Simplyfying home automation
A GUIDE TO THE BASIC TOOLS OF THE TRADE.
UP UNTIL RECENTLY, home automation had been a tough business, best left to professionals and hard core enthusiasts. A dizzying array of incompatible protocols and devices made most home automation projects absurdly complex, requiring weeks of research just to get started.
Now, with the rise of home assistants it has become much easier to create an automated home. It doesn’t require any special knowledge: just a place to get started.
WHAT CAN I DO WITH AN AUTOMATED HOME?
So, let’s back up a minute. If you’re a home automation neophyte then you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. “I’m fine with manually flipping a light switch,” you may be thinking, but home automation is really about much more than that.
Home automation is about making your electronic devices work together and work smarter. Typically it involves creating a set of “if then” rules for the devices in your home: if the TV is turned on then close the curtains and dim the lights; if the motion sensor detects movement outside after 1am then start recording on the camera; if it’s 10pm, turn off the hot water heater; if the owner is nearing home after work then start the coffee brewer. You create the rules, and the possibilities are limited only by your imagination – and the availability of hardware that supports automation.
THE ECOSYSTEMS
Although automation has become much easier in recent years, we’re still a long way away from the “everything works with everything” utopia. There are still “ecosystems” at play, and not every device supports every ecosystem – though many of the most popular devices (like the Philips Hue lightbulbs, Belkin’s WeMo devices, August Smart Lock, ecobee devices and so on) will support all the major platforms.
At the heart of nearly every home automation system is a controlling device, a hub that controls all the other devices and is the brain of the operation. Historically these were custom PCs running specialised (and expensive) software, but nowadays we have a much cheaper and easier solution: home assistants like the Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod and Google Home make ideal automation hubs, with voice control baked in and now with apps and services designed to support automation.
Your choice of ecosystem will therefore pretty much boils down to which home assistant you prefer, and the three most prominent home assistants also define the three largest ecosystems. We’ll look briefly at them here.
AMAZON ALEXA www.amazon.com
Amazon is virtually giving away the Echo these days, hoping to lock you into service subscriptions and shopping deals. The miniature Echo Dot can be bought for as little as $70, and is still fully capable of home automation with full access to all the features of the Alexa voice assistant.
There are Alexa apps and voice controls for a huge number of devices now, and Alexa now comes with its own built-in automation tool: Routines. Routines can be accessed on the Alexa mobile app by tapping on the side bar and selecting Routines.
Routines are very simple scripts comprising of a trigger and one or more actions. The trigger can be a time, a voice command, input from a smart device (such as a motion sensor) or even your current location. The action can be one of a myriad of options: sending messages, playing music, having Alexa say something, changing devices settings and so on.
For home automation purposes, you can select Smart Home in the action options, which will bring up a list of devices on your home network. Any that Alexa can control should be listed here, and you can set the options that device (turn on, dim, start and so on).
APPLE HOMEKIT www.apple.com/au/ios/home/
Apple was a bit late to the party, but it has caught up quickly. Apple’s HomeKit technology is capable of controlling a large and growing range of devices, including TVs, power switches, lights, air conditioners, cameras, doorbells, garage doors, motion sensors, speakers and more. You can find a full list of supported devices at the website above.
You don’t need anything other than an iPad to use HomeKit, though if you’re going in on the ecosystem you’re probably going to want a HomePod, which is Apple’s answer to the Google Home and Amazon Echo.
At the heart of HomeKit is the Home app, which gives you an instant view of all the connected smart devices in your home, allowing you to see their status and control them remotely. Just fire up the app on your iOS device and tap Add Accessory to attach new device to it. You can also create “Scenes” – a set of pre-configured conditions for attached accessories (such as dim the bedroom light, turn the bedroom TV on).
Tapping on the Automation tab will take you to where the real magic happens. Much like Amazon’s Routines, you can create a new script (called an “Automation” in the app) comprising of a trigger and a responding Scene.
It’s a very usable app overall, though not as powerful or flexible as Amazon or Google’s Routines, and a simple way to get started on home automation.
GOOGLE ASSISTANT store.google.com/product/google_home
Available on the Google Home voice assistant well as later models of Android phones, Google’s Assistant allows for direct control of home devices through an app interface, as well as the creation of highly flexible routines to automate those devices. It has the added benefit of working with a very wide range of devices, including the Chromecast. It works well with apps such as Spotify and as well as with third party automation tools like IFTTT.
Although new versions of Android have automation hooks built into certain features like the calendar and scheduling tools, your go-to app will be the Google Home app, available for download on Android and iOS. The Home app, like Apple Home, lets you control devices and set routines. It’s not as elegant as either the Apple or Amazon solutions, but it is extremely flexible once you get a grasp on it.
In Google Home, you set up your devices first, linking them to your Google account. Then you can tap on Routines to create new routines. If you’re doing this on an Android device and have no Google Home voice assistant, your options are quite limited – you can really only use voice commands as the trigger. But if you have a Google Home device, then you can set triggers based on time or on device status and input (such as motion sensed).
When it comes to actions, Google Home has a huge amount of flexibility, including playing media on capable devices. Invest the time, and Google Home can do some pretty amazing things.
THE OTHERS
Although the big three have come to dominate the market for consumer automation, there are plenty of other options as well. Device makers Logitech (with Harmony) and Samsung (with SmartThings) have their own platforms with some unique selling points – SmartThings offers high-level control over heavy home appliances like washers and fridges, for example. Then there are companies like ecobee, Wink and Insteon that offer their own platforms.
Meanwhile, there are third party automation apps like IFTTT (If This Then That) that allow you to set up very complex systems if you’ve a mind, and we’ll be covering those much more in a future issue.