Light is very important for our convenience, safety and comfort. Probably the reasons why smart bulbs have had such a huge impact on the smart home.

Our main light source, the sun, affects us at large and its different states makes it a great trigger to action. Now, we have released a new feature in Automations that will help you trigger actions after sunset or sunrise. 

Depending on your location and timezone, Animus Heart will adapt itself to fit the correct sunset/sunrise time. The new feature will also let you offset the sunset/sunrise triggered actions a while before or after sunset/sunrise.

How does it work?

One key benefit of Animus Heart is the ability to use it locally and offline. The sunset/sunrise feature was no exception for us. Given a location on earth (latitude & longitude) as well as the current date, it is possible for us to compute when both the sunset and the sunrise will occur. This calculation involves a fair amount of trigonometrics as well as things like adjustments for earths eliptical orbit and the effect our atmosphere has on light passing through it, all this happening in one algorithm that runs in the Sunset/Sunrise feature.

In less scientific words, Animus Heart is not depended on any online weather station to know when sunrise or sunset occurs.

How does it look?

Working with the new Sunset/Sunrise function is as intuitive as it sounds. You choose if you wish to trigger on sunset or sunrise, then adjust with an offset if the default time is not perfect for you.

Inside Settings->General Settings you will find ‘Location & Time’ settings. Here you can see if you have the correct default location and time set. This will be used to calculate the correct sunset/sunrise time.   

Tips & Tricks

1. The simplest use case is to turn on certain lights in your home when the sun sets.💡
2. If you’re an earlybird, you could use the sunrise function to trigger your coffee machine. Mmh, morning coffee ☕️
3. Or why not have the waterpool cover start automatically when the sun sets. I mean, who wants uninvited guests pool-partying when it’s dark? 🏊🏼‍♂️  

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Continue to follow our blog and social media to gain new wisdom in the smart home. But also to receive new inspiration on how your smart home can become even better with the Animus Heart.

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