degrees celcius it activates an electrical socket (P100) and +24 degrees celcius it switches off the electrical socket
Shortcut - "Temp Auto OFF" -> When the sensor (T310) detects -22 degrees celcius it switches off an electrical socket (P100) and +22 degrees celcius switches off the electrical socket. This way there is no action.
PS:During the night, if the "When I go to sleep" or "Sleep" shortcuts are activated, (P100) is switched off. The "leaving home" shortcut not only turns off the power sockets (p100) but also applies an automation that disables the shortcuts (redundancy).
Other shortcuts / automations:
Shortcut - When I go to sleep -> Turns off all electrical outlets (P100) and turns on the lamps up to and including the bedroom
Shortcut - Sleep -> Turns off all lights but gives a 15 second delay
Automation - During the night ->Switch on the lights on the way to the toilet, and the toilet only 15%
Automation - Away from home switch on lighting -> When I'm away from home if movement is detected switch on the lighting between sunset and sunrise
Automation - House room alerts -> I have a cat, so when I'm away from home there are rooms that are locked. If there's movement in that room, I've set up a personalized message which is sent even when DND is active.
PS: I've already received an alert... it was a mosquito on the sensor :)
Shortcut - SOS -> With a cat at home, it's natural that when I'm away I get alerts from the camera (including alerts of people detected :)) and alerts from the room sensors, so I can't have the HUB (H100) alarms active.
If I see any intrusion on the camera, I've created an SOS shortcut ->Switch on all the lights in the house and sound the alarm for 10 minutes.
Shortcuts - RV20 Mop vacuum cleaner
I created a shortcut for each room in the house, and put that shortcut as a widget on my phone
Then, as I know the average time each room is vacuumed, I did it:
Vacuum Hall
Turn on the hall light for 7 minutes
Pauses for 8 minutes
Sends notification "Hall vacuuming complete"
PS:The lighting time is adjusted to each room in the house. I know the robot can see in the dark, but I can't see the robot without light :)
This way I don't have to open the app to start vacuuming. And I can vacuum each room individually, vacuum the whole house or send the vacuum cleaner to the charging dock with one click.
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