Creating an Automation in Apple HomeKit

[LOCK SOUND] Hey, DIYers. I'm George from Alarm Grid. Today we're going to be going over how to create an automation on the HomeKit, on the Apple HomeKit. Right? Hey, DIYers. I'm George from Alarm Grid. Today we're going to be going over how to create an automation on the Apple HomeKit application. So today I'm actually working with my iPad. And since the Lyric Controller is the only alarm system out right now that does support HomeKit, I have actually learned this lyric into my HomeKit app on my iPad. So I'm going to go ahead and show you guys real quick a couple of different features that you guys can play around with. Now, what automation allows you to do, it allows you to create actions to happen, depending on the time of day, depending on whether you're home, or depending on a certain trigger. All right. So, for instance, if you guys have some iOS devices, whether it's lights, switches, thermostats, plug-in modules, anything like that that's HomeKit enabled, you can actually control that, and you guys can set up automation and triggers with the Lyric Alarm System that will allow you to, for instance, if you guys arm your Lyric system away, you guys can set certain lights to come on, the temperature to rise up to 76, 77, whatever temperature you guys like it whenever you are away from the house. But, of course, you always got to remember, in order to use HomeKit remotely, you do need to have a HomeKit hub, whether it's an Apple TV, an iPad new generation that has the latest firmware update and you can actually set it as an Apple hub. I think I said the Apple TV. Right? But yeah. You guys do need to have a HomeKit hub enabled at the house so that you can actually do this kind of automation and controlling of the system through HomeKit remotely. You guys need that hub. So let me go ahead and get my iPad situated here. Give me just one moment. So once you once you have everything set up, I'm going to go ahead and open up my HomeKit app. Right? As soon as you open it up, you're going to see that I have a couple of lights. I have some wall outlets, switches. And then I also have my default Lyric with three door sensors that are learned into the system. So that's actually something very important. For those of you who are looking to do HomeKit on the Lyric system, keep in mind that only the sensors that are set to entry, exit, or perimeter, or interior follower, or interior with the lay, meaning windows, doors or motions, those are the only sensors that are going to be learned into the HomeKit. So just something to keep in mind. Now, I'm going to show you guys real quick how fast HomeKit actually works with the Lyric system. I'm going to go ahead and hold down my default room Lyric. That's going to bring up my options. I'm going to go ahead and just do an arm away. [BEEP BEEP] Arm away. Exit now. And if you look at the system, it did it almost instantaneously. I'm going to go ahead and do an Off. [BEEP] Disarmed. Ready to arm. Chime. Cool. So I just wanted to show you guys real quick how you use the actual HomeKit with the Lyric system. Now I'm going to show you guys the automation. So the first thing you want to do is on the bottom right hand corner of the HomeKit app, there is an automation button right there. You click on that. And since I don't have any automation learned in, it's going to ask me to create new automation. So I hit the Create New Automation button. And then remember what I was saying. The automation allows you to create an automation, depending on whether you're home, the time of day, or on a trigger. So, for instance, let's just say I want an accessory to be controlled. Right? So I'm going to do an accessory is controlled. It's asking me to choose the accessory that will start this automation. So I'm going to set the default room Lyric as the trigger. And I hit Next. Now, I want the devices to be triggered when the Lyric arms away. So I'm going to hit Arms. The time, I'm going to put Any. You can always change it. So if you only want the scene or the automation rule to work only at a certain time of day, you can do that. I'm just going to leave it as Anytime. And then the people, if you have multiple people using the same HomeKit login, you can actually control and decide who you want to have that access to this scene automation rule. So I hit Next. Now, select the scenes and accessories to automate. I'm going to go ahead and do my two lights, so my default room night light, and my second default room night light. And I'm also going to set the thermostat. All right. I'll hit Next. Now, we have the scene here. And now it's up to you to decide what you guys want to do. So I'm going to make it to where when the Lyric system arms away, I'm going to have the default room night light turn on, the second default room night light turn on. And I'm going to want my thermostat-- if I hold it down, it brings up the temperature that I want to set it at. I'm going to set it to 78 when I'm away. That sounds like good enough. Now, you can either test the automation right away. You can