One of the more remarkable things about wanting to live in a connected smart home is being surprised at how dynamic you can make things work with a little time and effort. Recently I took a look at my Home setup as provided by Apple Inc., Phillips Hue, and various IoT devices such as garage door interfaces, door sensors, temperature sensors, and smart outlets.
With a single request at the conclusion of the day, I can put my house to sleep. “Hey Siri, goodnight” – triggers turning off all of the connected lights, making sure the garage doors are closed, the front and back door are closed, triggers calming music in the bedroom, and tells me goodnight as if the system had feelings. I used to have to walk through the house and turn lights off and check things as I went.
When I start my car and my phone connects to CarPlay, my phone randomly chooses between 5 phrases based on the time of day and greets me appropriately. Done with a Siri Shortcut Automation.
At 6:30 AM my phone checks the weather, tells. me the current condition, turns some Hue lights in my bedroom, the living room, and the library a certain color matching the condition. The condition is also verbalized and the forecast for the day announced. Another automation.
I used to think shortcuts were fringe and I never wanted to spend much time developing them on my own. I relied on those found in the gallery and I had lost interest in most of them. Making them from scratch and completely unique to your own needs gives them staying power and makes life just a little bit easier. With ML, I am sure the ability to verbally request functional steps instead of searching and applying functionality will be the standard way of developing them.
“At noon, tell me if I have any emails from anyone in my family and let me know how many. If there are none, don’t bother telling me that. If I am in a meeting when I received one of those emails, reply that I will respond as soon as I can.”
The phone and the car are perfect places to house these subroutines. You can also create some shortcuts you kick off manually when desired to save you the time of repetitive tasks you find yourself doing. I think you will be surprised how useful they can be, and you’ll impress those around you with a home that goers out of its way to do things for you.