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How to create smart home automation actions and scenes in your Modesto home

June 03, 2025
Resident accessing a home security app on his mobile device

Home security is more than alarms and motion detectors. Today, your modern system focuses on smart home automation and pre-programmed scenes. Through your central touchscreen or phone app, you can implement custom actions that enhance your home’s safety and convenience. Learn how to design your own in only a few simple steps. 

What’s possible with smart home automation?

Leading smart homes let you do so much, like examining video streams or adjusting temperature settings directly from your phone. But that’s merely the beginning. Smart home automation lets different aspects of your home to function together. 

Here are a few examples of what you could do:

  • Disarm your system when someone unlocks the door with a PIN
  • Unlock your front door when a CO or smoke detector triggers
  • After doors are opened, have them lock again following a specified amount of time
  • Program interior cameras to record if a motion detector triggers or door opens
  • Arm and disarm your system at designated moments

There are few limitations to what you may do. You could even configure a comprehensive nighttime scene that secures doors, dims lighting, and arms your system in unison. The best home security systems in Modesto make it effortless with user-friendly smartphone apps.

Setting home automation actions in your Modesto home

Configuring smart home automation is more straightforward than you think, even if you are hesitant about new technology. Cell phone apps like the one Vivint offers enable you to simplify your life in merely a few moments. Vivint’s app even comes pre-loaded with various suggested automation actions you may simply switch on.  

Here’s a quick rundown of how to customize a new action, also referred to as a rule:

  1. Open the Vivint app on your mobile device.
  2. Touch the menu icon in the upper left corner and choose “Smart Actions.”
  3. Touch the “+” sign to start a new rule.
  4. Define the action by picking what you want to take place. To illustrate, you might want to arm your system, start a video recording, or illuminate a light. You’ll find numerous possibilities.
  5. Next, specify what will cause the action. To illustrate, you could want a smart light to turn on when a motion detector activates or a video camera to record when a front door lock activates. You can also have an action occur based on the time of day.
  6. Finally, you only have to check your work, make sure it’s saved, and toggle it on to activate it.

If it seems complex, it’s not. Because of the app's usability, you can virtually just tap what you want and switch rules on or off. If you want a surveillance device to record when a door lock activates, you can pick which camera to initiate from a list. You will also choose the door if there’s more than one possibility. The rule can be programmed to run all day or only for particular times of day.

Find innovative smart home automation with a new Vivint security system

Take some of life’s routine responsibilities off your plate and let your new Vivint smart home take care of them for you! By using smart home automation, you’ll discover a new level of convenience while getting better security for your loved ones. Customize your smart home in Modesto today by placing a call to (209) 255-5672 and connecting with a Vivint expert.