I Let AI Run My Smart Home for a Week — Here's What Happened

I've been slowly automating my home for the past year. Smart lights. Smart thermostat. Robot vacuum. A couple cameras. The usual.

But here's the thing — I was still the one running everything. I was the brain. The AI was just muscles. I'd say "turn off the lights" and it would turn off the lights. Groundbreaking stuff.

So I decided to flip the script. For one full week, I'd let AI make the decisions. Not just execute commands — actually decide things. When to turn on the lights. When to run the vacuum. When to adjust the temperature. When to lock the doors.

I wanted to answer one question: Can AI actually run a home in 2026, or are we still just playing with expensive voice-activated light switches?

Here's my honest, day-by-day account of what happened.

The Setup: My AI-Controlled Smart Home

Before we get into the chaos, here's what I was working with:

Hardware

• Amazon Echo Show 8 — Main assistant hub, kitchen
• Echo Dot (5th Gen) x3 — Bedroom, office, living room
• Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra — Robot vacuum and mop
• Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium — Climate control
• Philips Hue lights throughout the house (12 bulbs, 2 light strips)
• August Smart Lock (4th Gen) — Front door
• Wyze Cam Pan v3 x2 — Living room and front porch
• TP-Link Kasa smart plugs — Coffee maker, bedroom fan, standing desk lamp
• Furbo 360° Camera — For my dog, Biscuit

The AI Brain

I used a combination of:

• Alexa Routines — for device control and scheduling
• ChatGPT (via OpenAI API) — for decision-making via OpenClaw
• IFTTT — for connecting services and triggers
• Home Assistant — for advanced automations and sensor data

The basic idea: sensor data (motion, temperature, time, door state, etc.) feeds into a decision layer powered by ChatGPT, which then triggers actions through Alexa and Home Assistant.

I spent a Sunday afternoon setting up the rules, gave the AI a system prompt explaining my preferences, and let it loose on Monday morning.

Day 1 (Monday): The Honeymoon

6:47 AM — I wake up. Not to an alarm. To the gradual brightening of my bedroom Hue lights, starting at 6:30 AM with warm 10% light and ramping to 80% by 6:45. The AI decided on this schedule based on my average wake-up time from the past month.

It was... actually really pleasant? Way better than the blaring alarm I usually ignore three times.

6:52 AM — The coffee maker clicks on (smart plug). By the time I shuffle to the kitchen, coffee's already brewed. The AI timed it to my typical bathroom-to-kitchen interval. This felt like living in the future.

7:15 AM — "Good morning" briefing plays on the Echo Show: weather (42°F, cloudy), my first meeting (9 AM standup), and a reminder that I'm low on dog food. That last one was because I added "check my Amazon Subscribe & Save" to the AI's morning routine. Creepy? Maybe. Useful? Absolutely.

2:30 PM — The Roborock quietly starts vacuuming the living room. I'm in my office working. The AI learned that I'm always in the office between 1-5 PM on weekdays, so it schedules cleaning for rooms I'm not in. Smart.

6:00 PM — Lights shift to warm, dimmer tones throughout the house. The AI decided this is "evening mode" based on sunset time. The thermostat bumps up 2 degrees since the temperature dropped outside.

10:30 PM — I say "goodnight" and everything powers down. Lights off, doors locked, thermostat to 67°F, fan on. Seamless.

Day 1 verdict: This is amazing. Why don't I always live like this?

Day 2 (Tuesday): Minor Hiccups

7:01 AM — Lights come on at 6:30 again, but today I wanted to sleep in. I didn't have a meeting until 10. The AI doesn't know my calendar changed because I updated it at midnight and the sync runs at 6 AM. Noted.

11:30 AM — The robot vacuum starts cleaning while I'm on a Zoom call. My office door was open, and it came charging in like a drunk Roomba on a mission. My coworkers heard the whirring. "Is that a vacuum?" Yes, Kevin. My robot overlord has no concept of Zoom etiquette.

I added a rule: no vacuuming when my laptop microphone is active. Problem solved.

3:00 PM — The thermostat has been doing this weird thing where it drops to 66°F when I'm in the office (it detected no living room motion and assumed I left). I'm getting cold. The Ecobee's occupancy sensors are great, but the AI is being too aggressive with "away mode." I adjusted the threshold to require 45 minutes of no motion before cooling down.

8:00 PM — Biscuit gets a treat from the Furbo. I didn't trigger it. The AI decided that since Biscuit had been lying by the camera for 20 minutes (detected via the Furbo's activity tracking), he deserved a treat for being a good boy. I... can't argue with that logic.

