![]() ![]() The People setting lets you trigger an automation based on who is home. By default, that’s any time, but you can set it for day, night, or specific hours. Time lets you set times when the automation can trigger. For humidity, you can set a humidity percentage and then set the automation to trigger if it rises above or drops below that percentage.Īt the bottom, you see settings for Time and People, which let you fine-tune the automation. For instance, you can set a motion sensor to trigger based on whether or not it senses motion. The details vary for every type of sensor, but they should be easy to understand. Tap Next to set up how to trigger the automation (below right). ![]() Tap a sensor to select it you can choose only one sensor per automation. Orange person: Occupancy (similar to the motion sensor, but less sensitive).Not all are well labeled-as you can see in the left screenshot below-so you have to learn how to read the icons: The next screen displays the available sensors in your home. (If that option is grayed out, you don’t have any sensors available.) Open the Home app on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, tap the + icon (below left), tap Add Automation, and then tap A Sensor Detects Something (below right). If you’d like to do something similar, here’s how. With all that out of the way, recreating my old automation was simple. So before you go buying new sensors for automations, it’s worth checking in the Home app to see if you have sensors you didn’t know about. And since it’s attached to the wall, my kids won’t mess with it. Plus, it runs off my HVAC system’s power instead of a battery, so that’s one less thing to worry about. It’s not in the same room as my dehumidifier but only a few feet away. The thermostat doesn’t appear as an accessory in the Home app, but I can query Siri about the humidity in my kitchen, where the Ecobee thermostat is installed, and it shows up as a sensor for automations, as you’ll see in the next section. Thankfully, while exploring Automation settings, I discovered that my Ecobee thermostat has a secret humidity sensor. It’s small, has little buttons and a screen, and has to be put in a prominent place, so my best guess is my kids started playing with it and left it somewhere. There’s only one problem: I can’t find it. It does other neat things, too, like track air quality and temperature. In my old setup, I used an Eve Room to monitor humidity. With the right sensors, this new capability can open up a world of possibilities, and if you have a lot of HomeKit accessories, you may have more sensors than you realize. In iOS 15.1, Apple finally made it so sensor-based automations could be triggered based on air quality, humidity, or light level (see “ Apple Releases macOS 12 Monterey with iOS 15.1, iPadOS 15.1, watchOS 8.1, tvOS 15.1, and HomePod Software 15.1,” 25 October 2021). While finally updating the book (waiting for the Matter partnership to materialize might not have been the best move see “ Home Automation Standard Gets an Official Name,” ), I took the opportunity to revisit that automation and take advantage of some subtle yet important changes to the Home app. ![]() At the time, the problem was that Apple’s Home app didn’t recognize the Eve Room as a sensor for automations, so I had to jump through some convoluted hoops with Eve’s HomeKit app. In short, my Eve Room monitored the humidity level, and I set up an automation to turn on an Eve Energy outlet connected to our dehumidifier.
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