I added 10 NEW Home Automation Ideas for 2024! (EASY)

I have 10 amazing home automations to show you, and the best part is they're easy to do. Check it out. Not too long ago, we put up these outdoor shades that we absolutely love. But when it gets too windy outside, these things can break. So we have to put them all the way up. I don't want to monitor the wind all day, every day. So I set up an automation. And even if you don't have shades like this, you still might want to be alerted if it's extremely windy outside so things don't just blow away. So here's how I'm doing it. I'm using the Tempest weather station, which is now compatible with Home Assistant, and getting the wind speed for our backyard. That way, I'm not using some far away weather station, but using the reading that's right here. So it's super accurate. I set it up like this. When the wind gust speed is over 25 miles an hour, the shades open up using the Bond RF controller. Now I never have to worry about the wind again. Well, I have some light strips under my side of the bed to help me see when I get up in the middle of the night. And I've automated these before with a motion sensor, but it never worked perfectly. It would sense motion for my dog Luna in the middle of the night and turn on the lights. Yeah, not great. But check this out. It's a pressure sensor mat that turns on the lights when I get out of bed. It's extremely fast and accurate, since it only runs the automation when it's supposed to. There's technically two automations for this. The first turns on the light when you step on the mat. Easy. The second automation turns off the light if no one's been standing on the mat for 30 seconds. And it works so well. And you might be wondering what this mat is. Well, it's still being developed by a startup company, but they were nice enough to let me have an early look. So follow the channel for more updates on when this will be available. Oh, and I also have a bonus automation with this pressure mat next to my bed. Our little one year old likes to walk over to the nightstand and take things. Then she hides them around the house. It's the worst. So I set up an automation to catch her in the act. The tiny terror is doing what she is best at. Terrorizing. Quick, stop her. Speaking of the baby, it's terrible when something wakes her up. A big culprit is the doorbell. And you've probably seen those signs next to the doorbell that threaten massive pain for whoever rings it and wakes up the baby. Scary. Well, there's an easy fix. First, you want to disable your chime and then set up an automation to announce on all the smart speakers that someone's at the door. But the key is to only do this when the baby is awake. So let me show you how I know our baby is asleep. I have a contact sensor on the baby's door and a smart light switch in the room. So when the doorbell is pressed, it triggers the automation. Then it checks that the baby's door is closed and the light is off. If so, the baby is napping and it will skip the doorbell announcement. Now I don't have to schedule the doorbell to be quiet at certain times. And I guess I can take down my wife's threatening note. Jeez, so violent. Want to hear something crazy? When my smart home breaks, it can actually fix itself using AI. Everyone's using AI. AI solves all problems. AI buzzword. No, it's not AI. Stop it with the AI. It's a really simple, easy solution that anyone can do when a smart device goes offline, like these light strips. Every so often, I have to unplug them and plug them back in to bring them back online, which is so annoying because I have to move all these shelves to do it. Yeah, no more. Instead, I set up an automation for a smart reboot by plugging in the light strip controller into any old smart outlet. And it's a really simple automation. So when the light strips go offline, that triggers the automation and the smart outlet will turn off and then back on again. And then it will set the light strips back to the original color, making it look like nothing ever happened. Now my smart home can finally fix itself. I love it. So my daughter's playing basketball and she's getting pretty good, but not as good as her old man. Seriously, Dad, it's only seven feet. But it gets dark really early. So I put up some Nova Stella smart lights to light up the area. These lights are great because they're very bright. Do warm and cool lights to perfectly match our existing lights. And of course, RGB for fun. Now I need to just turn them on automatically when we're playing basketball. Automation time. I thought I would need to buy like an outdoor motion sensor, but then I realized I have something already out here that might even work better. An outdoor security camera. You see, these unified cameras can detect people really quickly and accurately. So I just set up an automation to turn on the lights when the camera detects somebody and then another automation to turn off the lights if the camera doesn't detect someone for 10 minutes. And