I have almost every light switch in my house converted to smart switches. I have smart thermostats. I have multi function sensors in almost every room to control ceiling fans in the room. I have Alexa’s in most of the rooms. I have a roomba tied into HA, my rainbird sprinkler is tied in sometimes. My garage doors are tied in. I have some security cameras tied in. I don’t want to go the full route of tying in my home alarm system, just in case the stuff I play with screws something up and results in the police being called every 5 minutes.
I’m looking for something new to satisfy my automation habit. Looking at the web for “2018 home automation ideas” brings up the “me too’s” for everything that I already have. I’m thinking this group is composed of tinkerers and other types that tend to be out in front of the curve. So what’s the new wow thing this year. I’ve thought about smart blinds but we have a lot of windows so that’s a pricey option.
Look at something you do repeatedly and automate it.
If you are just making the house smart for the fun of it do whatever, but unless you are making your life easier with actual automation, I don’t see value in just adding to the system.
IMO automation is ideal for when you do the same thing repeatedly, or when something is annoying. Simplify your life, don’t add complexity.
I’d suggest adding multi-sensors in all the rooms - track light levels for lighting automations, use the motion sensors too. If you add humidity sensors to bathrooms then you can automate the extractor fans. If you then add sensors to all the doors then you can further apply smarts (turn on the hall light as people walk through the hall - if the close the door behind themselves then turn that light off immediately).
If you can track the state of your TVs and media players then again, you can add more smarts. In short, the most you can instrument your house for passive detection of activities, the more you can do.
with other posters here. The point of automating your house, or turning it into a smart house is not to stuff it full of gadgets if it brings nothing, the point is the house works for you, not the other way round.
I’m gonna make some enemies here, but having home automation on one’s phone is not a smart house, it’s just showing off. Having the house turn on the lights at the right time under the right conditions all the time, without needing manual input, this is a true smart home, regardless of which devices you’ve used to achieve this.
So my advice for you is not to go buy more devices, but look at how things work and get your things to work even better so that you don’t have to intervene…
Ok, I’ve obviously mis-stated my question. I use HA and Appdaemon for my automations. I have the bathroom fans being turned on when the light has been on over 5 minutes. The lights in the den dim when the TV is turned on. Certain other lights turn on when the door bell rings. Already done the humidity in the bathroom thing. I’ve got Alexa running a skill that answers questions about the state of devices in the house and turns them on or off with a command. I have other activities based around sunrise and sunset. I have my xmas lights controlled by the house by looking at the time and whether it’s currently raining or not.
I agree that a smart phone and some switches is not home automation. I think there are several stages of home automation.
stupid non-integrated timers that turn things on and off like when your parents went on vacation.
Smart bulbs. These are cute, but limit what you can do because when the power switch is turned off, they are really dumb.
smart devices ( switches, outlets, door bells, thermostats, etc ) all controlled by a variety of apps on your smart phone.
Same devices with a hub that allows limited rules to make them seem to work together.
Hubs like HomeAssistant that lets you setup more advanced rules and in some cases actual programs
Systems that start to anticipate what you want to do. Devices that don’t quite learn yet, but have advanced relationship rules that combine seemingly unrelated devices to make rule based decisions on what to do next.
AI based systems. Here I am talking true AI, systems that monitor all the devices in your house as well as external systems to decide what needs to happen and learn from human reactions or overrides to it’s decisions.
I’m probably somewhere between 5 and 6. I’m still fine tuning things and adding new rooms, but that’s basically cookie cutter at this point.
What I’m looking for are the new automations and devices that are coming out on the market that aren’t just a copy of the devices that came out two years ago. There are dozens of companies doing switches and smart sensors now. The main difference is the quality and the price. I’m wondering what solutions there are to problems that I haven’t realized that I have yet. I may invest in them, I may not. I’m just wondering what other people have seen new this year.
Here are some things which I have implemented or are on my ToDo list and you have not mentioned:
Floor plan on wall-mounted tablets with the screens coming on based on the camera detecting motion in front of the tablet…I think it’s pretty great for not so technically inclined members of the household or guests, who will be able to achieve control of various scripts this way
Changing TV channels by name via voice control - ‘Alexa, turn to ESPN’
You mentioned sprinklers…what about adding soil monitoring and appropriate automations, via stuff like the Xiaomi Flora?
Do you have pets? There are some neat things that can be automated regarding feeding & litter boxes, which would also give a useful heads-up if the pet is not feeling well (i.e. not eating/pooping as much)
How do you receive your packages? For those of us who don’t have services like Amazon Key or don’t want people in their house when away, there are ways to make a DIY Amazon Locker, in which items can be securely dropped off.
Adding smarts to the washer & dryer, I saw a great guide about being notified when the loads are done, so that you don’t forget to take them out for hours…
More monitoring? Although not technically an automation, I love getting insights about how all my tech is working together, you could have a really cool reporting solution which could serve as a basis for further tweaking (don’t download Windows Updates in periods of maximum net usage, does your HA server need upgrades, is electricity being wasted, are kids watching too much TV, is everyone watching too little HBO so might as well drop the subscription, counting the hours the insect repellent has been on in order to replace its cartridges exactly when needed, etc.)
I’ve thought about looking at Floorplan and have actually setup the appdaemon HA web interface, but I just don’t have enough tablets to put them in each room where people would be. I like the idea of the Xiaomi Flora’s. Have you tried them outside in a yard, or just with indoor plants. The reviews seem to say that it doesn’t work well outdoors. I have two Labrador Retrievers. I’m doing some renovations and am thinking about doing some type of automation around the doggie door. No litter boxes anymore (thank god). I have a ring doorbell so I can see who drops off packages and who sneaks up to try to take them. I just haven’t seen the benefit of automated washers, dryers, dish washers, etc. Unless it will load and unload them for me, I’m not sure what it does for me. I do like the idea of trapping more data on what happened in the house. Part of what i need to get together though is what caused a light to go on or off for example. Was it done external to HA by a person changing a switch or telling Alexa to do it, was it done by an automation? I’m not sure I want to teach my system based on an automation doing something. Only by a person doing something or overriding an automation.
Rene point out something interesting to me and I now have Alexa talking without being prompted. So when I turn on nighttime from the UI, Alexa pipes up and tells me what the state of the house is, what’s still on, where everyone is, etc.