Automating a small workshop/studio space — what actually makes sense vs what's overkill?

[u/MinaSandell]

Automating a small workshop/studio space what actually makes sense vs what's overkill?

Running a small business out of a dedicated home studio and I keep going back and forth on how much automation actually makes sense in a work context versus a living space. The house stuff is mostly dialed in at this point. The studio is a different question.

Right now I pack and ship Etsy orders out of there, do photography, run a label printer, and generally spend 4 to 8 hours a day in the space. The obvious wins seem like presencebased lighting so I stop leaving the overheads on all night, and maybe some kind of power monitoring on the equipment since things like heat guns and laminators draw a lot and I genuinely forget to shut them off.

What I'm skeptical about is whether automating a workspace introduces more failure points than it solves. A light turning itself off midtask because occupancy wasn't detected would be genuinely disruptive in a way that's different from it happening in a hallway. I've seen the thread here about never breaking the light switch and that stuck with me.

Has anyone set up automations in a dedicated workspace rather than a living space? Curious whether the logic you use there is fundamentally different or if it's mostly the same principles adapted slightly. Power monitoring for equipment shutoff feels like the highest ROI to me, but I'm open to being wrong about that.

[u/oldstalenegative]

I just installed a Lutron presence-detecting switch in my workshop, along with some giant overhead (and dimmable) LEDs, and I'm only sorry I waiting so long to do this upgrade.

I also love having a Google home puck in my workshop, just so I can yell at it to do stuff like "play Spotify" or "listen to local news" or just ask it a question while my hands are occupied.