Embodiments provided herein relate to controlling a household via one or more household policies. In one embodiment, a method includes: receiving, at a processor, a household policy for a household, the household policy related to attaining an end goal; determining, via interpretation of the household policy by the processor, an end goal state of the household policy; incrementally modifying a control trigger threshold of a conditionally controlled smart device over time until the end goal state is reached; wherein the control trigger threshold indicates when the conditionally controlled smart device should be controlled to implement a particular function.