Day 2 verdict: A few kinks, but easily fixable. The vacuum-on-Zoom-call thing was genuinely embarrassing.

Day 3 (Wednesday): The AI Gets Creative

6:30 AM — Today the AI checked my calendar before triggering the wake-up routine. No early meeting? Lights start at 7:00 instead. It learned from Tuesday. I'm mildly impressed and mildly unsettled.

12:15 PM — I get a push notification: "Front door unlocked for 4 minutes. No one detected entering. Should I lock it?" I had stepped outside to grab a package and left the door open. I tapped "Yes, lock it" from my phone. This felt genuinely useful — like having a slightly paranoid roommate who's always watching the door.

4:30 PM — The AI preheated my oven. I had a meal prep scheduled in my calendar at 5 PM, and the event description said "bake chicken at 400°F." The AI read my calendar event, extracted the temperature, and sent a command to my smart oven.

This was the moment I realized this experiment might actually be onto something. I didn't ask it to preheat the oven. It figured out that it should.

9:00 PM — Living room lights dim to a warm amber, and the TV backlight (Hue light strip behind the TV) shifts to match. The AI noticed I usually watch TV around this time and set the mood lighting accordingly. My living room looked like a cozy movie theater.

Day 3 verdict: OK, this is getting genuinely impressive. The oven thing blew my mind.

Day 4 (Thursday): The Wheels Come Off

Every experiment needs a disaster day. Thursday was mine.

3:00 AM — I'm woken up by every light in the house turning on at full brightness. 100%. White. Like an alien abduction. Biscuit starts howling. I'm stumbling around blind, yelling "ALEXA, TURN OFF ALL LIGHTS."

What happened? A power blip caused the Hue bridge to reset, and all bulbs defaulted to their "power-on" state (full brightness, cool white). The AI's occupancy sensor detected motion (me flailing around) and decided it was morning. It started the wake-up routine. At 3 AM.

It took 15 minutes to sort out. I changed the Hue power-on behavior to "last state" and added a rule: no wake-up routine before 5:30 AM, period. Non-negotiable.

10:00 AM — The Roborock gets stuck under the couch. The AI keeps sending it back because it thinks the living room isn't clean (the sensor shows it only covered 60% of the area). I watch on the Wyze camera as it drives under the couch, gets stuck, backs out, and drives right back under again. Three times. Einstein's definition of insanity.

I added a "stuck" detection rule and moved the couch up an inch on furniture risers.

(Furniture risers — $12 on Amazon. Saved my robot vacuum's dignity.)

6:00 PM — The thermostat situation escalated. I had friends over, and the Ecobee detected 5 people in the living room. The AI concluded the room was "warm enough from body heat" and dropped the thermostat to 64°F. My friends started putting their jackets back on. Inside my house.

"Bro, is your heat broken?" No, my AI just decided you guys are walking space heaters.

Day 4 verdict: Humbling. The 3 AM light show will haunt me. But every failure taught me something about edge cases I'd never have thought of.

Day 5 (Friday): Recovery and Refinement

After Thursday's disasters, I spent 30 minutes Friday morning tightening the guardrails:

• Hard time limits on wake-up routines (5:30 AM–9:00 AM only)
• Guest mode: when 3+ people detected, hold current thermostat setting
• Vacuum max retry: 2 attempts per room, then stop and notify me
• Power-loss recovery: all Hue bulbs default to "last state"

The rest of Friday was flawless. Like, suspiciously flawless. Everything worked. Coffee was ready when I got up. The vacuum cleaned while I was out grocery shopping. Lights followed my movement through the house naturally. The front door auto-locked 2 minutes after I closed it.

8:30 PM — I'm on the couch watching a movie. Biscuit is asleep. The house is dim and warm. And it hits me: I didn't touch a single switch, thermostat, or app all day. The AI just... handled it.

Day 5 verdict: This is what the future feels like when you work out the bugs.

Day 6 (Saturday): The Weekend Test

Weekdays have routines. Weekends are chaos. Could the AI handle it?

9:30 AM — I slept in. The AI waited. No lights, no coffee, no alarm until I triggered motion in the hallway. Then the morning routine kicked in with a slight delay for coffee brewing. Beautifully adaptive.

11:00 AM — I left to run errands. The AI shifted to away mode: thermostat dropped to eco, cameras activated, lights turned off, robot vacuum started a full-house clean. I got a notification: "Home set to away mode. Estimated return: 1:00 PM" (based on my typical Saturday errand run).

