Yesterday, my electrician connected the garden lights.

Yesterday, my electrician connected the garden lights. There is no physical switch, so the only way to control them is through an app.

Honestly, that feels quite uncomfortable.

Luckily, they could be connected to Google Home, so at least I can control them with voice commands and include them in automations.

It made me think: with AI changing so many things so quickly, is anything actually changing in home automation too?

So I had a look.

And yes. Things are getting interesting.

The biggest change is that smart homes are slowly moving away from simple commands and fixed automations.

Instead of saying:

“Turn the garden lights on.”

You will increasingly be able to say:

“Make the garden ready for the evening.”

And AI can understand what that means and decide which devices need to do what.

The same thing is happening with cameras, heating, energy management, blinds, security and other parts of the home.

The idea is that you should not need to understand how every device works or spend hours creating complicated rules.

You simply tell the home what you want.

We are not quite there yet, but it looks like AI could finally make the “smart home” actually smart.

And suddenly, my annoying garden lights became a little more interesting.