Smart home living is all about convenience–and the key to optimizing your smart home is automating your home with routines! If you’re not familiar how to do so, here’s an easy guide to help you get the basics:
Setting up routines is generally similar for all smart home assistants, and may only have slight variations depending on the interface.
Here are some ways you can enhance your daily routines for a better smart home experience–of course, best powered by a fiber-fast home WiFi connection.
Manage your sleep schedule
Most smart assistants already have a preset routine for “Bedtime,” so you don’t have to create a new one. This preset usually reminds you to set an alarm, charge your phone, and even play music to help you sleep. You can also customize this by allowing it to turn off your smart lights and devices, let you know about the weather forecast the next day, among other things.
You can enhance this automation further by complementing it with a custom “Go to Bed” routine that triggers at a specific time–typically an hour or so before bedtime–that’ll remind you to “Go to bed. It’s getting late.” You can also add additional time-delayed reminders to sleep at specific time intervals, and even actions that will entice you to go to bed.
We recommend going for this option over triggering the Bedtime routine. After all, you’d only want to activate that when you’re actually going to bed. You wouldn’t want your smart home devices to turn off all of a sudden while you’re still using it.
Plan your day the smart way
When you greet your smart assistant a “good morning”, it’ll trigger the preset “Good Morning” routine. Your smart speaker will then dictate any events on your calendar, relevant reminders for the day, the weather forecast, and even playing music or the news.
To add that personal touch, you can always add custom actions such as opening your smart blinds, switching on the lights, and even brewing coffee on your smart coffee machine.
If you’re not working from home, set your “Work” destination on the Maps app that’s compatible with your smart assistant. Then, you can add an action to the “Good Morning” routine that prompts your assistant to inform you of the estimated travel time going there. You can set this with a custom command like: “What time will I arrive at work if I leave 15 minutes from now?” to achieve this.
Enhance your work day schedule
Your smart assistant can help you with productivity routines, too! You can easily set up a custom “Focus” routine that automatically activates during your most productive time of the day. This routine can have your smart assistant play music, pause distracting notifications, change the brightness of the lighting to help you stay focused on your tasks, and even tell you motivational quotes.
You can then complement it by setting a relaxation routine right after so you don’t burn yourself out. Have the assistant play your personal playlists or a podcast you enjoy, have the lights dim to contrast the brightness during your work routine, switch the notifications it pauses to work-related ones.
Live smarter with PLDT Home!
These are just some of the ways you can enhance your smart assistant’s routines–all to make your home life much more integrated! And when you subscribe to any PLDT Home Fiber Plus plan, you’re sure to have access to fiber-fast connectivity in your smart home.