Short version:
I’m testing a couple of ideas and was wondering if anybody else would like to test them for me or use them themselves…
(1) I’m using weather data to predict whether it’s dark outside and whether the lights need to come on in the house to try and make it more accurate than just using sunrise.
(2) I’m using weather data to predict whether I need to get moving a bit earlier in the morning because my journey may be delayed due to snow, frost or heavy rain.
It’s been really accurate for me so far, but I have no idea how it will work for different locations, different tastes etc, and I’d love to see how it works for others.
I’ve chucked together a quick package you can use to test it for me and give me feedback. Just basically copy the file as a ‘package’ in to your config and it will place a card on your default view with the two sensors and a notification time. It’s all explained in the comments at the top of the file, give it a go and let me know!
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(Note - I know it’s a pain that I’ve used 6 automations instead of templating 2, it just made it quicker for me to spin through the log book and see which alert I got on which day for testing purposes!)
Longer version:
I’ve had an idea for a while (that I keep putting on the back burner) of a more ‘advanced’ cookbook where we could put some pre-written packages with instructions on how to adapt them to your configuration. @Bob_NL 's Chromecast radio is a great example, along with some of the alarm clocks people have come up with, and people could add nifty tricks to them.
For example -
- Your alarm clock could use the dark sensor to decide whether or not to switch the lights on when the alarm time is reached.
- Your alarm clock could check 15 minutes before the alarm time if the bad weather sensor is anything other than ‘clear’, and trigger the alarm early so you can scrape the car, or whatever.
And then there’s other things like ‘Mockupancy’ routines and google music players. There’s some pretty sophisticated stuff out there on people’s Githubs that I’ve used or adapted in my configuration (or intend to in the near future), which we could neatly package together so that people don’t have to search much once they get past the ‘basic’ cookbook stuff. Sometimes going through somebody’s repo working out which sensor triggers which automation, which triggers which script, which has what effect can mean trawling through 7 or 8 files and still not having a clue, but people could group it together in a single package file with a few instructions and some people could have a really slick system running in no time.
So, basically, this thread is to test whether people find the sensors useful, and also a bit of a social experiment on how easy it is for people to grab a pre-configured package with some (hopefully) simple instructions and get it up and running.
Let me know your thoughts!