Personal and Home automations.

Although I’ve already posted a guide on how to do a Home Automation: Motion Detection Over the next couple of weeks I plan to share some more Shortcut guides, and some will be different depending on the trigger types used, so I thought it would be a good idea to detail the different types of automations we can use.

Home Automations.

Both the Shortcuts and the Home app let you create Home Automations. These automations control HomeKit devices and allow you to use them as triggers to control other devices. Home automations are stored and run from a Home hub (HomePod, HomePodMini, Apple TV or an always-on macOS device).

Home automation triggers include:

• People Arrive E.g. “I Arrive Home”

• People Leave E.g. “Everyone Has Left Home”

• A Time of Day Occurs E.g. “At 08:00” or “At Sunset”

• An Accessory is Controlled E.g. “Light Turns On”

• A Sensor Detects Something E.q. “Motion Detected” or “Smoke Detected” Requires HomeKit Enabled sensors.

As you can see the number of triggers available is limited when compared to Personal Automations.

Personal Automations

These automations are device-based, as in you can only run triggers based on the iPhone or iPad.

These events trigger automations that run automatically:

• Time of Day E.g. “At 8:00 am on weekdays”

• Alarm E.g. “When my alarm has stopped”

• Sleep E.g. “When Wind Down starts”

• Arrive E.g. “When I arrive at the gym”

• Leave E.g. “When I leave work”

• Before I Commute E.g. “15 minutes before I leave for work”

• CarPlay E.g. “When CarPlay connects”

• Email E.g. “When I get an email from Jane”

• Message E.g. “When I get a message from Mum”

• Apple Watch Workout E.g. “When I start a workout”

• Wi-Fi E.g. “When my iPhone joins home Wi-Fi”

• Bluetooth E.g. “When my iPhone connects to AirPods”

• NFC E.g. “When I tap an NFC tag”

• App E.g. “When “Weather” is opened or closed”

• Airplane Mode E.g. “When Airplane Mode is turned on”

• Low Power Mode E.g. “When Low Power Mode is turned off”

• Battery Level E.g. “When battery level rises above 50%”

• Charger E.g. “When my iPhone connects to power”

• Do Not Disturb E.g. “When turning Do Not Disturb on”

• Personal E.g. “When turning Personal on”

• Work E.g ‘When turning work on”

• Sound Recognition E.g. “When my iPhone recognises a doorbell sound

Please note that the following event triggers require confirmation:

• Locations (Arrive and Leave)

• Before I Commute

• Email

• Message

• Wi-Fi

• Bluetooth

Hopefully, this will go some way to explaining the different types of automation and what can be achieved within each. As mentioned there are a few triggers that will prompt for confirmation, which means you will see a shortcut notification prompting to run the shortcut. In a later guide, I’ll show you how to use the Location trigger in a shortcut.