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Smart Homes: How to Automate Your House

Some clever coding will let you take advantage of the Internet of Things in your smart home

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make the most of your smart home's capabilities with If This Then That recipes

DrAfter123 / Getty Images
make the most of your smart home's capabilities with If This Then That recipes
DrAfter123 / Getty Images

What would the Internet of Things be without If This Then That? Much less fun and a lot harder to use, certainly.

Designed to give you “creative control” over your many devices and services, If This Then That (IFTTT.com) links apps and products to produce coordinated actions, known as recipes.

Some simple examples:

Want to send your Facebook status to your Twitter account each time you post? There’s a recipe for that.

Want to receive an email every time a new item (say, a Sonos Play:5 speaker) pops up on Craigslist? There’s a recipe for that, too.

And while IFTTT may have been originally designed to enable your Facebook to talk to your Twitter or to help coordinate your iPhone contacts with your Google Calendar, the world of smart home products has presented clever coders with endless options.

Here are a few of our favorite recipes for bringing automated intelligence into your house.

Best Part of Waking Up

Tired of slamming snooze at the first sound of your smartphone alarm? Greet the day with gentle illumination, thanks to this recipe from LIFX, which will gradually fade your LIFX smart bulbs up over the course of 30 minutes, at a date and time of your choosing.

Or perhaps you prefer a more naturally lit solution to start the day? Open your curtains and play a song at sunrise (or any other time of your choosing).

To further lure you from the cozy confines of your comforter, alert your coffee maker to begin brewing as soon as your FitBit registers that you are awake.

Learn with Lighting

IFTTT is full of smart bulb recipes, ranging from the mundane to the marvelous.

Wake up to the color of roses on Valentine’s Day. Have your house’s lighting change to your favorite team’s colors when it’s game time. Or flash a custom color sequence whenever the space station is over your home. Or match your home’s lighting to your most recent Instagram post.

Perhaps our favorite lighting-based recipe: Enable your simplehuman sensor mirror to read the weather and activate the clear or cloudy lighting preset for more accurate make-up application.

MORE:Lenny Kravitz's Former Miami Beach Home Has a 'Sexy' Lighting Switch

Other, eminently practical, recipes abound as well.

Link Siri to your smart bulbs to change the lighting color or strength with a simple voice command.

Waiting for some crucial correspondence? Set your bulbs to blink whenever you receive an email from a specific sender.

Learn who has arrived home before you see them by assigning a sequence of custom lighting color changes to each of your family members, set to trigger upon their entrance.

Comfort Control

Along with lighting, temperature-centric recipes are perhaps the most robust section of If This Then That’s smart home solutions. They are also among the most useful.

Want to activate your thermostat as you approach your home? Here you go. Looking to adjust the thermostat whenever the temperature outside rises or falls? Done and done. Want a notification whenever someone else adjusts the thermostat? Catch the perpetrator red-handed.

MORE:A Modern Beach House Where All You Need To Bring is a Toothbrush

Garden Thumb Gadgetry

Gardens are meant to be enjoyed, not labored in. Fortunately, If This Then That is full of recipes to minimize manual work and maximize garden gazing.

Prevent unnecessary or excess watering by telling your Rachio smart sprinkler to forgo the fluids if the forecast calls for rain.

Likewise, keep your roses from roasting by turning on your water tank pump to irrigate the garden should the temperature exceed 86º Fahrenheit.

And if you have some houseplants that require hand-watering, change your Philips Hue smart bulbs to a shade of green when your flowery friends could use a drink.

MORE:5 Gorgeous Garden Homes

Smart Security

Looking for a sense of security? There are recipes for that, too.

Make sure that every at-home interaction is documented by activating a camera whenever your doorbell is rung.

Clear the air with this Nest-centric recipe that will circulate air once the smoke detector is activated.

Instruct your lights to illuminate whenever a loud noise is detected—probably not a perfect fit for families in possession of a dog with night terrors.

Magnificent Miscellany

Just because it’s automated, doesn’t mean it has to be boring.

Equip this recipe to enable actions when you hit a specific weight loss (or gain) goal on the Withings Body Scale. Might we suggest turning all the lights gold and playing "We Are the Champions"?

Set the mood by dimming the lights whenever music is played on your Amazon Echo.

Keep an eye on your stocks while watching “Game of Thrones” with TV notifications whenever your assets are on the rise.

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