Five smart home upgrades you can set up with devices you already own

Smart home tricks do not have to mean new gadgets. A How-To Geek writer, Adam Davidson, describes five automations that run on devices many smart home owners already have. They cover lighting, bedtime, work schedules, heating and houseguests. All of them use Home Assistant, a system that ties smart devices together and runs rules for them.

Lighting that follows the sun

Adaptive lighting changes the brightness and color of your smart bulbs through the day. Mornings start dim and warm, like light after sunrise. Bulbs get brighter and cooler toward midday, then soften again toward sunset. The article says it works even with cheap bulbs. A custom add-on handles the work, and a simulator website shows how your lights would react to different settings.

A bedtime routine that starts itself

Bedtime often means turning off lights, powering down devices, locking doors, lowering the heat and arming alarms. The hard part is starting the routine at the right time. The writer uses the Home Assistant Companion phone app to spot when his phone goes on its charger after a set time in the evening. That is a good sign he is in bed, and it needs no bed sensor.

Schedules and empty homes

Fixed weekday schedules break when you take time off. The writer instead uses a Home Assistant calendar, so automations run only on real workdays. Heating can stay off while he is away and restart the day before he returns, so the house is not freezing.

The same app can also tell when everyone has left. With it installed on every phone, the system uses location to know the house is empty. Heating can turn off and devices can power down. When one person is detected back home, everything starts up again. The article says the yearly savings can be significant.

Guest mode

Guests can struggle in a house built around automations, such as lights that only work through the system. The fix is a guest mode that switches on when a device joins your guest Wi-Fi network. If your family only uses the main network, it triggers only when visitors arrive. It will not shut things down just because family phones look absent.

What to know before trying

• All five ideas rely on Home Assistant, so they may not apply to other smart home systems.
• The phone-based ideas need the Companion app on the phones involved.
• The article gives no dollar figures for savings and little step-by-step setup detail.