turn off. You can have it set to a specific timer if you guys want. It doesn't really apply for this one, though. So you don't have to worry about the turn off. And then once you're done, you just hit the Done in the top right. And then you're automation is created. Now, if at any point in time you guys need to pause this automation, you simply go click on the automation, and you can actually delete it from that screen. Also, if you see at the very top where it says Enable This Automation, you guys can disable it. That way, if you guys just want to have it disabled for a short period of time, but you don't want to delete it completely, because then that means you have to recreate it, you can just use that Enable feature. Right? So I'm going to leave mine enabled. I'll hit Done. Could not automation. Could not edit. All right. So let's just hit Cancel for now. Another thing you can do, let's just add a time of day. So I'm going to have my Lyric system at-- since what? It's 10:10 right now. At 10:11 AM, repeat Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, the whole week. And I'm going to hit Next. I'm going to set my default room Lyric. Hit Next. And I'm going to want my Lyric to arm away. I hit Done. So that in a minute here, at 10:11 AM the Lyric system will do an arm away. This is good for people who automatically want their systems to arm at night. That way you don't have to worry about doing it, or in case you forget, you can always set your Lyric system to arm at 9:00 PM to an arm state. So let's give it a couple more seconds here, and we should see the Lyric system go into an arm away mode. Once the time on my iPad hits 10:11, the Lyric system will begin to arm. [BEEP BEEP] Armed away. Exit now. [BEEPING] 10:11. And the Lyric system armed. Now, you can go ahead and just disarm it from the main screen. Disarmed. Ready to arm. Chime. What else can we do? So right now we've done on a certain time. We've done a trigger. You can also do location. So you can do when you arrive home. Time? Any time of the day. Right? You hit Next. Now, what do you want to control? Or what devices do you want to activate when you get home? I'm going to do my Lyric. So let's just say when I get home, I want my Lyric system to disarm. I'm going to want my thermostat to be controlled. And let's just say my switch in the room and my living room. All right. Well, so right now I have the Lyric, the thermostat, and a switch. I hit Next. So now, I'm going to have my Lyric system go into an off mode, which is that's what it's already set to. And let's say my default room switch, let's just say I have a switch at the front door, and I want the switch to turn on to turn on all the lights whenever I arrive home. I'm going to turn that power on. My thermostat, when I get home, I like to be nice and comfortable. I will set the temperature to 71. And then when anyone arrives home. All right? So that's when anyone gets home. You hit Done. And now that's set to location based. Right? So right now we have a time of day automation. We have a location automation. And we have a trigger automation. Right? Whenever the system arms away, turn on the lights, set the thermostat to 78. Whenever you arm away, it's more than likely cause you're leaving the house. So that's why I set it to that. And that's just a quick little overview on how you can play around with the automation in HomeKit. Especially if you have the Lyric, there's a lot of different cool integrations you guys can do, especially if you guys have the HomeKit devices. Now, something important that I do just want to touch base on, HomeKit and the Lyric system. HomeKit is great for the HomeKit integration, where it allows you to learn the iControl devices. However, it still does have its caveats if you guys are planning on using HomeKit only. For instance, you can't clear an alarm on the system. Why? Because that requires two disarms. And on the HomeKit app, you can't actually disarm the system twice. Once it's disarmed once, it's disarmed once. You can't actually run the disarm again a second time in a row. That's something that can only be done through the system, or through the Total Connect application. And, again, the other caveat that I mentioned earlier was that only windows, door sensors that are set to entry, exit, perimeter, or interior, follower, or delay get learned into the HomeKit app, which is why you see here I actually have my back door, front door, and living room door all learned into the system. Now, if I would have had, let's say, temperature sensors, glass breaks, or anything like that, those would not be going into HomeKit. So that's just something to keep in mind when you guys are playing around with HomeKit and the Lyric system, in case you have any questions. If you guys do, you can always email us to support@alarmgrid.com. If you guys found the video helpful, make sure you hit Like underneath, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and enable the notifications so whenever we upload new content you guys can be notified. I'm George. And I'll see you guys next time.