Home Overview of Smart Controls

Smart Controls help you manage your energy use by allowing you to quickly power on or off electronics, lights, and other devices as you leave your house or return home. Smart Controls can also power on or off devices automatically at times that make sense for these devices to be on or off. For example, you can turn all of your devices off simply by activating an Away Smart Control when you leave your home. Similarly, you could set up a Smart Control to power off your entire entertainment center when you turn off your television. Note that your devices' physical on/off switch must be left in the on position for Smart Controls to be able to power them on and off.

When you first access the Consumer Portal, the startup program helps you set up your initial set of default Smart Controls.

Smart Control types

There are four types of Smart Controls:

• Schedule enables you to set schedules to power on or off selected devices. For example, if you want to have a lamp turn on every evening before you return home, you can set a schedule for it to automatically power on at a specific time. Similarly, you can have all lights automatically power off at bedtime.
• Manual control enables you to organize groups of devices that you can turn on or off from a remote location via a Web browser or smartphone. For example, if you have certain devices that you want to turn on or off through a Web browser or smartphone, you can group them together and then manually power them on or off as needed through the Consumer Portal.
• Smart switch enables you to use one device to turn a group of related devices on or off. For example, you can set all of the devices in your entertainment center to automatically power off when you turn off your television.
• Custom scene enables you to create a set of devices that may have different power on or off properties. For example, you can set the Smart Control so that at bedtime all of your entertainment and computer devices turn off and a hallway nightlight turns on.

What are "default" Smart Controls?

By default, the Consumer Portal gets you started with three Smart Controls:

• The Home default Smart Control powers on all devices when you are home, either through a schedule or by allowing you to manually activate the Smart Control. This Smart Control is not in the setup wizard, but you can customize it at any time if you want to change settings such as whether you want to run it manually or by a schedule or whether you want to include or exclude certain devices. By default, all devices are set to power on with this Smart Control.
• The Away default Smart Control powers off devices that are not considered special devices when you have left for the day, either through a schedule or by allowing you to manually activate the Smart Control. Special devices are devices that you typically would not want to power off, such as a clock or DVR. This Smart Control is in the setup wizard, and you can customize it at any time if you want to change settings such as whether you want to run it manually or by a schedule or whether you want to identify certain devices as special devices. By default, all devices that are not considered special are set to power off with this Smart Control.
• The Night default Smart Control powers off devices that are not considered special devices when you have gone to bed, either through a schedule or by allowing you to manually activate the Smart Control. This Smart Control is similar to the Away Smart Control in how it works with special devices. It is in the setup wizard, and you can customize it at any time.