Have you ever left the house, traveled a few miles down the road and thought, “Did I turn off the coffee pot, turn on the porch light – or lock the front door?” If so, you aren’t alone, with the majority of people turning around to travel home and double-check whatever task they fear is left undone. This single event can transform a day that started out peaceful and quiet into one that is filled with chaos. However, new technology is changing these events from major annoyances to minor inconveniences that take only seconds to resolve.

Get started with these home automation ideas. We’ve kept them short and sweet. Just enough to get the inspiration flowing…!

1. Light  Automation Systems

Gone are the days of when home lighting was simply a set of incandescent globes controlled by a different on/off switch in each room. Today LED technology and smart lighting offers a range of cutting edge options for either automatically or dynamically controlling the light in your home.

• Use motion detectors to turn off lights in vacated rooms
• Automatically turn lights on when you arrive home after dark
• Program lights to automatically turn on/off at certain times of the day
• Turn all lights and electronics in an area on/off with a single button
• Automatically raise/reduce LED lighting based on incoming natural light

2. In-House Climate Automation Systems

A Smart Thermostat can control your heating system and sometimes also your air conditioning. But if you have smart fans, humidity sensors and smoke & carbon monoxide detectors you can do so much more with it. This not only results in saving on your energy bill but also help to keep your family safe.

• Turning on the bathroom fan
• Cool the house down at night
• Use AC to lower humidity
• Open garage door based on Carbon Monoxide
• Lights on in case of fire
• Circulate hot air (from a fireplace) around the house
• Turn off your heating/ac when windows are open

3. Securing the House Automation Systems

With all the smart sensors in and around your house, it’s pretty easy to make a decent working security system. Now with a good presence detection, you don’t need to enter security codes anymore to turn it on or off. Here are some security home automation ideas that you could implement in your house.

• Turning alarm on when nobody is home
• Turn on the alarm when it’s bedtime
• Protect your safe
• Video Doorbell

4. Household Home Automation Systems

Your Home can also help you with some of the boring household tasks. Now it can’t do all of them for you, but it can certainly help you not to forget about some of them. Here are some home automation ideas for your household.

• Laundry reminder
• Trashcan reminder
• Automatic vacuuming while you sleep
• Check if somebody left the fridge open
• Leak detection and mitigation
• You got Mail

5. Kitchen Automation Systems

Most people spend the majority of their home life in the kitchen or the living room. That’s why kitchens are becoming more and more popular. As home automation moves forward, home kitchens are beginning to emerge as a focus for brand name appliance manufacturers.

The thinking behind kitchen automation is to start connecting devices and appliances to the Internet of Things. This may be a refrigerator that knows what food it contains, a stove that can be set to preheat while as you head home, or additional interfaces and sensors that make kitchen life more manageable.

• Voice interfaces
• Food Inventory
• Smart Water
• Home Grown

6. Entertainment Automation Systems

As home automation and smart devices continue to develop and expand, automated home entertainment has started providing a connected listening and viewing experience through immersive technologies. These are devices that help create a full-blown connected entertainment experience, and it’s easy to see how this technology is only going to get better in the near future.

Most people may think of only a sight and sound experience when thinking of home entertainment, but there is much more available in the home automation market when it comes to relaxing and entertaining.

• Defining smart entertainment devices
• Smart TVs
• Hubs and device control
• Speaker systems