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An entry level look at using scenes and automations to elevate your smart home experience. What Can Scenes and Automations Do For Me? First let's talk about scenes, they allow you to control lots of accessories at one time. Think of something you do often that has the same sequence of events each time. For example, let's start with when you wake up. Do you repeat the same steps every day? Stop the alarm clock, turn on the bedroom light, open the blinds, turn on the bathroom light, start your favorite morning playlist. Well these are all things that can be done with a scene. You can create a scene called "Good Morning" and have all of those actions happen at once. How about when you go to bed? Do you turn off the lights, and I mean walk around the whole house and turn off all the lights. Then you lock the door, close the blinds, turn off the TV and so on and so on. You get the idea. Now what if you want these things to happen without any input from you? That's where we get into automations. Today we will talk about creating useful scenes around the house and how to create convenient automations to make them happen. Adding a Scene Depending on your smart home setup, how you create a scene will vary. Some apps will start with a basic collection of devices & actions and simply call this a scene while others may add more options a refer to it as a routine. Creating a scene only requires a few steps. First you group together the devices you want to control, then you set the actions you want them to take. You’ll name the scene and then be able to activate it in a number of ways. Take a look at these step by step guides on creating scenes for Apple and Samsung devices. How to create a Scene in the Apple Home App How to create a Scene with Samsung SmartThings Automating Scenes & Creating Routines Automations are a great way to really elevate the smart home experience. They can activate an entire scene or just a single accessory. An automation involves a trigger, sometimes a condition or multiple conditions that need to be met, and then an action or set of actions to take. Triggering an automation can be done in a number of ways. These are a few popular ways to do so: sensor based, like a door sensor or motion sensor; time based, including events like sunrise or sunset; and location based, when arriving to or leaving a location you specify. An easy automation to setup is having your lights turn on at sunset. Something more complex may involve turning on the lights when your front door opens, but only if nobody is in the living room, and only if it is after 4 pm but before 9 pm. These are just a couple of examples on how to use an automation. As you start to build automations yourself you will see more advanced options. The possibilities are truly endless when it comes to what your smart home can do. Here are a few links to get you started creating automations and routines on your devices. How to create an Automation in the Apple Home App How to create a Routine with Samsung SmartThings How to create a Routine with Alexa How to create a Routine with Google Now that we've covered how to create scenes & routines you may be wondering what can this really do other than turn on some light bulbs. This is where the smart home really gets fun and more practical. A great automation I use daily is locking the door and turning off all the lights when I leave for work in the mornings. I don't always leave at the same time so having this automation run based on my location is a very handy feature. In addition, this only happens if nobody else is home. If anyone else is still home then the automation won't run. When I arrive home the door automatically unlocks as I approach. When I open the door, if nobody is in the living room and the lights are off, they will turn on. Another easy automation to setup is having your lights turn on at sunset. Something more complex would be like my example of turning on the lights when your front door opens, but only if nobody is in the living room, and you can add conditions like only if it is after 4 pm but before 9 pm. Smart lights are usually LED and they seemed expensive when I first started. Looking back and thinking about it now though, it's a bargain considering I've only had to replace one light bulb in the past 8 years. To be honest it didn't even burn out, it would still turn on or off with the light switch, but it no longer connected to wifi so I replaced it with a newer one. There is still something futuristic about waking up in the morning and tapping one button or speaking a simple voice command to start my day. A Good Morning routine can turn on the lights, start the shower at your preferred temperature, open the blinds, have the weather displayed on your tv, your calendar events and appointments announced, and so much more. Adding scenes or automations to your smart home setup is one of the first steps in getting the most out of your home. Hopefully this has helped you to understand the usefulness and practicality of adding these tools into your setup. Thanks for reading and comment your questions or thoughts down below. Feel free to suggest future topics, we'd love to hear what you want to know more about.

