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How to implement smart home automation actions and scenes in your Ithaca home

June 03, 2025
Homeowner navigating a home security app on his cell phone

Home security is more than door sensors and alarms. Today, your innovative system centers on smart home automation and pre-programmed scenes. By using your command panel or smartphone app, you can implement custom actions that improve your home’s safety and convenience. Learn how to make your own in just a few straightforward steps. 

What’s possible with smart home automation?

Advanced smart homes permit you to do so much, like checking video footage or changing thermostat settings straight from your phone. But that’s really just scratching the surface. Smart home automation lets different parts of your home to work off each other. 

The following are several examples of what you can program:

  • Deactivate your alarm when someone opens the door with a PIN
  • Unlock your main entrance when a CO or smoke detector triggers
  • When doors are unlocked, have them lock again after a certain length of time
  • Configure interior cameras to record if a door opens or motion detector trips
  • Disarm and arm your system at specified times of day

Your options are virtually limitless. You might even configure a multifaceted nighttime scene that locks doors, dims lighting, and initiates your system in unison. The leading home security systems in Ithaca make it simple with user-friendly cell phone apps.

Creating home automation actions in your Ithaca home

If you’re apprehensive about technology and think you won’t be able to handle configuring your smart home automation, think twice. Smartphone apps like the one from Vivint let you make life easier with custom actions in just a minute or two. Vivint’s app also comes pre-programmed with various recommended automation actions you may simply turn on.  

Here’s a general rundown of how to customize a new action, also called a rule:

  1. Open the Vivint app on your smartphone.
  2. Touch the menu icon in the upper left of your screen and select “Smart Actions.”
  3. Press the “+” sign to initiate a new rule.
  4. Begin by choosing what you would like to take place. For example, you might wish to commence a camera recording, activate your system, or illuminate a light. You’ll find various choices.
  5. Next, indicate what will cause the action. For example, you might want a smart light to switch on when a motion detector trips or a surveillance device to record when a door lock opens. You might also have an action initiate simply based on the hour.
  6. Finally, you only have to check your work, ensure you save it, and toggle it on to enable it.

If it appears complicated, it really isn’t. Because of the app's usability, you may just tap what you want and switch rules on or off. If you want a video camera to record when a door lock activates, you may choose which camera to use from a list. You will also pick the door if there are different choices. The rule can be implemented to run 24/7 or only for specified timeframes.

Enjoy the best in smart home automation with a new Vivint security system

Take some of life’s everyday tasks off your schedule and have your new Vivint smart home handle them for you! By using smart home automation, you’ll discover a new level of convenience while getting a better defense for your household. Design your smart home in Ithaca today by placing a call to (607) 600-9658 and talking to a Vivint professional.