5 Smart Uses for Bluetooth in Your Smart Home

Generally speaking, smart home setups are designed to rely on your home’s Wi-Fi connection to connect all of your gadgets to each other. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but there are ways to optimize the process a bit, setting up new home features and reducing your overall power and network consumption. All it takes is some Bluetooth-enabled hardware and a few clever ideas, from programming automations to specialized home monitors.

Many smart devices come with Bluetooth functionality as part of their basic connectivity, but the majority of their functions are governed by Wi-Fi connections instead. By combining a Bluetooth module and a handful of Bluetooth proxies as signal extenders, you can rework your smart home setup to work even without Wi-Fi or dedicated apps. This allows you to fine-tune your homebrew setup to your precise needs, as well as reduce the presence of potentially intrusive network monitors in your home. It’s a little more work than setting up a normal smart home device and requires some know-how, but these smart apps are more than worth it.

A temperature and humidity monitor is a smart addition to any smart home setup, especially in rooms where you store sensitive equipment like PCs. There are plenty of smart temperature monitors on the market, but these usually require you to use a brand’s dedicated app, which usually means sending them data about the condition of your home. To work around this issue, simply connect the monitor to a Bluetooth module through an open source program like Home Assistant.

Home Assistant can be used to automatically detect nearby devices and connect to any functions they have. In the case of a temperature monitor, using Bluetooth and Home Assistant, you can see a reading of the temperature, humidity, and whatever else the monitor picks up in a given room, without requiring a branded app. In case the temperature monitor is not within range of the main module, you can install individual Bluetooth proxies throughout your home to extend the signal, bypassing limitations such as broadcasting through walls.

Smart home frameworks can usually handle very basic automation, at least assuming the smart devices app you’re using has this function programmed into it. Programs for connected devices like lighting can be configured in advance, for example. However, if you want to get more complicated than that, smart devices alone tend not to cut it. This is where Bluetooth connections can come in and allow you to get creative.

Using a Bluetooth automation app, such as Tasker for Android, Shortcuts for iPhone, or our old friend Home Assistant, you can program all sorts of automated routines to run between your Bluetooth-connected devices. For example, if your home’s air conditioning is compatible with smart technology, you can program it to turn on as soon as you get home from a long run on a hot day and unplug your Bluetooth headphones. You can even schedule multiple events to run in sequence. Starting with disconnecting those headphones, the AC turns on, your Bluetooth speaker starts playing the same playlist you had running, the smart kettle in the kitchen starts boiling water for afternoon tea, and so on.

Bluetooth-based automation isn’t just for saving time or managing mundane tasks. It can also be used to enhance the safety and security of your home, especially in a way that doesn’t require as much external monitoring from an outside company and isn’t as vulnerable to network glitches or interference. Using security devices such as cameras and motion sensors along with Bluetooth modules, proxies and automation applications, you can create various context-aware security actions to handle emergency situations.

For example, using a motion sensor, speaker, and outdoor light connected via Bluetooth, you can set your lights to start flashing and your speaker to sound an alarm if an intruder is detected. While some network-connected smart setups can handle something similar, Wi-Fi-powered smart home setups are potentially vulnerable to intruders using jammers to evade your home security, not to mention ordinary network outages. Bluetooth connections rely on an isolated signal and are generally better suited to avoiding interference from bad actors.

A major appeal of a smart home setup, especially one containing a smart speaker from one of the major brands, like Amazon Echo, is the ability to control devices and functions with your voice. It’s a convenient way to manage your setup, rather than fiddling with a smartphone. But this raises some privacy concerns, because these types of systems typically save voice recordings and patterns in order to properly recognize them. If you want to use voice control, consider keeping it local with Bluetooth.

Opting for an open source voice control system, such as the Assist feature offered by Home Assistant, allows you to add the convenience of voice commands to your Bluetooth-powered smart home setup. This means less worry about tech companies spying on you and the ability to set up elaborate automation sequences with a single command. Using Home Assistant, you can program an entire list of if-then-because functions on your Bluetooth-connected devices, then trigger them all at once with a single voice command. You can also have fun with it, by making the trigger a pop culture reference like “execute order 66” or “do the thing.”

Relying on devices connected via Bluetooth instead of Wi-Fi allows you to use less electricity. Unlike Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connections do not need to remain on at all times, they only activate when called upon. This can save on electricity bills in the long run, especially if you use Bluetooth Low Energy devices. For even more energy savings in your smart home, opt for smart plugs connected via Bluetooth.

These small, smart devices normally monitor a device’s power consumption, allowing you to track how much juice it’s using and turn it off remotely. But again, to do this through a branded app, you need to share information about your home. So, to use a smart plug in an interesting way, simply connect it to a Bluetooth module and program it to automatically turn off when a device is not actively in use. This may take some trial and error, as not all devices have the same idle power consumption, but it’s a great project to optimize your smart home’s power consumption and ultimately reduce electricity bill costs.