Over the years, I’ve dreamed of what smart home technology could actually accomplish, but I’d be lying if I said I took full advantage of everything it could do. While the vast majority of the bulbs in my home are smart, as are my door locks and other items, I’ve always liked the idea of manually controlling them from Google Home or Alexa without having to flip switches when I need them. But after taking a bit of time and actually setting up location-based automations? I can’t go back, and it finally feels like my house is in the future.
Taking a home built in the 1940s and making it sing with smart home technology is wild, and location-based automations have made it even better for me and my wallet.
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My heat doesn’t need to be blasting while I’m not at home, does it?
Jowi Morales / MakeUseOfCredit: Jowi Morales / MakeUseOf
While I’m still in the process of swapping everything over to my Home Assistant server, I wanted to get a little more experience with Google Home. Gemini is making it incredibly easy to get my YAML automations set up, but the simplicity and ease of Google Home is becoming more and more apparent. Plus, seeing as my parents are slowly getting on board with smart home technology, with Wyze cameras and smart bulbs of their own, I want to ensure that I have all of my location know-how down to a science to help them out when they go out and about, too.
After setting up location-based automations for myself, I’ve learned a few different things. Having devices turned on or off depending on where I am is surprisingly handy and time-efficient, and also does wonders for my bills. Our furnace is rather effective, so even if the house needs to warm up to 70 degrees after being gone for a few hours, it does it quickly, and I don’t have to keep it running all the time I’m gone.
Contextual security and triggers
When I’m gone, the house is locked down. When I’m home? Not so much
Credit: Shaun Cichacki/MUO
Depending on the type of routine that I want to create, I can use either option. Home Assistant is powerful and lets me create some wild, weird routines that are hyper-specific, but for simplicity, I can use Google Home. As long as Presence Sensing is turned on, both iOS and Android devices can take advantage of contextual security and automations. While iOS does require a few extra steps to get this up and running, primarily by ensuring Location Services are Always On for Google Home or Nest (not for both on iOS, they tend to fight with each other), on their devices, it does the job just as well as most Android devices.
Google Home is smart enough to wait until the last person leaves before locking things down, so you won’t accidentally leave your family in the dark while you run to the store.
Under the Automations menu on the Google Home screen, you’ll have options for Home or Away routines. This is where Presence Sensing comes into play, as if your device detects that you’re at home, it’ll activate the Home options, and if you go away? Well, it’s going to use the Away automations. Turning off all the lights, setting the thermostat to a specific temperature, or turning on security cameras can be done without lifting a finger, and it’s quite nice after doing it manually for so long. Since other Google products, like the Nest Thermostat, have Occupancy Sensing, it will still recognize that someone is home and won’t randomly turn my house pitch-black if my phone dies.
Voice activation or button presses are gone
You can still use these if you’d like, but this does all the busy work for you
While it still feels surreal that I can “talk” to my house and have it do what I ask, it can get a little irksome sometimes. Sure, I’ve got regular automations that are set up and ready to go, but the constant need to bark at my Google Home or Alexa and ask it to do something for me gets a little monotonous, especially if I’ve been hopping into meetings all day long and just want to rest my voice. The same can be said about manually activating or deactivating specific portions of my smart home. Now that I’ve set up location-based automations, they do all the work for me and make my house truly feel smart.
Even if I had an “Away” regimen set before, I would typically have to say, “Hey Google, I’m leaving,” and it would handle things for me. The same would have to be done when I got home from wherever I was. Now, as soon as the GPS senses that I’m within a specific range of my house, my cameras are disarmed, my lights are dimmed, and my heater or air conditioner is set to the temperature I asked it to be. It’s kind of like having a robot butler, and I feel like I’m George Jetson.
GPS isn’t always perfect, sadly
Plus, privacy-minded folks may not love this feature
Credit: Brady Snyder / MakeUseOf
I’m the type of person who, no matter where I go, I’ve got my phone on me. And since I lead a rather boring life, I don’t mind having my GPS turned on. But things like GPS drift, where your device may momentarily register somewhere else, can cause micro issues and random activations. I have yet to experience this with my setup, but it can happen. If you want to take advantage of location-based automations, it’s understandable why your device and smart hub need to know where you are at all times. Seeing as this uses Google’s “Fused Location” by pinging Wi-Fi, cellular, and GPS data, along with cloud servers to determine where you are, some folks aren’t going to be in love with this. Completely understandable! Everything tracks you nowadays, so why add something else to the growing pile?
Location services like these are effectively sharing a log of your movements with a cloud provider 24/7. No matter where you’re going, your device and Google will know where you are, which could lead to “personalized ads” and other annoyances. Home Assistant, on the other hand, is local and isolated, so you don’t need to worry about your data being sent off to a cloud server and a dedicated ad-driven company. It’s got a learning curve, for certain, but if you want total control over your routines? It’s the way to go.
Brand
Nest
Display
7″ Touchscreen
SMART ASSISTANTS
Gemini
Location-based automations feel very futuristic
Smart home technology isn’t for everyone, but for those who happen to love it? It feels like the future, regardless of the age of the home that you’re living in. From washers and dryers that tell me when they’ve completed a load to having my lights and heater turn on when I get home, learning more about how my smart home functions has been a rewarding and exciting journey on my homeownership adventure.
