If you use Google Home as your home automation system, here are 5 automations we use to make our home safe and look like we are at home when we are on vacation (they work great when you are actually home as well).
1. Automatically lock doors
We have the Schlage Encode deadbolt lock on the door we use most often from the driveway. Since the other doors are almost always locked, we only need to make sure this door is locked on a regular basis. I’ve set up an automation in Google Home to lock the door every night at a certain time. This way, if we have someone looking after the house while we are away and they forget to lock the door, it will lock itself that night. This also works great to make sure the door is locked if we forget to do it before going to bed.
2. Turn off heating device
We have a space heater in the basement office that automatically shuts off every night using a TP-Link Kasa outlet. We plug the heater into the outlet and the outlet into the wall. If the heater gets accidentally left on when we leave the office, it will shut off so we don’t waste electricity. Shutting off heating devices is even more important when you are away as they can waste a lot of electricity and may create a fire hazard if left running too long.
3. Play a radio station
On our Google Nest Hub Max I’ve set up an automation that plays a local radio station for a few hours in the morning and a few hours at night so the house sounds like it normally does when we are home. It uses the TuneIn app so you need to make sure you select a local radio station that is available on the app. If you have a local TV station that broadcasts via TuneIn or another built-in app, you can use those instead.
4. Time lights based on sunrise & sunset
Instead of turning lights on and off at specific times, set up automations based on a number of minutes relative to sunrise or sunset. This automatically adjusts when the lights turn on and off without you having to change anything. This is helpful every day and especially when you are away because anyone watching the house will see that the lights turn on and off at different times and not on a set schedule.
5. Add a timed light
In our kitchen, we only use the wired under counter lights or the pot lights in the ceiling, we don’t have a lamp we can put on a smart outlet. To add a timed light I use a TP-Link Kasa outlet and a light bulb plug that allows me to have a light anywhere there is an outlet. I program an automation with a specific on and off time because that corresponds with our normal meal times. This makes it look like we are in the kitchen when we are away without having to change a light switch to a smart switch.
Google Home automations are not just for when you are home, they can also make your home look lived in when you are away on vacation, visiting relatives for the holidays, or away on business. Try the five automations above to make your home more secure.
Here are the products I mention above in case you want to use some of these automations in your home (affiliate links):
Schlage Encode smart lock: https://amzn.to/3AgPxez
Google Nest Hub Max: https://store.google.com/product/google_nest_hub_max
TP-Link Kasa smart outlet: https://amzn.to/3SMdqB4
Light bulb plug: https://amzn.to/3VxQJyX
TP-Link Kasa outdoor smart outlet: https://amzn.to/3M04bte