This new industry standard will change the world of IoT for the better. So, What is Matter? If you have any smart home devices now, or have shopped for any new tech recently, you may already be familiar with the hassle of getting everything to work together seamlessly. Especially if you want to do so all in one app. Maybe you want a Google Nest thermostat but want to use an iPhone. Or perhaps you want Philips lighting and want a Eufy security camera. Trying to figure out if all the different devices will work together in one app will soon be a thing of the past. Matter is a new internet of things, smart home industry standard. This will shift the way we think of the current smart home. No longer will we need to buy products based on what platform they support or what other devices they are compatible with. You will soon be able to shop with confidence for your new smart home tech. Buying a product with Matter certification will ensure that it will just work with nearly any platform you want to use. All the major players are in on this standard too. Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung, and hundreds of others have joined forces under the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) to set the bar for smart home compatibility. When will this be available? Most of the work has already been completed. In fact many devices that are out now already have the hardware or software needed. There are some final steps in the works to get this standard implemented and bring even more certified products to the everyday consumer. Like with any project of this scale there have been delays and obstacles to overcome. The latest news puts the expected release in the fall of this year. The first version of this standardization includes the following types of products: Lighting Lightbulbs Lighting controllers Light switches Outlets Smart Plugs Smart Outlets Heating and Cooling Thermostats HVAC Controllers Security & Safety Door locks Motion Sensors Contact Sensors Smoke Detectors / CO Detectors Convenience Garage Door Controllers Window Blinds & Shades Networking Wireless Access Points Bridges Media Streaming Video Players Smart Televisions With so many types of devices already planned, this is stacking up to be a very exciting change. Future updates to the standard will likely include even more categories such as robot vacuum cleaners, surveillance cameras, and lots more. For now this is a great start to unifying the smart home. Will I have to buy all new devices? Fortunately many manufacturers have committed to firmware or software updates to bring Matter to existing devices. Unfortunately we won't know the definitive answer to this until it happens. The CSA has done a lot of work to ensure backward compatibility. Most devices that support Thread, or Zigbee will work with Matter without any issues. As for other devices, there will likely be hubs or inexpensive bridges that can bring them into the Matter ecosystem. This new push for standardization is a huge deal for the smart home industry. No single company or group in the past has been able to gather this many platforms, manufacturers, and technologies into one consolidated alliance. There are over 200 members involved and you can check out the full list here. What about Security & Privacy? These are two features at the foundation of how Matter works. It uses the following 7 powerful techniques to ensure a secure ecosystem: Validation of Device Authenticity and Certification User Consent Local Device Identity Control Rules Encrypted Communications Privacy Controls Secure Software Updates These steps are used on all matter devices. From light bulbs to thermostats, they take the industry best practices to the next level. This provides peace of mind and ease of use. You can rest assured that your home is not only smart, but secure. Check out this video to dig deeper into the security & privacy behind Matter. Will it be expensive? Surprisingly, no. This should actually make upgrading your home more affordable than ever. Due to the vast amount of products that will be available (Over 5 billion by 2030), the abundance of options should drive down the cost of newer smart home tech. In addition there are so many inexpensive devices out there now that are already compatible. Smart home tech will soon be more available and easier to use than ever before. Should I wait to buy new tech? This is a tricky question. Many major companies have devoted a lot of time and resources to this standard and will very likely stay true to their promises. That being said, buying hardware now based on future software promises is always a risk. Some things may seem like a safe bet, the whole standard is based on protocols like Zigbee and Thread, so if you purchase devices with those technologies you'd expect them to work with no problem. Even that is not 100% true for all manufacturers. Some companies may not see the value in updating their existing lineup. So be cautious when on the hunt for some new home tech. Ultimately, if you are set on a current platform and are happy, stick with it. No need to wait on matter if you have no use for the interoperability of the standard. On the other hand if you have roommates on different platforms or you are upgrading your rental property and want the widest possible array of compatibility. Maybe you are ready to build out a complete smart home and you don't want to be stuck in a single platform or ecosystem. Then this standard will definitely 'Matter" to you and it is probably worth the wait. As always thanks for reading! We look forward to your questions or comments. Keep an eye out for updates on this as we expect some news on the release within the next few months.