Smart Home, Happy Life: Top Automations for a Busy Family Home

School day morning announcement

We always have EVERYTHING in our family google calendar. If its not in the calendar its not happening. Using the Google Calendar Integration Home Assistant can know what’s happening today.
When home assistant sees that my child has school in the calendar it will make an announcement over alexa, in the occupied rooms to give a 10 minute, 5 minute and final warning to stop what were doing and get ready to leave for school.

Kitchen appliance watch

This is a love hate thing. Using smart plugs with power monitoring on the dishwasher and washing machine we have an automation that makes an announcement over alexa to tell us when an appliance is finished. When we arrive home we also get an update on any existing chores that need to be done.
Bonus: Using contact sensors on the door of the appliances we know when they have been emptied, this means we stop getting notifications when the chore has been completed.

Out of bedroom alerts

Great, kids are in bed we can finally relax…..When the bedroom door opens and kids are meant to be asleep we get a gentle notification (via Alexa) that someone it up and out of their room. If there isn’t a follow up to say the door hasn’t been closed again we know something is afoot.

Kids bedtime routine

All kids love routine, right? When we say “Sleepy time” to alexa it runs through the following process:
1. Get a friendly goodnight message from Google Gemini and announce it in every room.

2. Disable the automatic lighting in kids bedroom so that they bedroom light will not turn on in the middle of the night.

3. Stop any music playing on their bedroom alexa and turn down the volume

4. Turn down the TV volume so its not so loud to keep them awake
5. Turn off automatic light in nearby rooms if the door is open
6. Close the kids bedroom blind

7. Disable any further announcements for their bedroom until they wake in the morning.

Seasonal lighting

I thought this was a gimmick but kids and grown-ups love it! Accent RGB lighting goes into seasonal color schemes. For example, the week leading up to Christmas light go red\write candy canes. This is done using an automation based on a Home Assistant calendar which has events on key dates. Fireworks effect lights on New Years Day anyone?