Ideas for automations and shortcuts that make your home smarter and your life simpler

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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.

 

Comment, share and ask questions.

My story: https://community.tp-link.com/en/smart-home/stories/detail/502260?utm_source=Subscription&utm_medium=email T100 X5 T310 X1 T110 X1 P100 X6 L510 X1 L610 X3 TC70 X3 H100 X1 S200B X1 RV20 Mop
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Comment

Love the idea of turning the bathroom/toilet light to a low brightness at night! The restroom is really making me blind if I need to use it at night, especially when I am just awake.

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I have a toilet door where I can't fix a door sensor. So I came up with this alternative. 

 

A motion sensor in the room points from the ceiling to the door. 

IF motion AND light off THEN light on

IF motion AND light on THEN light off

 

Also using less brightness at night. Plus red-ish low beightness light at one bulb in the hall for 15 seconds after turning off the toilet light, so that I find my way back to the bedroom. 

For me door and window sensors are a bit limited, I prefer to have a motion sensor in the room, I have more freedom to invent automations. For example, in the entrance hall, which has more than one door, I can use a motion sensor to switch on the lighting when I leave the room and reach the hall. Instead of using four sensors, one for each door.

 

Something I'd like is to be able to switch off the motion sensors for a period of time. Even if I don't have any automation applied, every time I pass the sensor it flashes the LED and detects the passage, and it uses energy.

My story: https://community.tp-link.com/en/smart-home/stories/detail/502260?utm_source=Subscription&utm_medium=email T100 X5 T310 X1 T110 X1 P100 X6 L510 X1 L610 X3 TC70 X3 H100 X1 S200B X1 RV20 Mop
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