How do you use automation to affect the mood of those in your household?
Mine is relatively simple, adjusting the lights to "relax" mode manually using a HE mode change, dimming my various Philips Hue rgb lights, LED candle lights and SteelSeries mousepad to a dim orange colour, while I listen to what Youtube serves up in my Marshall headphones (great battery life btw...).
I can imagine that people could use lighting and music, maybe even oil diffusers, in various ways to alter the mood of their household, both inside the house and in outdoor settings.
So how do you alter the mood in your house, either bringing the energy down a notch or amping it up to kick-start your day, or setting the tone for a gathering.....?
By having automations that actually work correctly/consistently and resisting the urge to discuss all things Home Automation and Tech in general during dinner and into the evening hours...
I have not really explored the idea of mood adjustment but lighting tweaks seem like the first thing to do. Maybe shifting to a softer white, increasing (or decreasing) brightness as the sun sets for example. I've read where certain colors can temporarily affect mood like pink for some reason. Maybe hints of those can be incorporated.
The one big issue for our house is it has to be very subtle. Any hint of control through "automation" brings disapproval/scorn (family) and sadness (me). Music and/or aromatics are a non-starter.
I’ve been working on doing this in my house in a few rooms. In my bedroom I have a salt lamp that produces a warm glow at night. Helps us sleep and also provides enough ambient light at night to see when walking around the bedroom. I have it on from sunset to sunrise. At the TV in the living room I have led lights on a topiary and some decorations on top of the entertainment center for accent lighting that comes on at 4:30pm and off at 11:30pm regardless of the time of year. I’ve setup a new mode called late evening that runs from 10pm to 12:30am when night mode kicks in. During late evening my kitchen overhead lights don’t come on but the under cabinet lights do but at around 75% brightness. In night mode they come on at 50% for my wife when she gets up to go to work at 3am and gets her coffee. I toyed with automating wax melts but found they lose their scent way too fast and Weren’t worth the effort. I let the wife replace the plugins whenever she wants.
Dim lights is helpful, but one thing we have really come to enjoy in our house: soundscapes.
In the evening we have a evening frog/insect soundscape that plays throughout the house. It sounds like being at the cabin with the windows open, except there are no mosquitos buzzing in your ear.
In the morning we have a bird soundscape. Once again, it feels like having the windows open.
My wife and I both love thunderstorms. In the back of my mind I've been wondering about a way to simulate a thunderstorm with lights and sounds.
I automate one in the garage, but the two Philips one's in the living room and bedrooms don't automatically come on, so they just run most of the time at 60% and I let them turn the compressor on and off.
I don't do a lot for mood. But any lights I have that can shift temperature are daylight white during the day, then fade over time to warm white just before sunset. After I go to bed, any light that comes on is at 30%. That's enough to see if I need to get up. The strip light behind the TV is a warmer white during the day and shifts to a pinker tone before sunset.
