With a smart home powered by Alarm.com’s smarter home security, this is a reality.

Geo-Services, our location-based home automation feature, uses your smartphone’s location to take useful actions on your behalf while you’re out. These range from a simple notification to a real action like adjusting your thermostat.

It works by using your smartphone’s location to determine where you are, relative to your home’s location. When you reach a certain distance from your house – defined by a circular “geo-fence” which you create yourself in your Alarm.com app – Geo-Services can take a range of actions on your behalf. Here are five of the best.

1: Alert you if you leave your home unsecured.

Ever got halfway to work and then wondered you’ve left your home unsecured? Geo-Services means that you’ll never wonder again. If you leave your house without arming your security system or locking your smart lock, your Alarm.com app will send you an actionable alert.

These alerts come with a button that lets you secure your home remotely. All you need to do is tap the button and Alarm.com will take care of it for you.

2: Come home to a bright welcome on dark evenings.

Geo-services gives you more than just reminders—you can also automate certain tasks.

One of the easiest is lighting. Simply program your smart lighting solution to come on when you cross your Home geo-fence at the end of the day, and you’ll find your entryway brightly lit when you arrive home.

3: Save energy when you leave home; enjoy comfort when you return

Turning down your heating or cooling when you leave your house saves energy and money. But, when you’re running late, with work or a road trip on your mind, your thermostat is the last thing you think of.

The answer is an Alarm.com smart thermostat, automated with Geo-Services. It knows when you leave, when you arrive home again, and even when you’re on your way home (see below), and uses this information to save you energy proactively.

4: Turn your video monitoring off when you’re home.  While you don’t want to miss an important video monitoring event while you’re out, you have less need for monitoring when you’re home. Geo-Services can automatically pause your home monitoring when you’re within your Home geo-fence – meaning that no recording of you and your family takes place.

5: Build smarter rules with multiple geo-fences 

A one-mile distance around your home isn’t the ideal geo-fence for every task: heating and cooling takes longer to achieve than turning your lights on.

Alarm.com lets you set up as many geo-fences as you like, customized to within one-tenth of a mile. A second geo-fence around your office location, for example, gives your HVAC system extra time to get your home’s temperature perfect before you get there.