Can be anything, iOS shortcuts, Tasker, bash scripting, home assistant/homebridge, etc.
My old house I had a pretty nice Home Assistant setup, I still need to move everything over to my new house and set it up. Things like automating lights, laundry machine speaker and phone notifications, TV notifications and reminders, dehumidifier triggering, climate control.
I also have some simple automations going on my linux server for maintenance and backups. I run Plex_Debrid on my server and sometimes the Real Debrid docker volume goes out. So I have script running every few hours to run a docker exec command to see if any files are showing in the realdebrid directory and if not, take down the plex and plex_Debrid docker container and re-map the volume and boot back up.
iOS shortcuts is pretty handy, for some reason the light/dark mode transition on my iPhone doesn’t work great so I made a shortcut automation and it works much better. I setup a pretty cool NFC Medicine Taking system as I have to taken a few different meds every day and at different times. I can just tap my phone on my medicine and it will tell me if i have taken it yet or if its time to take it. Very helpful with my ADHD causing me to forget to take them all the time.
I know I have more I am not mentioning now, plus a whole assortment of different automations to automate my job.
Smart lights:
- Having bedroom lights slowly fade on to bright blue light over 10 minutes followed by an alarm clock is far more pleasant than being wrenched out of sleep by noise.
- Turning on or off all the lights in the house with one voice command is great.
- Being able to pop into a dim red light in the evening is really cosy.
- Fading off over 5+ minutes lets your eyes gradually adjust to dimming lights, and fading on in darkness prevents pain from brightness.
We have them everywhere but the bathrooms, closets, and basement as they don’t really benefit from external control (you don’t want someone screwing with the lights in the shower.)
Have you tried orange opposed to red? If not, give it a go and let me know what you think. Depends heavily on the brand though.
I use Lifx.
I have it set to 2000k warmth at 40% power, so more orange than red.