It’s been a while since we’ve gone on a vacation and oh how I miss them. But whenever I’ve been on vacation I’ve always thought about the house and think about it safety. Now that we’ve moved away from town and our neighbors are farther away from us, we can’t count on them to let us know if they see the random car in the in the driveway anymore.

I’ve heard the horror stories about people looking to see if the lights are not on in the house for extended periods of time and then going in and stealing things from the house. So of course as prevention I came up with the routine process. What if I make the house know that we’re going on vacation and this way it will just simulate the lights turning on and off at random intervals and times to make it look like people are still in the house.

Not just that. I also wanted to lower the temperature in the house so if it’s winter the temperature gets lowered just enough that the house doesn’t freeze over. I also tied another sensor such that the minute someone walks into the house the sensor goes off and sends me notification that someone’s in.

Sadly, I cannot share what I have done in terms of code but here are the steps:

  • Change the house mode to vacation
  • Lower the temperature of all heating elements
  • Select the lights you want to change
  • After sunset until you normally go to bed, turn the light on and off like you would when you are at home.

This way I’m not just simulating people in the house, but also making sure that the house doesn’t freeze and made myself a makeshift house alarm system. For obvious reasons, I will not be posting a routine however there’s plenty of examples in my previous post to make this thing happen.