You Can Create Smart Home Automation in Cinema Mode
Most smart hubs refer to “scenes” – a preset layout that you can customize with devices in this family – for example, setting the brightness of the lights in all dining rooms at a dinner party to 50%. If you expand on this idea, you can create a “movie mode” for your home using automation. Not just lighting, you can also set your devices so they won’t disturb you and turn off Wi-Fi for your kids’ devices. Heck, you can even turn on heated blankets and a popcorn maker, and you can do it with a single button or voice command.
First, make a list of what should and should not happen during this time. For example:
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The lights in the living room and hallway are turned off
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Turn off Wi-Fi on children’s devices
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Turn on the lights in the cinema
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Set your phones to do not disturb mode
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Turn on smart plugs
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Turn on the popcorn machine
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Turn off smart vacuum cleaners
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Close the smart curtains
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Increase the volume of the sound system
These are just examples; your list may vary. We can do all this with one automation, we’ll use Google Home as an example. Start by moving to automation. In this case, select Personal Schedule as this is the only way to use the Do Not Disturb settings on your phone. For the trigger (known as the starter in Google Home), we’ll use a voice command. Click “When I tell Google Assistant.” This means that the automation will only work when we ask Google Assistant to run the automation or press a button in Google Home. Google usually asks you to give it a few different ways to phrase the command. command, but I’ll start with “Set up movie mode” and you can choose additional ways to word it.
Return to the main panel and go to Actions . This is where we can get to the list above: For each list item, set up a corresponding action. For most, this will simply be “Home Device Setup” where you can turn off the lights, turn on movie theater lighting like Nanoleaf or Govee LEDs, turn on smart heated blankets (yes, that’s a thing!) curtains. If you have a smart plug popcorn maker, you can turn it on from this panel, and you can also turn off any smart vacuum cleaners so they don’t turn on while you’re watching a movie. This is also where you can change the volume of your Sonos, as well as your air conditioner or heater, to achieve the ideal conditions.
Now let’s set up Wi-Fi and do not disturb. Google won’t let you set up other people’s devices to stop them bothering you, but it will let you set up your own under Customize your phone settings. Assuming you have parental controls set up in Family Link, you should also add this to your automation as this way you can control your child’s access to Wi-Fi.
Now to complete the effect, go to “Make an Announcement” and here you can create your own announcement that Google will speak through any speakers you choose. You can announce that it’s time for everyone to head to the living room for movie night. Assuming the routine starts after you’ve all gathered, use it to make a pre-show statement like you would at a movie theater regarding turning off phones and devices or any other family rules. It’s a nice touch.
You’ll need a second automation to undo everything at the end of the movie, so set a second automation called “Undo Movie Mode” to revert everything back.