These Are 6 of My Favorite Creative Automations for Smart Home Lighting

Smart lighting is a great addition to any home, but it can be difficult to take full advantage of its features. Here are some of my favorite uses for smart lighting and how to implement them in your home.

1 Lighting rooms with smart motion sensors

Light bulbs don't use a lot of electricity, but turning them off when you're not in the room is a great way to reduce your overall energy usage (when combined with other energy-saving efforts around the home).

Smart motion sensors make saving electricity easier, as you can configure lights to turn on when you're in a room and turn them off after a certain period of time without detecting any motion.

You can create this automation using compatible smart lighting and a smart motion sensor. Using Roku smart lights and Roku home cameras, I created an automation in the Roku Home app that turns on the light in a room when the camera detects someone is present.

Turning off the light is a bit trickier, and what will work best depends on what your app allows you to do. Since the Roku Home app wouldn't let me add a timer to the rule itself, I added a separate rule that makes the light turn off after a delay.

2 Improve your home alarms with smart light switches

You're not alone if you're worried about falling asleep while hearing fire or burglar alarms. If you configure your smart lights to turn on when an alarm sounds, you can reduce the likelihood that you'll fall asleep while something dangerous is happening.

Many smart devices have the ability to detect when an alarm is going off—you may have smart alarms or your smart cameras may be able to recognize the noise. Since my Roku cameras can detect alarm noise, I decided to build an automation using them.

Setting your lights to turn on when an alarm goes off in the Roku Home app is as simple as creating a new rule, setting the trigger when your camera detects an alarm, and adding an action for each of your lights.

Since your cameras don’t wait to be triggered by a specific alarm, they’ll be triggered when any home alarm goes off. If your home alarms don’t support smart integrations, this is a great way to improve your home security without spending a lot of money.

3 Sync lighting with TV and music

Light shows are majestic and intricate, but they can seem like something that’s impossible to enjoy in the comfort of your own home. Fortunately, some smart lights let you enjoy stunning light shows with whatever you’re watching or listening to by syncing them together.

If you want to sync your lights to your TV or music, you'll need smart lights that support syncing. Phillips Hue smart lights have particularly good sync support, but some other smart lights support this feature as well.

If you're syncing Phillips Hue lights, you'll need to start by opening the Entertainment Zones tab in the Hue Sync app. Then, you can select what you want to sync (like your TV or Spotify account) and follow the instructions in the app to set it up.

4 Pair notifications with smart lighting alerts

If you're worried about missing something exciting, like your favorite Twitch stream or a text message from your partner, you might be happy to know that smart lights can let you know when you get important notifications.

The setup process will vary depending on the smart lights you use and what notifications you want to sync your smart lights with. There are IFTTT widgets to meet many of the needs you may have, and I found the Hue SMS Notifications widget to work perfectly for my needs.

Unfortunately, IFTTT tools don’t work with all smart devices. For example, I couldn’t find any useful tools for my Roku devices. However, if you own a supported brand, IFTTT tools offer a great step up from the basic automation you get with the manufacturer’s app.

5 Stay on schedule with calendar integration

If you want to make sure that the holidays are festive, that weekend parties or dinners are well-lit, and that your home is comfortably lit throughout the rest of the year, you may find that calendar integration saves you a huge mental load.

If you have a supported smart bulb, you can integrate your smart bulbs directly with your calendar using the IFTTT widget. Otherwise, you'll need to check if your smart bulb manufacturer supports date-based automation.

However, the power of IFTTT’s integration with Google Calendar cannot be understated. In addition to changing your smart lights based on the day of the month, you can also set automations for specific days (such as voting days) or change your lights based on the state of Google Calendar.

You can also improve your adherence to appointments by integrating your calendar. If you set your lights to change to a different color before an important appointment or meeting with your doctor, you don’t have to worry about remembering—your smart light will do the work for you.

6 Weather integration with light synchronization

It’s easy to ignore the gloomy gray light of a storm or the vibrancy of a sunny day when you’re indoors, but there’s something wonderful about romanticizing the weather. By syncing your lights, you can ensure that your mood always matches the weather.

Depending on your smart home setup, you have a few options. There's a weather-based IFTTT widget for Phillips Hue devices, as well as the aptly named Thunderstorm for Hue app.

You may also be able to sync your smart lights with other weather cues, such as thermometer readings (so you can turn your lights down and up on irregularly cold days) or rainfall detected by your smart outdoor camera.

Beyond these ideas, there are a lot of great possibilities within the smart gadgets available on IFTTT, and other brands of smart lights may have features that Roku and Phillips lack. The only limit to what you can do is your imagination.