It estimated my return time based on historical GPS data from my phone. That's either brilliant or terrifying. I'm going with brilliant.

12:45 PM — As I pulled into the driveway, the front porch light turned on, the door unlocked, and the thermostat started warming up. By the time I walked in, it was 71°F and the vacuum had docked itself. Welcome home.

5:00 PM — I invited two friends over (the brave ones from Thursday). I manually toggled "Guest Mode" this time. The thermostat stayed put. The lights adjusted for a social setting (brighter, more evenly distributed). Music started playing on the living room Echo. My friends: "OK, this is actually cool."

Day 6 verdict: The weekend adaptation was the most impressive part. No rigid schedule — the AI responded to my behavior in real-time.

Day 7 (Sunday): Reflection Day

The final day. I deliberately didn't change anything. I let the AI run and just... lived.

Here's what my Sunday looked like, with zero manual input:

• 8:15 AM — Woke up to gentle lights. Coffee started.
• 8:45 AM — Morning briefing: weather (perfect for a walk), no calendar events, a package arriving tomorrow.
• 9:30 AM — Left for a walk with Biscuit. House entered away mode.
• 10:45 AM — Came home. House warmed up, music playing.
• 12:00 PM — Vacuum cleaned the kitchen and hallway (weekend deep clean schedule).
• 3:00 PM — Reading in the living room. Lights at comfortable reading brightness.
• 6:00 PM — Evening mode. Warm lights, thermostat adjusts.
• 9:30 PM — Movie on the TV. Ambient lighting set.
• 11:00 PM — "Goodnight." Everything off, everything locked.

I interacted with my smart home exactly twice all day: once to say "good morning" and once to say "goodnight." Everything else just happened.

The Final Numbers

What I Learned

1. AI Home Automation Actually Works — With Guardrails

The "let AI decide everything" approach works surprisingly well for 90% of daily home tasks. But that 10% can be spectacular failures (see: 3 AM light show). You need hard limits and fail-safes.

2. The First 48 Hours Are Rough

Most of my problems happened in the first two days. The AI needed to learn my patterns, and I needed to learn what constraints it needed. By Day 5, things were smooth.

3. Sensor Quality Matters Enormously

The whole system is only as smart as its inputs. The Ecobee's occupancy sensors, the Wyze cameras' motion detection, and the August lock's door sensor were the AI's eyes and ears. Cheap or unreliable sensors would have made this experiment a disaster.

4. Start With One Room

If you want to try this, don't do what I did and automate the whole house at once. Start with your living room or bedroom. Get it dialed in. Then expand.

5. Your Pet Will Become the AI's Favorite

Biscuit got 11 automated treats in one week. The AI was more attentive to my dog than I am. I'm not sure how to feel about that.

My Recommended Starter Kit for AI Home Automation

If this experiment inspired you, here's exactly what I'd buy to start:

Yeah, it's not cheap upfront. But the thermostat alone saves ~$200/year in energy, and the time saved on daily tasks adds up fast. Plus you can start with just the Echo + smart plugs for under $130 and build from there.

Would I Do It Again?

I'm not going back.

Not fully — I dialed back some of the more aggressive automations (I don't need the AI preheating my oven unsupervised, thanks). But the core system — adaptive lighting, smart climate control, automated vacuuming, intelligent routines — stays on permanently.

My home feels alive now. Not in a creepy way. In a "this house knows me" way. Lights anticipate me. The temperature is always right. I never come home to a dark, cold house.

Is it perfect? No. The AI still does weird things sometimes. Last Tuesday it decided 4:30 PM was "evening mode" because it was overcast and the light sensor read low. My office went dim while I was still working. Minor annoyance.

But the ratio of helpful to annoying is about 95:5. And that ratio keeps improving as the AI learns.

The Verdict: Can AI Run Your Smart Home in 2026?

Yes — with caveats.

AI is ready to manage your smart home. It's not ready to run it unsupervised with zero guardrails. Think of it as a really competent assistant who occasionally needs correction, not an autonomous house-brain you can forget about.

The technology is there. The hardware is affordable. The AI is good enough. The missing piece is patience — you need 3-5 days of tuning before it clicks.

But when it clicks? It's magic.

Want to start your own AI home experiment? Begin with a smart speaker and a few devices. I've got a full beginner's guide to setting up a home AI assistant that'll walk you through it step by step. And if you want to see which robot vacuum the AI loved most, check out our best AI robot vacuums roundup.

Your future self — the one who hasn't touched a light switch in a month — will thank you. 🏠🤖