In this smart home, we installed a complete system that includes switches, outlets, blinds, thermostats and more.

This article will walk through a “Day in the life” of home automation.

Let’s start with waking up in the morning!

There is a motorized roller blind in the bedroom, so at 7am this pulls up automatically. Since this is a full light blocking blind, this will show the morning light and hopefully get some movement in the local humans.

Once awake and moving, say “Alexa, good morning” and the morning scene is activated. More on what a scene is later, but think of it as a group of lights/switches.

This scene will:

  • Turn on lights around the condo

    • Kitchen light
    • Hallway light
    • Bathroom light
    • Livingroom light

  • Turn on various appliances

    • Coffee station (grinder, water heater)
    • Computer desk monitors, speakers, printer

  • Set the temperature for the thermostats

We can also add in some music if so inclined!

Let’s say this day is also a work day, so we will need to commute into the office.

Once we have had our coffee, we are out the door.

With our z-wave smart lock, the unlock is detected and a timer starts. Once its 5 minutes later, if our phone is listed as away (we are out of the house) then our away scene turns on and all the lights, plugs, appliances that we want to turn off automatically switch off.

We can even turn up/down the thermostat based on the time of year or day.

The options are really limitless, but this is a great example of an every day use case.

Here is a list of products that are used for this type of automation. In future articles we are going to dive into how to setup the scenes and connect all these dots!

The Leviton ZW15R is a great outlet that is easily replaceable with your typical home outlets.