Automate Smart Lights with Apple Home

Hi, it’s Jacob here, and in this short QuickTip video I’m going to show you how you can create an automation and a scene using the Home app. Essentially, these are quick ways of controlling multiple accessories at the same time, either manually or automatically.

I’m going to control several different sets of Christmas lights in my house, but of course, this can work for anything you’ve got in the Home app. So right now, I’ve got five different sets of lights, but to turn them all on I have to scroll through the whole Home app, find each one, and tap them individually. This works, and it’s not the end of the world, but there is a quicker way.

So I’m going to press the plus button at the top, and I’m going to create a new scene. The first thing to do is to give our scene a name. I’m going to simply call mine Christmas.

Then on the next screen, we’re going to choose all of the accessories that are part of this scene. So here’s where I can scroll through my list and select the five different sets of Christmas lights I’ve got. All of these are controlled by smart plugs, and in the previous video, which I’ll link above, I showed you how to add a smart plug really easily to the Home app.

The next thing to do is to choose an icon or a symbol for this particular group. I’m going to choose a snowflake and make it blue, just like this. Then, when I press the tick in the top corner, we’re good to go.

At the very top of the Home app, just underneath the cameras there, you’ll see my new Christmas scene. I can simply turn this on to turn all five sets of lights on, or turn it off to turn all five sets of lights off. It’s basically grouped them together into one easy-to-use button.

And this is certainly easier, especially if you’ve got lots of different things that you want to control at once. But we can go one step further and actually automate this completely so the lights turn on automatically every night as the sun goes down.

So I’ll press the plus button again in the top corner, and this time we’ll add an automation. There are several different types of automations that you can create, but the one I want is based on the time of day, so I’ll select that here.

Now, we could specify an exact time, but I’m going to go for sunset instead. That means it will change as the winter goes on. If I press the little information icon, I can also add an offset. So for example, the lights could come on half an hour before sunset or 20 minutes after, whatever you prefer.

Then we can choose which days of the week you want this automation to run on. For me, I’m going to choose the whole week. There’s also the option to choose whether this automation should run when someone is at home or when no one is at home, which can be really useful if you want your lights to turn on automatically while you’re away.

I’m going to leave mine exactly as it is. These lights should come on and off regardless of whether someone’s at home.

On the next screen, we can choose the scene we want to activate with this automation. I’m simply going to choose Christmas. You can also choose individual accessories here, but because we already created that scene, it makes sense to use it.

Then when I press Next, the final thing to do is to choose when it should turn off. I can tap on here and choose how long after it turns on the lights should automatically turn off again. I’m going to choose 4 hours, but you could also create a second automation for a fixed time, like 10 p.m.

And now, as easily as that, all of my lights are linked up to an automation. So half an hour before sunset, all my Christmas lights should turn on, and then 4 hours later they should turn off.

You can see it listed on the automations screen here along with the other ones I’ve got set up. And it really is that simple. We’ve now grouped and automated all of our Christmas lights for the year.

And of course, this works for any accessory in the Home app. If you want to see what else your iPhone can do, check out my channel down below, and I’ll see you for another QuickTip soon.