How to turn your smart home on and off using your car
Smart Home
[MUSIC]
Today's cars are getting smarter and smarter.
But did you know that you can control the connected devices in your home from right here in the driver's seat?
I'm CNet's Rye Chris.
Stay tuned and I'll show you how to control your smart home using your car.
[MUSIC]
The first things first, if you're gonna create a home automation system that's controllable from your car.
You're gonna need some home automation devices.
And what you want are smart devices like these that work with IFTTT.
IFTTT is an online automation tool that lets you craft custom recipes that tell your smart home what to do when certain things happen.
Now the linchpin to this is this guy.
This is called Automatic, and it's a $100 device that you're gonna plug into your cars data port.
It will track your fuel efficiency and, you know, your check engine light.
It'll tell you where you parked.
It'll give you little reminders to help you increase your efficiency.
It's a cool device, but the coolest part to me is that it works with IFT.
And that means you'll be able to use your car as a trigger for those recipes.
Setting automatic up is really easy, just get into your car and look for the data port on the left side of the drivers side.
You'll plus automatic in and it will beep, then you'll pull up the app on your phone, follow the easy steps and you'll have connected your cars computer to your phone over blue tooth.
In my home I use automatic in my car and I have Belkin Wemo switches turning my entertainment center on and off.
I like having that entertainment center turned off when I go to work so it's not drawing power during the day.
Here's what that recipe looks like.
I go to if this then that and I go to the this and I select automatic and I go down to, if ignition turned on in area.
The in area is important because you don't want this recipe to trigger whenever you turn your car on, you want this recipe to trigger when you turn your car on at home, that means you're leaving.
That's telling the smartphone, I am leaving.
I am in the car.
I am going somewhere.
This is a good time to turn off things.
So, I am gonna select that turned off in area and then I am gonna tell what area I want, and I am gonna pick the area right around my home.
This is the little Geo-Sense circle, so I am in that circle on the map.
This recipe will work.
So if that happens then I wanna have a Belkin Wemo switch turn off.
When I go over to the Belkin Wemo, I'm going to tell it to switch off.
And I'll tell it which switch I want and there it is.
There's my recipe.
If my car starts when I'm at home, I want the entertainment center to shut off.
And now, every time I leave for work or go out to see some friends at nigh, my entertainment center will shut off and I'll save a little bit of electricity.
And there you go, just like that you've taught your smart phone how to tell when you're coming and going, automate the things in your home accordingly just using your car.
For CNet I'm Rod Crisp.
