Here at r:home, our team went on an off-site retreat and reflected on why our company exists in the first place. After hours of discussion, we decided our mission is to “make life easier and more enjoyable" through the design and deployment of smart homes. However, this got me thinking… is it possible for a smart home to not only make life more enjoyable, but more meaningful?

I’m Derick Downey, lead programmer for r:home, and in this blog series I’m going to explore this question. If you are a fan of self-help authors like James Clear or Tony Robbins, or just interested in learning new and creative smart home ideas, this blog is for you. Also, this series will only improve from your contribution, so please subscribe and leave your thoughts in the comments below! 

Defining the Terms

What Is Home Automation?

“Home Automation” is a fancy word for the automatic control of electronic devices in your home. It typically involves multiple electronic devices working together toward a common goal. A “smart home” is simply a home that has “home automation” built into it.

Some classic examples of home automation include:

• Your exterior lights automatically turning on at sunset and off at sunrise.
  
  
• Using an app to play music throughout multiple rooms in your home.
  
  
• Your garage door sending you a "push notification" if it has been left open, and allowing you to close it from wherever you are using your smart home app.

With home automation systems like Control4, it's easy to play music throughout your entire home. 

I think it's fairly obvious how the examples above make life easier and more enjoyable:

• With smart exterior lighting, you’ll never have to worry about walking outside in the dark and it will be easier to enjoy your landscape scenery at night.
  
  
• With a smart music system, you can easily put on some music or a podcast throughout your home while tidying up or having a party.
  
  
• With an automated garage door, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that your garage is closed, and you can even use the app to open the door for a friend while you are away.

But... do any of the automation examples above make life “more meaningful?” Well...

What Is a Meaningful Life?

Before I say what I think makes a "meaningful life," let me contrast it with what I think makes an "enjoyable life."

An enjoyable life is one full of pleasure and comfort, without pain or frustration. If we look at Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, an enjoyable life happens when we satiate the lower needs of the pyramid. When we eat a great meal or feel comfy and safe on our couch, we experience enjoyment. There's a kind of “passiveness" to enjoyment—you experience life as it happens, and if the current moment is pleasant, then life is enjoyable.

Simplified diagram of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs from Wikipedia. 

On the other hand, a “meaningful life" happens when we satisfy the higher needs of Maslow's pyramid, such as our need for Self-Actualization.

To me, "meaning" is not some abstract concept, but rather a feeling or emotional state. It is the deep sense of satisfaction we feel when we're working toward achieving a lifelong dream or improving ourselves. It is the gratifying feeling that washes over us when we know that our outward behavior is in alignment with our innermost values and vision. Because of this, a meaningful life is inherently "active" because this wonderful feeling can only happen after you've brought forth those inner values and vision.

So… does turning on your exterior lights at sunset help you feel like you are becoming your best self? I seriously doubt it.

But… does that mean smart exterior lighting is totally useless? Absolutely not!!

Instead, I think we can build a better smart home—a home that simultaneously maintains and improves the lives of its occupants—if we design it with both "enjoyable automation" and "meaningful automation" in mind. 

How to Build a Better Smart Home

Examples of Enjoyable Automation

In her 2006 book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success,” psychologist Carol Dweck famously popularized the ideas of a “growth mindset” compared to a "fixed mindset." Essentially, a "growth mindset" is the attitude that you can change who you are with enough time and effort, while a "fixed mindset" is the attitude that who you are today is who you'll be forever.

Just as a “fixed mindset” fixates on who you are today, "enjoyable automation" is when technology works together to simplify your existing behaviors or habits. For example, if you have a home in Chicago, you probably already do all of the following:

• When you arrive home, you turn on some lights, open some shades, and set your thermostats to a comfortable temperature.
  
  
• While you're at home, you have to unlock your front gate to let guests in.
  
  
• When you leave home, you turn off all of the lights, TVs, and music, close your shades, and set your thermostats to a more energy-saving mode.

With a smart home, we can simplify all these tasks by adding the keypad below to your front door:

Example of a standard keypad installed at the front door of an r:home smart home.

This keypad can be programmed to do the following:

• When you press the "Welcome" button, different lights turn on and different shades open depending on whether it's sunny or dark outside. All of your thermostats switch to their "Comfort" preset with a heat set-point of 68° F and a cool set-point of 72° F.
  
  
• When you press the "Gate" button, your front gate will "buzz" open for 7 seconds and the small "status LED" light on the right side of the button will turn green. After 7 seconds, the gate will lock again and that status LED will turn red to indicate that the gate is now locked. Another 10 seconds after that, the status LED can turn off.
  
  
• When you press the "Goodbye" button, all music, TVs, and lights will shut off immediately, and your thermostats will switch to their "Away" preset. 30 seconds after that, your security system will arm and all of your smart locks will lock. If any exterior doors are ajar or locks are unable to lock, your home will tell you by both making an audio announcement and sending your phone a push notification. If you have a Control4 system, this "Goodbye" button can also activate Control4's "Mockupancy" feature which turns on-and-off specific lights and televisions around your home to make it look like you are still home from the outside.

