As a parent of young children, bedtime has always been a challenge in our household. The kids would stay up later and later, and the morning crankiness was unbearable. Their rooms are on the second floor, and often we’d find lamps on, even though we couldn’t see them from downstairs. Sleep time was inching closer to 11:00 PM, and it became a nightly battle.
Enter SmartThings and some GE switches and lamp dimmers.
Each kid has a lamp in their room connected to a GE lamp dimmer module, and the switches to their overhead lights have been replaced with GE Z-Wave switches. Using the Smart Lighting SmartApp, we created three automations:
- The overhead light turns off at 4 minutes after sunset.
- The tabletop lamps turn on at the same time.
- The hall light and their lamps turn off at 9:00 PM.
The result? The kids now sleep every night at 9:00 on the dot. We had a babysitter last night, and the kids assured her not to worry—the lights would go off when it was time to bed. As soon as the automation kicked in, all three kids said goodnight and went straight to sleep.
It’s a great use-case that’s worked really well for us. It eliminated the nightly bedtime battle and has even convinced my wife of the benefits of home automation. I thought I’d share this in case others are struggling with similar issues. Best of luck to everyone!
Update: Hey guys, just wanted to remind everyone to be mindful of titles and discussions, especially when they might be sent to inactive users. Let’s keep things civil and positive!