How to Add a New Automation for HomePod

Did you know you can automate things with Homepod and Homepod mini? Even if it’s your very first smart speaker, you may already be familiar with using Siri to stream music, set alarms, make appointments, and other basic stuff. However, your HomePod can do a lot more than that, like automating tasks and things like playing music every day at a particular time, or when you get home.

One of the biggest features that HomePod has to offer is home automation. That’s right, completely automating your house, provided you have all the necessary equipment. This is made possible with the help of Apple HomeKit. If you have HomeKit devices in your house, like a power outlet, light switch, or light bulbs, you can automate the functioning of these devices according to your liking. Even if you don’t have any HomeKit devices, you can use your HomePod to automate tasks since it’s essentially a HomeKit hub that can play music. So we’ll walk through a sample automation, playing music at a specific time when you’re at home.

Let’s take a look at setting up a new automation with HomePod.

How to Create a Music Playing Automation for HomePod

You can’t get Siri to create a new automation for you, yet anyway. Instead, you’ll need to use the Home app on your iPhone or iPad. Simply follow the steps below:

1. Launch the Home app on your iPhone or iPad.
   
   
2. Check if you’re in the Home section of the app. Now, long-press on your HomePod located under Favorite Accessories.
   
   
3. This will bring up a dedicated menu that shows you all the HomePod-related settings. Scroll down to the Automations section and tap on “Add Automation” to get started.
   
   
4. You’re in the automation creation menu. Here, you can select the type of automation that you want to create. In this instance, we’ll be creating a basic HomePod music automation that gets triggered at a particular time of the day.
   
   
5. Now, you’ll be able to choose the time, select the days for the automation to function and optionally, you can choose if the automation should be triggered when you’re or home or not. Once you’ve configured these settings, tap on “Next”.
   
   
6. In this menu, all your HomeKit accessories will show up. You can select the accessory that you want to use. Since we’re creating a music playback automation here, we’ll select HomePod and tap on “Audio”.
   
   
7. Now, you can select a playlist or a song from your library that should be played when the automation is triggered. You can also select playlists from Apple Music or choose a broadcast radio for playback.
   
   
8. Once you’ve selected the song, playlist, or broadcast radio station, you’ll be taken back to the automation menu. Now, simply tap on “Done” to save your new automation.
   
   

There you go. You’ve successfully created your first automation for the HomePod, if you followed the example here you created a music automation.

The above steps may slightly vary depending on the type of automation that you selected and that you are configuring. For example, if you selected the automation to control a HomeKit accessory like a smart light, you wouldn’t be using the song-selection steps. Instead, you’ll need to choose the trigger to simply turn on or turn off the light.

Likewise, you’ll need to create a bunch of different automations that perform various tasks to completely automate your house. Of course, you’ll need all the necessary HomeKit accessories too, which could cost a lot of money, like a smart door lock, mesh Wi-Fi router, smart security cameras, and more.

For those who don’t have HomeKit accessories, you will be limited to music playback automation with the HomePod. However, you can still get really creative with the way these automations get triggered. If you’re interested in purchasing HomeKit accessories to make the best use of your new HomePod, you can find HomeKit accessories on Amazon (and yes that’s an affiliate link, meaning we get a small fee if a purchase is made, the proceeds of which help to keep this site going).

Hopefully, you were able to use the above procedure to create multiple new automations for use with your new HomePod. What are your impressions of all the automation features that Apple HomeKit has to offer? Did you setup a music automation, or another one? How many HomeKit accessories do you have at the moment? Feel free to share your experiences and drop your valuable opinions in the comments section down below.