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

June 03, 2025
Man using a home security app on his smartphone

Home security is more than alarms and wires. Today, your innovative system revolves around smart home automation and pre-configured scenes. Through the use of your smartphone app or command hub, you can integrate custom actions that improve your home’s safety and convenience. Discover how to create your own in just a few easy steps. 

What’s possible with smart home automation?

Advanced smart homes let you do many things, like examining video feeds or changing HVAC settings straight from your phone. But that’s merely the start. Smart home automation permits different aspects of your home to function together. 

The following are some examples of what you could program:

  • Disarm your alarm when a door is opened with a PIN
  • Unlock your main entrance when a fire alarm or CO detector trips
  • Once doors are unlocked, have them lock again after a certain length of time
  • Program indoor cameras to record if a door opens or motion sensor trips
  • Arm and disarm your system at specified times of day

Your choices are nearly limitless. You could even establish a multifaceted nighttime scene that activates your system, secures doors, and dims lighting all at once. The leading home security systems in Oakland make it a breeze with user-friendly smartphone apps.

Setting home automation actions in your Oakland home

If you’re intimidated by technology and think you won’t be able to manage configuring your home’s automation, you should reconsider. Mobile apps like the one Vivint offers let you make life easier with custom actions in merely a couple of minutes. Vivint’s app also comes pre-loaded with various recommended automation actions you can just toggle on.  

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

  1. Access the Vivint app on your cell phone.
  2. Tap the menu icon in the upper left corner and pick “Smart Actions.”
  3. Press the “+” sign to start a new action.
  4. Select what you want to take place. To illustrate, you could want to activate your system, begin a surveillance recording, or turn on a light. You’ll find numerous possibilities.
  5. Next, indicate what will initiate the action. As an example, you may want a smart light to illuminate when a motion detector activates or a surveillance camera to record when a door lock is engaged. You may also program an action according to the time of day.
  6. Finally, you only have to check your action, ensure you save it, and toggle it on to activate it.

If it seems complicated, it’s far from it. Thanks to the app's intuitive design, you can virtually just press what you want and slide rules on or off. If you want a video camera to record when a door opens, you will select which camera to use from a list. You'll also select the door if there are different choices. The rule may be implemented to run all day or only for particular times of day.

Enjoy advanced smart home automation by installing a Vivint security system

Take some of life’s everyday chores off your to-do list and have your new Vivint smart home manage them for you! By implementing smart home automation, you’ll benefit from another level of convenience while obtaining a better defense for your household. Design your smart home in Oakland today by dialing (510) 281-3999 and talking to a Vivint professional.