Did you know you can use your Apple device to automate your personal technology behaviors? For example, suppose you have poor cellular reception at home and use Wi-Fi Calling instead.

You can toggle Airplane Mode when you arrive at home, rely on Wi-Fi alone while there, and switch Airplane Mode back off when you leave. This way, you prevent your cellular radio from searching for signal when there’s little to be found, thus conserving battery.

Let’s take a look at how you would accomplish this automation.

Set Condition

Open Shortcuts on your iPhone, tap Automation at the bottom, tap the +, and choose Personal Automation.

Set the condition to Arrive, choose your desired location (such as Home), and decide whether you want this automation to run any time or only within a particular range. Then tap Next.

If Home is not an option, you may want to pop over to your Contacts and make sure your home address is listed in your personal card and labeled as Home. If you don’t have a personal card shown at the top of the list, go to Settings > Contacts > My Info and select the card that represents you.

Actions

On the Actions screen, you can add one or more actions to do when triggered by your condition. If the action you seek isn’t among the Next Action Suggestions listed, just search for what you want.

In this example, search for , choose Set Airplane Mode, and specify Turn Airplane Mode On. Then, choose Set Wi-Fi and specify Turn Wi-Fi On.

I recommend setting Bluetooth on as well to ensure that all wireless interactions among your devices work when you’re at home.

Create the Reverse

To set what happens when you leave home, create a new Personal Automation with that condition and, similar to above, choose Set Airplane Mode and specify Turn Airplane Mode Off, tapping On to change to Off).

This is just one example of automation you can accomplish on your Apple devices. The Shortcuts app has lots more to offer and is worth exploring to discover other ways to make your life easier.

What automation will you create?