10 Home Automation Ideas: Stuff for Kids

Introduction

If you have kids, I’m going to show you 10 ideas for smart home automations that will help your kids go to sleep, wake up, have fun, and keep your home running more efficiently. I’ll show you ideas for bedtime routines, dance parties, motion games, and much more.

Main Points

Let’s dive right in, starting with a little fun…automated dance parties. With a single tap, the lights in my kids room change into fun colors, and a dance party playlist starts up with songs that they like. To trigger the dance party automation, I’m currently using a Zooz ZEN32 Scene Controller. I programed one of the scene buttons to start the automation. With a single press, an Echo Glow goes into disco mode, a Philips Hue light turns magenta, and all other lights turn off. The Sonos speaker in the kids room starts shuffling music from an Amazon Music playlist with songs that get my kids dancing. After they’ve danced their little bodies to exhaustion, a double press of the same scene button puts everything back they way it was, like nothing happened.

Once that automation tires them out, it’s time to get ready for bed. Another tap on the scene controller, and a sleepy vibe takes over the room. A single Philips Hue light turns a soft purple, all other lights go off, and a sleep sounds playlist shuffles on the Sonos speakers. Even I can’t help but relax.

Now that everyone is calmed down, it’s time to fall asleep. With another single tap on the scene controller, all the lights turn off, and a white noise machine and a baby monitor turn on.

When it’s time to wake up in the morning, the bedroom lamp turns green as their morning alarm. If it’s not green, then the kids know they are not allowed to get up and leave their room. Our kids are early risers, so they would otherwise be tempted to make an early morning appearance. Sometimes — especially in the winter when it’s cold and dark — the kids don’t move a muscle, even after the lamp turns green. To ensure they get to school on time, if no movement is detected for a while, the lamp will begin flashing green. At that point, I used to have Amazon’s voice assistant also announce that it was time to wake up, but the sudden voice really freaked them out, so I removed that.

Once the kids are awake, they can double tap the scene controller to trigger the wake up scene, which switches off the white noise machine and baby monitor, and turns on a single lamp. Since I’m using Adaptive Lighting, the lamp automatically adapts to the right brightness and color temperature for the early morning time based on the sun’s position in the sky. Oh, and while I love the scene controller switch, any of these automations can also work with voice commands.

When the kids get ready for school in the morning, they open the back door to get their shoes. Regardless of the time of year and temperature outside, they often leave the door open for several minutes, or may not close it at all. To avoid running the air conditioning or heat when the door is wide open, I have an automation that pauses the HVAC if any door or window is open for 30 seconds. Once the door or windows close, the HVAC automatically resumes.

In the evenings, Ashley and I take turns picking up the kids from school. I used to have a recurring calendar event to remind me, but over time I began to unconsciously ignore it because it was just always there on my calendar. Plus, it would alert me even if I had already left to get the kids, so it wasn’t very smart. Now, I have an automation that sends a notification to our phones and announces on the smart speakers that it’s time to pick up the kids, but only if we haven’t already left to get them.

When the kids get home from school, they usually watch one TV show while we’re cooking dinner and preparing lunches for the next day. To make this easier, especially for our youngest who struggles with how to navigate a remote, we can tap a single button that turns on the Apple TV 4K, and starts up PBS Kids.

If the kids are in the mood for more challenging entertainment, I created a motion game automation in their bedroom. When activated, the lamp turns green if no movement is detected, and then goes red when movement is detected. The person who is totally still wins the game. This works using the Everything Presence One mmWave sensor, which detects even the most subtle movements. It’s a really hard game to win, even for adults, but it’s fun to try.

Later in the evenings, and on the weekends, I’m right here recording a video. But, that doesn’t stop the kids from barging in. After countless interruptions, I had to make a home automation to solve this — what else? I have an Aqara Wireless Mini Switch attached underneath my desk. A single tap activates a video recording scene. This not only sets the lights behind me to blue for my videos, but also turns a lamp outside my office to red. The red light is a message to the rest of the family that dad is recording a video, so let him be. A double tap on the mini switch sets all the lights back as they were. This type of automation could be great for anyone who is working from home, and needs some peace and quiet when on a video call.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully you got some useful and fun ideas for automating stuff with kids.

Automation Ideas for Kids

1. Dance party
2. Get ready for bed
3. Sleep time
4. Morning alarm
5. Wake up
6. Pause HVAC
7. Pick up the kids
8. PBS Kids on Apple TV 4K
9. Motion game
10. Video recording scene

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Featured Tech

Echo Glow Multicolor Smart Lamp: https://amzn.to/3x15QKW
Philips Hue Smart 60W A19 LED Bulb - White and Color Ambiance Color - 1 Pack: https://amzn.to/3vHIsBf
Zooz ZEN32 Scene Controller: https://amzn.to/3WFRpGF
Sonos One (Gen 2): https://amzn.to/3QZo8mK
Everything Presence One Sensor: http://tinyurl.com/39hdvfck
Ring Alarm Contact Sensor (2nd Gen): https://amzn.to/3SPUwsb
TP-Link Kasa Smart Plug Mini with Energy Monitoring: https://amzn.to/3O0G9PX
Honeywell Home T5 WiFi Smart Thermostat: https://amzn.to/3Sz4XBf
Apple TV 4K 128GB (3rd Gen): https://bestbuy.7tiv.net/k06Vn3
Aqara Wireless Mini Switch: https://amzn.to/3V7jJRt