Home Automation: Outdoor Living Edition

With the advent of 21st century technology, we now have more computer power in our smartphones than sent Apollo 11 to the moon. That’s a fact. Another fact: you can bring your home into the 21st century, too. This is called a smart home, and with good reason. But why stick to the indoors, when so much amazing home technology exists for exterior home automation? Outdoor living taken to the next level with brilliant home automation ideas.

DAY AND NIGHT

One of the easiest ways to upgrade your outdoor living space into a home automation system wonderland comes by way of automated lights.

Automated Lights

• Automatically Turn On/Off — The light switch is so last year. Beyond the simple automatic floodlights of ages gone by, today’s automated yard lights bring far more functionality and purpose to your yard, whether in the front or the back. Of course, turning lights on can happen via motion sensor triggering, but smart lights provide automation in so many other ways as well. For one, you might have them turn on when the sun goes down, or when you arrive home. Another option is to time them to turn on at intervals while you’re out of town. Complete all this magic with a simple smartphone app.

• Landscape Lighting — Have you ever been treating guests to an evening grill out out on the back patio, only to find that the mood lighting just wasn’t quite right? With smart lighting, create custom settings for each of the lights on their own, instead of being stuck with one level of brightness for the whole area. Likewise, change the color of the lights with smart bulbs, which works fantastically for pool parties or birthdays. Anytime you want to splash the yard with fun, you simply turn to your smart lights and let them do the work.
• Holidays and Festivities — Colored lights aren’t just for Christmas anymore. With smart lighting control, make your outdoor lights turn pink for Valentine’s Day, shades of pastel for Easter, and orange for Halloween. And that’s not even the best part… Because they’re permanent, you don’t have to take these lights down and reinstall them every season! What a relief.
• Environmentally Friendly — Score one for the home team and for the planet with smart home porch lights that receive their energy from the sun. Solar-powered lights work just like the other kinds, except that they don’t require traditional electricity. In this case, you not only help protect the earth, you also save on your power bill! Talk about a major win-win.
• Path Lights with Motion Sensors — Finally, bring a little light to the ground as well. With smart outdoor path lights, you’ll never have to worry about tripping on the sidewalk at night ever again. Align these small lights all along your path in the yard, so that you, your family, and all your guests can walk with ease no matter how dark it is outside. Plus, with smart motion sensors installed, you won’t even have to remember to turn them on.

Automated Awning

• Outside — In the same way that automated lights set a magic scene, you can just as easily craft a more relaxing and well-tuned environment in your back yard with smart awnings. Awnings provide a number of attractive benefits. They create a nice shaded area in the warmer months, and they look great as well. Because of this, your porch just got both more practical and more appealing to look at. Make the awning a smart one, and you’ve got all this and so much more, because the piece becomes dynamic and responsive, something old awnings could only dream of…
• Inside — Now, you may be wondering how an outdoor awning actually helps you when you’re not, well, outdoors. Here’s the thing: with retractable smart awnings, you can have the shade come out while the sun is out, then have it retract at nightfall. This way, your living room is cozy and shaded during the day and bright with moonlight at night. All at the touch of a button.

A BEAUTIFUL YARD

Another brilliant addition to your outdoor home automation exists in the form of lawn maintenance and upkeep.

Automatic Landscaping

• Automated Sprinklers — Let your home automation project create the perfectly groomed landscape of your dreams. If you thought setting a timer for your old “automatic” water sprinklers saved you precious hours, then you’re in for a real treat. Today’s smart sprinklers have the ability to water your front and back yards with ease and convenience like you’ve never seen. With a smartphone app, you can, of course, set up a schedule for watering. Additionally (this is the really cool part), you can also ensure that no water goes wasted by setting the sprinklers to skip regularly scheduled periods when the yard receives rain. This is yet one more way to contribute to the planet and your pocket book at the same time.
• Robotic Lawn Mower — You might have one of those wonderful robot home vacuums that cleans up your floors on command. But you haven’t seen anything until you get your hands on a robotic outdoor lawn mower. Again, with an easy-to-use app interface, let a robot take the outdoor chores off your hands. Bring a lawn mower into your home automation ecosystem and experience the difference of a professionally manicured lawn at all times.

SMART HOME WATCHDOG

To bring it all together, connect smart exterior lights to security cameras and motion sensors to notify you of visitors, deliveries, and even potential intruders.

Intelligent Monitoring

• Security Cameras — In addition to providing you and your family round-the-clock surveillance, smart home security cameras provide a wide range of other benefits. Expecting company? Know the moment they arrive, so that you're ready at the door before they even press your (smart) doorbell. Need peace of mind? Have alerts set up to bring any unwanted trespassers or potential intruders to your attention immediately. With a smart lock on your front door, you’ll create personalized home security systems, always at the ready.
• Package Notifications — In the same way, if you’re looking for an important package, set up your system to get notified the instant the mail or delivery service drops it off on your front step. Never worry about missing that parcel — or having someone steal if off your porch! — ever again.

BE OUR GUEST

With exterior home automation, you can practically turn your outdoor living space into the castle from Beauty and the Beast…while you’re watching Beauty and the Beast.

Level Up Your Entertainment

• Outdoor Home Theater System — There’s home theater systems, and then there’s smart home outdoor living space theater systems. In this case, the difference lies in not just in space but in functionality and overall appeal. With an outdoor theater space, you don’t need fancy seats. A projector and screen combination creates the perfect atmosphere for watching movies under the stars, or rooting on your Carolina Gamecocks or Clemson Tigers every fall.
• Smart Speakers — To really complete the picture, grab some rugged waterproof outdoor speakers and connect them to your projector. Smart speakers don’t often come in a waterproof model, but many portable speakers actually do. Some of these also have the added benefit of connecting to multiple other speakers for surround sound, as well as letting you know when they reach low battery capacity, among other helpful features.

With these ideas, your patio and lawn living spaces will transform into a relaxing oasis of intelligent lighting, beautiful landscaping, and great entertainment, secure and safe at all times. Use outdoor automation to turn the exterior of your home into the envy of the whole block.