In this article James Richmond shares the reasons he has chosen Apple Home as the way he controls the power in his studio, and a rather clever way he uses Apple Home as a way not to be disturbed when in the studio…

A few years ago I looked into home automation products, primarily app or voice controlled LED lighting. I like the convenience of these products such as being able to set timers or automations to turn lights on or off, change dimming or light colour and as an addition to home security when on holiday.

A natural extension of these was to use some of the products in the studio which proved to be an interesting experience which I’d like to describe. I experimented with a few different systems but settled on Philips Hue as I found it to have the best compatibility with different home assistants. 

My house uses Alexa for home automation but the Studio uses Apple Home, for reasons which will become apparent.

Use Cases:

I use Philips Hue products for three main purposes.

1. To control lighting

2. To switch some of the studio devices on or off

3. To alert me when someone approaches the studio doors.

Lighting:

The lighting I have in the studio is fairly simple, I have a number of GU10 bulbs above me and two Hue Play bars under the desk providing uplighting. I’m not one for gaudy light displays but the Hue Play bars are set to turn on during the night time giving a nice ambience.

Configuration of these devices is done in the Phillips Hue App, where they are attached to a dimmer that allows me to cycle through different modes. The whole system is managed by a bridge (inventively called the ‘Philips Hue Bridge’) which sits next to my studio switch. The bridge connects to the internet via ethernet, so must be placed close to an available ethernet port.

It is possible to have the lighting change based on a number of different inputs such as dimmer switches, voice control, time or even geofencing using your phone so that they turn on whenever you or your family come home. I mostly use voice control or the dimmer, but I also have configured my Stream Deck to give me control of the studio lighting from the mix position. 

Device Switching:

Device switching is where things get more interesting. 

I don’t have everything in the studio on smart switches- it isn’t necessary but there are a couple of use cases where they have proved to be very helpful.

I have my ATC SCM45A’s and PSI subwoofer on three smart switches and I also have my modular synthesiser on one. The first time I turned the monitors on using the smart switches the power tripped, I am guessing the power draw from three monitors was too much for my ageing studio wiring, so I looked into a couple of different solutions. 
Power sequencing products such as the Furman PS-8RE III are an obvious solution here. If you are not familiar these products turn on groups of devices in sequence and then turn them off in the reverse sequence. This is useful in a recording studio where you might want to power your monitors after your interface and turn your monitors off before anything else. They are quite expensive though, the PS-8RE III is around £500. 

I wonder if my smart switches could give me the same power sequencing functionality as the PS-8RE III at a lower cost? It turns out they do, but I needed to use Apple Home to do it.

Apple Home is quite brilliant because you can create automatons that are triggered by the state of another device. For instance, what I wanted to do was have my left ATC turn on, then 5 seconds after that the right ATC to turn on, then 5 seconds after that the PSI sub to turn. This is difficult to do in many other home assistants but fairly easy in Apple Home.

Here is how you do it.

First create a ‘scene’ that turns on the ATC Left monitor.

Secondly, create an ‘automation’ that is triggered by the ATC Left monitor being turned on that actions a ‘shortcut’ that has two commands in it, the first is to wait 5 seconds, then to turn on the ATC Right speaker.

This relatively simple set of instructions can be copied to different automations. I have four automations in total which react to the left studio monitor being turned on or off and then sequencer the other two monitors accordingly. No more power tripping.

There is another very handy capability with Apple Home and the Shortcut capabilities in Mac OS. You can have these shortcuts added to the dock to be triggered as you would any other application.

Studio Alert

Another useful automation I have set up in Apple Home is a sort of ‘reverse’ recording light.

I wanted to have a way of knowing if someone was outside the studio needing my attention, whether it be my wife in the house (which is connected to the studio via a corridor) or someone at the studio door. I did not want that notification to be audio-based for obvious reasons. There is nothing worse than having a take ruined by a doorbell.

What I have done is set up an automation that when motion is detected in the corridor the studio spotlights change colour to bright white for 5 seconds and then return to the more muted warm white I usually prefer.

That is as far as I have taken things for now. Whilst I do like a gadget I don’t want to be spending more time making these things work than I am actually using the studio. Has anyone else found a interesting or novel way to use home automation or home assistants in the studio? I’d love to hear it if you have.