These buttons do a tremendous job of making it easier for us to satiate our lower needs of security, safety, warmth, and rest... but they are not really encouraging us to adopt new patterns in our life. They are just making it easier to do the things we already do, which is why I classify all of these examples as "enjoyable automation."   

Examples of Meaningful Automation

Just as a “growth mindset” focuses more on who we can still become, "meaningful automation" is when technology works together to encourage its occupants to engage in better habits. It is designing our home today for who we want to be tomorrow.

Control4's custom "push notifications" are one of the many ways to add "meaningful automation" to our systems.

Close your eyes and imagine your ideal self. What kind of habits does that person have? Are they cooking more, or exercising, or meditating, or playing guitar, or reading books, or writing in their journal? I believe a well-designed smart home can nudge you toward all of these habits.

• If your goal is to cook more, add a “cooking” button to your kitchen keypad that turns on your lights and starts playing a random Spotify playlist to get you in the zone. This button will be a permanent fixture to your kitchen, acting as a constant reminder that you are the kind of person who cooks.
  
  
• If your goal is to exercise more, have your phone send you a push notification at a set time every Monday/Wednesday/Friday that says, “You have 1 hour to get to the gym.” If you want to work out at home in the morning, make it so when you activate your "Good Morning" scene, the lights turn on in the pathways to and in the gym itself.
  
  
• If your goal is to meditate more, make it so that when you walk into your at-home office each morning, your in-ceiling speakers automatically begin playing 5 minutes of calm relaxing music. If you’re short on time, no problem; I can program a double- or triple-tap button press to skip this feature for that morning. However, making it automatically start by default means that your environment is treating you as if you are the kind of person who meditates everyday before work. By having the environment take the initiative and force these "5 mindful minutes" upon you, you may be more likely to sit back and enjoy the peace.
  
  
• If your goal is to play guitar, have a “guitar” button in your studio that turns on your guitar amp and activates a 5-minute timer. After the timer expires, make the lights flash in your room to celebrate your victory — you practiced today! Also, if it’s 8:00pm and your guitar button still has not been pressed today, send some push notifications reminders to your phone.
  
  
• If your goal is to read more, make the top “video source” on your universal remote be “reading time.” This way, every time you go to watch something on the TV, you’ll remember that “reading” is a nice alternative to watching TV. If you end up selecting “reading time”, it can turn off the TV and turn on the lamp next to your coziest reading chair, beckoning you to come get lost in a novel.
  
  
• If your goal is to journal more, add a “journaling” button to your bedside keypad that flashes red repeatedly at night until you press it. (This one might get annoying… but that’s the point!) 

Meaningful Automation and Families 

The psychologist James Hollis says there's two types of lessons we learn from our parents — the conscious lessons they've intentionally taught us, and the unconscious lessons they've accidentally taught us simply by being around us. Although my wife and I currently do not have any kids (besides our dogs Peanut and Butter), I believe that when you work toward becoming your most creative and fulfilled self, you are not just improving your own life, but you're also indirectly setting an example for those around you.

My dogs Peanut and Butter, who are big advocates for smart home daily reminders to "play fetch" and "walk the dog."

On top of the indirect impact, I think "meaningful automation" can directly encourage new healthier habits for an entire family. Here's some examples I can think of:

• When the “dinner time” button is pressed in the Kitchen, play an audio announcement through the speakers of the home saying, “Dinner is ready!” and send a push notification to all family members. Then, have the Kitchen TV bring up the word “Gratitude” or "Grace" for 15 minutes. After everyone is seated, go around and have each family member say one thing they are grateful for, or have someone lead the family in saying grace.
  
  
• When the “bed time” button is pressed, have a “brush teeth” and a “floss teeth” button flash red in each child’s bathroom. When each button is pressed, have it flash yellow for 2 minutes, then turn green to signal that they’ve properly brushed. Send a push notification to the parents when this button has been pressed (or more importantly, when it has not been pressed).
  
  
• Every weekday during the school year, have a “homework” button in each kid’s room that is red. Until this button is pressed, the TV will not work in that room. Every weekday at noon, turn the button red again.

Conclusion and Questions

As you can see, I believe "home automation" can not only make our lives more enjoyable, but also more meaningful. With most of our clients, the hardware required to accomplish the features above are already in the system; it just requires some personal reflection from the homeowner and some creative programming from the programmer.

Speaking of reflection, this series is only going to improve based off of your feedback, so I would love it if you left a comment below! I'd love to hear all of your thoughts, especially:

• What are some dreams, goals, or habits you wish you engaged in more often?
  
  
• How can "meaningful automation" be used to encourage you toward these dreams, goals, or habits?
  
  
• How can "meaningful automation" help improve the habits of your children and/or family?

Thanks for reading and if you found this post interesting, this is just the beginning! Up next, I will be breaking down the concepts of the New York Times best-selling book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and seeing how we can apply them in the design of our smart homes. Subscribe to our blog if you'd like to be notified when our next article comes out.