Automation

How to control your old garage door with Siri and HomeKit

Sébastien Page / May 10, 2021

You don't need to spend big money on a brand new garage door opener in order to be able to control it with HomeKit and/or Siri. Indeed, you can simply use an add-on accessory that will bring HomeKit support to virtually any garage door opener, letting you control it using Siri or the Home app on your iPad, iPhone, or Apple Watch.

I personally upgraded my garage door opener with such an accessory a few weeks ago, and in about 30 minutes, I was all set. Now this is not a hack. This is not a workaround. This is real HomeKit support, and all it requires is the meross Smart Garage Door Opener Remote, a $49 accessory you can find on Amazon.

How to automatically silence your Apple Watch based on location

Sandy Writtenhouse / February 11, 2021

While your Apple Watch makes some nice and useful sounds, you don’t always want to hear them. You may have sounds for alerts, reminders, or to let you know the time. But if you’re heading someplace where those sounds can annoy others, you probably want to silence them.

So that you never forget to enable Theater Mode or Silent Mode, you can set up shortcuts to turn these on automatically based on your location. Here, we’ll show you how to create these automations for your Apple Watch in the Shortcuts app.

How to automatically change your Apple Watch face based on time or location

Sandy Writtenhouse / March 2, 2021

Automations can be wonderful. You can make things happen with a one-time action and have them repeat. And with the Shortcuts app on iPhone you can set up personal automations for your Apple Watch.

One such automation you may find handy is changing your Watch face based on time of day, location, or action. For instance, you might like a certain face in the morning as your day is starting and a different one as your evening begins. As another example, you might prefer a particular face for when you head to the office and another when you arrive home.

How to change your iPhone or iPad wallpaper automatically with a single tap

Christian Zibreg / November 26, 2020

Changing the Lock and Home screen wallpapers on your iPhone or iPad requires using the Settings app. Wouldn't it be great if you could change your wallpaper automatically, with a single tap? With wallpaper automation that's now available in iOS 14.3 and iPadOS 14.3, you can do just that. In this tutorial, we'll show you how to use a custom workflow in Apple's Shortcuts app to automate changing wallpaper with a single tap of a Home screen icon.

HomeKit’s new adaptive lighting feature goes live for some for Philips Hue beta testers

Christian Zibreg / October 6, 2020

The new adaptive lighting feature in HomeKit has been spotted in the wild by some Philips Hue beta testers in Germany, German-language blog iPhone-ticker.de reported today.

How to control your Roomba with Siri

Sébastien Page / August 28, 2020

Even though the iRobot line of smart vacuums doesn't support Apple HomeKit, there is a way to control your iRobot Roomba with Siri. It's not as simple as downloading an app and pushing a button, but it's not overly complex either. If you're in a tinkering mood, then you're going to have a blast, and in about 10 minutes, you should be able to command your Roomba using Siri, or actions programmed into the Shortcuts app on your iPhone.

How to use the new automation triggers in Shortcuts

Sandy Writtenhouse / September 16, 2020

Automations in the Shortcuts app give you awesome ways to make tasks simpler. With automations, you can do things like open an app, play music, or make a phone call, all automatically based on triggers you set up.

The Shortcuts app offers both personal and home automations to make your life a little easier. And with iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, you have even more triggers available. Here, we’ll show you how to use some of these new personal automation triggers in Shortcuts.

How to allow untrusted shortcuts on iPhone

Christian Zibreg / June 16, 2020

As we said before, you should be careful about shortcuts created by other people because you never know whether some of the iOS automation scripts you download may have been created for malicious purposes. Acknowledging as much, Apple with iOS 13 has stopped allowing shortcuts from friends, websites and more unless you override the default setting. In this tutorial, you're going to learn how allow untrusted shortcuts on your iPhone and iPad which will permit you to add workflows from sources outside the Gallery section in the Shortcuts app.

How to disable autoplay for videos and Live Photos in the Photos app

Sandy Writtenhouse / June 8, 2020

When you’re browsing through your pictures in the Photos app, you might notice that Live Photos and videos automatically play. And while this can be convenient if you’re just reliving some memories, it can be distracting if you’re looking for something in particular.

Here, we’ll show you how to disable the autoplay feature for videos and Live Photos in the Photos app on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

5 useful smart home automations to set up in Home App

Sandy Writtenhouse / May 31, 2020

We’ve shown you how to create Scenes with the Home app which let you control multiple accessories at once based on your actions like arriving or leaving. In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through how to set up Automations.

With Automations, you can have your accessories respond to each other. For instance, you can have a light turn on when your smart lock unlocks the front door. Or you can have your smart thermostat adjust the temperature at a certain time of day.

Depending on the smart home accessories you use, you should get some great suggestions here for setting up Automations in the Home app.

How to speed up tasks with Automator and Calendar Alarms on Mac

Sandy Writtenhouse / April 19, 2020

Automating tasks is a terrific way to get things done faster. One thing you can do is set your Mac Calendar to automatically open a file for you when an event starts. And you can do this right in the Calendar app itself. But what if you want to open an app for taking notes, add a reminder to your list, or to start your day quicker?

We’ll show you some handy ways to use the Calendar Alarms feature in Mac Automator to speed up those types of tasks.

How to automatically play a presentation and time slides in Keynote

Sandy Writtenhouse / January 27, 2020

If you’re creating a presentation in Keynote that you want to automatically play without any interaction, this is easier to do than you might think. You can set up the slideshow to start playing when you click and then go through each slide automatically. And with this, you may want to display those slides for specific amounts of time.

To help you create the perfect slideshow, this tutorial shows you how to set up a self-playing presentation and time your slides in Keynote.