If you own an Echo smart speaker, you can set up a Good Morning routine that will do things such as wishing you a good morning and playing you the latest news headlines when you say good morning to Alexa. Whichever smart home system you use, creating a routine that runs first thing in the morning can be a useful way to start your day.

There’s a lot more that you can add to a morning smart home routine than just a news briefing, however. There are plenty of ways that you can use smart home tech to make starting your day a little less painful.

1

Waking You Up

The first thing any good morning routine needs to do is wake you up as gently as possible. Being shocked awake by a blaring alarm isn’t the best way to start the day, and with a smart home, there are much better options.

If you have smart blinds, you can have them slowly open at a set time to allow natural light to flood into the room to wake you naturally, although this might not be ideal if your blinds are too noisy. If you don’t have smart blinds, you can get your smart lights to turn on gradually instead, gradually changing color or warmth to mimic the natural light of a sunrise.

You might even want gentle music to play, gradually getting louder over time. This will wake you much more gently than a loud alarm will.

2

Adjusting Your Environment

Once you’re awake, you want the right atmosphere to start the day. One of the key things to make it easier to get out of bed is ensuring that your bedroom is at the perfect temperature when it’s time to get up. The idea of getting out of a warm bed into a cold room isn’t particularly appealing, so you may struggle to leave the sanctuary of your covers.

Getting the right temperature for when you want to get out of bed means that you may need to get your smart thermostat to start heating (or cooling) well in advance of the time you want to get out of bed. This will ensure that the bedroom has reached the ideal temperature when it’s time to get up.

If you’ve used your lighting to wake you, you might want to switch it to the right lighting for the rest of your morning. You probably don’t want anything too bright or harsh, but if it’s too dim or warm, it can make you feel like climbing straight back into bed again.

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3

Creating the Right Mood

Starting your morning in the right mood is always good, so having something in your morning routine that can help you set the mood is definitely worth considering. You might want to play a bespoke playlist in the morning, comprising upbeat songs to get your day going or something more relaxing to ease you into the day.

If you don’t have a morning playlist, you can get your smart home to play your favorite radio station or even play an audiobook or podcast if that’s how you like to start the day. Your lighting can also help with your mood; you can get your lights to continue getting brighter and cooler after you’ve gotten up to put you in the right mood to get on with your day.

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4

Keeping You Informed

We’re asleep for around a third of our lives, and there’s a lot we can miss during those hours. You can get your smart speaker to read you a morning briefing that updates you on anything that’s happened in the world while you were sleeping.

If you’re concerned about the constant barrage of depressing news ruining your day, you can try using AI to select only positive stories to feed to you until you’re awake enough to deal with the less positive news.

Another very useful thing to build into your morning routine is a summary of what’s coming up in your day. You can get your smart home to read you a list of your calendar events or your scheduled tasks for the day so that you know what’s coming up, and you can even combine this with your news summary if you want. You might also want a reminder if it’s the day of your garbage collection so you don’t forget to put the trash out.

You could also add a weather report to your morning briefing so you know what to wear. You can even create a visual indication by having your smart light bulbs set to a specific color depending on the weather, such as blue for rain, red for high temperatures, and green for pleasant weather.

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5

Making a Healthy Start

It is often said that breakfast is the most important meal, and what you do in the morning can set you up for the rest of the day. That’s why you might want to build some healthy activities into your morning routine.

For example, you might want your morning routine to start a guided meditation to clear your mind before you start the day. Alternatively, you might want your routine to remind you to make a journal entry for the previous day. You might also want to launch a stretching or Pilates app or start a 7-minute workout routine.

By getting your morning routine to remind you of these healthy habits or even launch them for you, you’re more likely to do them on a regular basis. That way, you won’t feel so bad about the fact that, thanks to your smart home automations, you no longer need to get off the sofa to go and turn the light on in the evening.

6

Setting You Up for the Day

Sometimes, we all need a little help to get us going for the day. Your morning routine can help by automating some tasks for you, making it easier for you to get your day started. For example, your morning routine can turn on your coffee machine so you have a hot cup of joe ready for you by the time you’ve made it to the kitchen.

You can also get the routine to turn on your kitchen lights, start playing your morning playlist in the kitchen, and make sure that your kitchen is at the right temperature so you’re not walking into a freezing room. If you have an alarm system, your routine can disable your alarm so you don’t set it off when you leave your bedroom.

Your morning routine can also help you make a start with your daily household tasks, such as starting your washing machine or dishwasher, unlocking your back door to let your pets out, or setting the robot vacuum cleaner running.

You might even get your morning routine to play you a motivational message. After all, who doesn’t like being given the odd encouraging word or two? You can even use AI to generate original messages each morning, so you’ll never know what to expect.

Starting the day can be a lot of hard work, but the good news is that your smart home can make it a little easier. A routine that runs first thing in the morning can not only help you wake up in a gentler way but can also help you get your day started and keep you informed about what’s to come.

It’s definitely worth spending some time setting up your morning smart home routine so that you can get it to be as perfect as possible. Then all that’s left for you to do is actually get out of bed.