Vivint Authorized Retailer Cedar Rapids
Smart Security Specialists -- Your Vivint Authorized Dealer Covering Cedar Rapids & Surrounding Areas

How to use smart home automation actions and scenes in your Cedar Rapids home

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

Home security is more than alarms and motion detectors. In today’s world, your innovative system focuses on smart home automation and pre-configured scenes. Through your smartphone app or command hub, you can implement custom actions that enhance your security and convenience. Learn how to create your own in just a few simple steps. 

What’s possible with smart home automation?

Advanced smart homes permit you to do quite a bit, like changing temperature settings or examining video streams directly from your smartphone. But that’s merely the beginning. Smart home automation allows different aspects of your home to work off each other. 

The following are some examples of what you might do:

  • Disarm your alarm when someone opens the door with a PIN
  • Unlock your main entrance when a CO or smoke detector triggers
  • When doors are opened, have them lock again after a specified duration
  • Set indoor cameras to record if a door opens or motion detector triggers
  • Arm and disarm your system at designated hours

There aren’t many limits to what you might do. You might even create a multifaceted nighttime scene that adjust lights, arms your system, and secures doors in unison. The top home security systems in Cedar Rapids make it effortless with easy-to-use cell phone apps.

Configuring home automation actions in your Cedar Rapids home

Customizing smart home automation is simpler than you realize, even if you are hesitant about new technology. Cell phone apps like the one from Vivint enable you to add convenience to your life in only a minute or two. Vivint’s app even comes pre-programmed with some suggested automation actions you can simply toggle on.  

Here’s a general rundown of how to create a new action, also known as a rule:

  1. Launch the Vivint app on your cell phone.
  2. Tap the menu icon in the upper left of your screen and choose “Smart Actions.”
  3. Touch the “+” sign to start a new action.
  4. Define the action by selecting what you want to occur. To illustrate, you may want to begin a surveillance recording, activate your system, or illuminate a light. You’ll find various possibilities.
  5. Next, specify what will initiate the action. As an example, you could want a smart light to switch on when a motion sensor activates or a video camera to record when a front door lock opens. You can also have an action occur based on the hour.
  6. Then, you just have to check your action, make sure it’s saved, and toggle it on to activate it.

If it appears complicated, it’s not. Due to the app's usability, you can virtually just tap what you want and switch rules off or on. If you would like a video camera to record when a door is opened, you can pick which camera to initiate from a list. You will also pick the door if there are different possibilities. The rule may be set to run all day or only for particular times of day.

Get innovative smart home automation with a new Vivint security system

Take some of life’s everyday tasks off your plate and have your new Vivint smart home handle them for you! By using smart home automation, you’ll enjoy a higher level of convenience while attaining better security for your loved ones. Start designing your smart home in Cedar Rapids today by calling (319) 419-4827 and speaking to a Vivint professional.