I love repurposing my smart devices because it makes it so easy. Like repurposing my old Google Nest display for an automation. But first, I want to tell you about some new tech I've added to my mattress called Eight Sleep. Now, I've heard some bold claims about this. So when Eight Sleep reached out to sponsor this video, I knew I had to try it. This is the pod cover and it cools down and heats up my bed using water, which is wild. It automatically adjusts the temperature based on my sleep patterns and the weather. I hate waking up hot in the middle of the night. So this cools me down while I'm sleeping to keep me in a nice deep sleep. Plus, it does it in two zones. So Ali's side of the bed is a different temperature and exactly how she likes it. So crazy. It definitely feels like a premium product and it works. We both fall asleep faster and wake up feeling more refreshed. It also has sensors inside so I can track my heart rate and sleep stages without wearing an Apple watch. Oh, and it can gently vibrate and change the temperature to wake me up. I'm using this as a silent alarm, and it's great. If you want more info, then click the link below and use my code for a discount. Thanks to Eight Sleep for supporting the channel. Sometimes we get glued to our screens. Hey, have you even gone outside today? Yes, I have. I've been working hard outside all day. What? No, you haven't. Yes, and my team started that. Oh, I need to fix this. So I'm using the camera in the backyard that can detect people. The way the automation works is if it's nice outside and that camera has not detected anybody back there for a while, then my smart home will give a gentle nudge to go play outside. It is nice out. So go play in the backyard or I will block Netflix and mute my microphone so I can't hear your cries. With that gold standard of parenting you just witnessed, I'm thinking, why stop there? The kids room gets messy so quickly and their toys get scattered all over the house. So it's time to automate cleanup duty. I set up a chore dashboard. The kids can pull up on this old Google Nest display that I had laying around and I'll probably add more chores to it later. But for now, when they clean up the room or pick up the mess around the house, they can just check it off the list. Once all their daily chores are complete, it kicks off an automation that notifies my phone if they actually did clean. Then I can press the button on the notification to give them a little treat for their hard work. Bribery. I've shown this before, but it's a car, a smart pet feeder that I'm using as a treat dispenser for my kids. It's probably everyone's favorite smart home device. One of the perks of living in Arizona is the beautiful orange and purple sunsets. But life's busy and sometimes the shades are down because of the bright sun and we just miss it. So I set up an automation that gets triggered two minutes before sunset and opens up the shades all the way. And you can do this with any smart shades or curtain openers. And most people will open up their shades in the morning and close them in the afternoon. But if you reopen them right at sunset, that will definitely boost your spouse approval score. All right. See ya. Drive safe. So if Allie's gone in the evening and I'm here watching the kids, it's all about survival. I have to make sure the house is still standing and everyone's OK by the time she gets back. So I have a little help from my smart home with an automation. When Allie's phone leaves in the evening and my phone is still here, dad mode activates. Miss Rachel automatically starts playing on the TV so the baby can take a break from terrorizing. The lights change to pink. So the idea of markers on the wall feels pointless. And kids music is blasting in their room to encourage them to play. All this makes taking care of the kids way easier. Oh, and dad mode automatically turns off when Allie's phone reconnects to Wi-Fi. Nice. Oh, hey. All right. This last one is so seamless. When we're watching TV, adjusting the lights is such a pain. I feel like I'm constantly pulling out my phone to adjust the lights or shouting voice commands over the TV volume. So I set up an automation that automatically adjusts the lights based on the status of the TV. I've tried something similar in the past and it's worked OK. But the way this is set up, perfection. I'm not joking. It's perfect. Our smart home knows if our Apple TV is playing or paused. So I set up an automation that when something is playing, the lights automatically turn off. And then when it's paused, the lights turn back on to a dim setting. Look how responsive this is. Play, pause, play, pause. So fast. And what's crazy is when the show finishes, the lights automatically turn back up. Setting up automations is so much fun. And I have some really cool things lined up for 2024. So hit that subscribe button. Thanks for watching. No treat for you. You didn't finish your chore dashboard. What chore dashboard? All your broken automations.