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How to use smart home automation actions and scenes in your Champaign home

June 03, 2025
Resident accessing a home security app on his mobile device

Home security is more than alarms and motion detectors. These days, your modern system centers on smart home automation and pre-set scenes. By using your hub or cell phone app, you can implement custom actions that enhance your home’s safety and convenience. Learn how to create your own in only a few easy steps. 

What is possible with smart home automation?

Advanced smart homes let you do many things, like checking video feeds or adjusting thermostat settings remotely from your smartphone. But that’s only scratching the surface. Smart home automation permits different elements of your home to work together. 

These are several examples of what you can configure:

  • Deactivate your alarm when a door opens with a PIN
  • Unlock your main entrance when a CO detector or fire alarm activates
  • Re-lock doors a set amount of time after they are unlocked
  • Program interior cameras to record if a motion sensor triggers or door opens
  • Disarm and arm your system at certain moments

Your options are virtually limitless. You might even establish a comprehensive nighttime scene that secures doors, lowers lights, and activates your system all at once. The top home security systems in Champaign make it simple with easy-to-navigate cell phone apps.

Configuring home automation actions in your Champaign home

Configuring smart home automation is simpler than you think, even if you are hesitant about new technology. Mobile apps like the one Vivint offers enable you to add convenience to your life in just a couple of minutes. Vivint’s app even comes pre-programmed with some recommended automation actions you can easily toggle on.  

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

  1. Access the Vivint app on your cell phone.
  2. Press the menu icon in the upper left corner and pick “Smart Actions.”
  3. Tap the “+” sign to initiate a new action.
  4. Choose what you want to take place. For example, you might want to illuminate a light, arm your system, or start a video recording. You’ll find many choices.
  5. Next, determine what will initiate the action. As an example, you could want a light to turn on when a motion sensor triggers or a surveillance camera to record when a front door lock activates. You might also have an action occur according to the time of day.
  6. Finally, you only have to review what you’ve done, make sure it’s saved, and toggle it on to enable it.

If it appears complicated, it’s far from it. Due to the app's user-friendliness, you essentially 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 can select which camera you want from a list. You will also pick the door if there’s more than one possibility. The rule may be programmed for all hours or only for certain timeframes.

Get advanced smart home automation with a new Vivint security system

Take some of life’s daily responsibilities off your to-do list and let your new Vivint smart home handle them for you! By using smart home automation, you’ll enjoy another level of convenience while attaining a better defense for your loved ones. Customize your smart home in Champaign today by dialing (217) 759-1212 and talking to a Vivint professional.