So you’ve just spent hundreds of dollars on Apple Homekit accessories. The ability to turn off bedroom lights on a whim has worn off. What now? Now it’s time to start using the accessories for home automations which is where you’ll get MOST out of your home.

Unlike other Smart Home platforms, you don’t need to download or use a 3rd Party app in order to automate Apple HomeKit devices. Everything happens in your Home app, under automations. If you’re wondering how to setup HomeKit, check out that video on my channel.

Basically, an Apple Home Automation is a command that will:
- trigger at a certain time of day
- trigger when an accessory is controlled
- trigger when a sensor detects something
- trigger when my location changes

Basically, Apple Home Automations are equivalent to IFTTT for similar non-Apple HomeKit accessories with one difference. Apple Home Automations are MUCH easier to setup. So in the next few minutes, I’m going to go through each type of Automation and give you examples of how I’ve been using them.

Looking for more info? Check out these helpful links:

Smart Lights vs. Smart Bulbs: https://shreh.ca/2s8nN7u
How to get started with Apple Home:    • How to get Started with Apple Home an...  
Intro to Smart Plugs: http://bit.ly/2rSJZz6

1. Trigger at a specific time.

This one is easy. Basically this automation will turn the connected smart accessory on or off at a specific time or based on the sunrise or sunset. We’ve been using this type of automation with my smart plugs in my living room and office areas to reduce the amount of phantom power being used by my TV’s, monitors, printers and computers when I’m asleep.

2. Trigger when an accessory is controlled

This automation connects two accessories together. Basically it’s saying if A turns on, then B happens. So with this Eve Door sensor, every time it opens, I can have it trigger one of my Nanoleaf Ivy lights to turn on. This is helpful for those who don’t like walking into dark homes at night or just need an alert that somebody is home.

Another quirky use for this automation deals with having hot water in morning. I can create an automation that starts my kettle the moment my Phillips Hue light bulb starts to wake me up.

If you need more info on smart lights, check out my comparison between smart light bulbs and smart light switches.

3. Trigger when a sensor detects something

As of right now, there aren’t too many HomeKit accessories that have sensors built right into them. I’ve personally used the iHome Sensor and Dlink Omna for the sensor automation and it’s not terribly accurate. In a perfect world, you can have your Omna pointed to your living area and front door and the moment the Omna detects activity, it can trigger your smart lights switch to go on.

Now I’ve tried that and it’s quite flaky and unreliable with the Omna. My lights would sometimes just come on even though I’m in the only one in the house and in the basement. If I was to guess at a success rate, I would have to say 50%.

The Eve Motion sensor does a much better of detecting general motion. Surprisingly, I have an Eve Room sensor and I’m unable to use the temperature reading from that appliance to trigger anything with my Homekit hub automations.

4. Trigger when my location changes

I love this type of automation, mostly because my background is in Geomatics Engineering which deals with locations. If you have the right Apple Home setup, you can have your smart home appliances turn on and off based on your location. This is very handy for larger appliances like fans, heaters and dehumidifiers.

Since I’m making this video in the summer, the basement office where I do all the writing and editing for these reviews gets very humid. Which is why I have a dehumidifier to reduce the humidity so that everything doesn’t feel damp. But the problem is that the dehumidifier is loud so it’s hard to work when it’s on. So I’ll turn it off. But I’llll forget to turn it on again when I leave my home.

I will stay off until I remember to turn it on again which might be a couple of hours or overnight. If I forget to turn it on at night, I’ll wake up in the morning, head down and everything will feel damp again. So I have to suffer for a couple of hours in my damp, loud basement office.

This automation solves this problem because I can tell Apple Home to turn on the dehumidifier when I leave my home and off when I come back. In addition, I can set another automation based on time to always go on while I’m sleeping and off when the sun rises.

I can do this straight out of the box with Apple Home. In fact, I don’t even have to download any of the manufacturers apps if I didn’t want to. Something I can’t say if I was to try to do this all with Amazon Alexa compatible plugs.