working on our HA setup for a bit over 2 months now, and after ironing out the initial usecases, I’m now thinking about alternative ways of notifying, and I’m wondering which other “creative” ways people are using.
Example: at the moment, when I forget to close the bathroom window and the temperature drops too far over time, I mostly notice it because I have HA in one of my browser tabs anyway, and I see the temperature graph dropping.
Of course, I could go with playing a sound, or with sending notifications to our phones, or by having a light flash, but I’m wondering about something that is both detectable within the apartment and at the same time not super annoying.
One idea I had: exchange the default light bulb in the hallway with a rgb one. 95% of the time it just gives light, but when something is up it could switch to red.
Or to think out of the box a bit more: servos that show actual physical signs, or a vibration motor that buzzes the couch, or a picture-in-picture message while watching TV, or or or…
Any notifications beyond the usual that you tried out and kept or ruled out again? Curious to hear about your experiences and setups
the ‘notification’ needs to be reliable and not trigger unnecessarily (boy who cried wolf syndrome)
limit it only to really critical things that have a important enough physical/financial impact if forgotten, i.e. open door/gate when these are out of sight and/or when not at home and/or during nighttime…the night one is still not good with me, I got two false warnings and since these woke me up …I switched them off…I will replace them with a panel next to the stairs when going to sleep
when at home I personally like a colored light, not flashing but just in place where most people pass by (living/kitchen).
for the critical ones, I added mobile-phone notifications as this one is almost always next to me
all other things via email…e.g. low battery warnings etc. which do not matter if you look at it today or next week
I use different ways to notify.
I have several devices with a display showing up the notification. As you said, some lights especially ws2812b led stripes with different effects and color and I use Alexa/Google to play a sound file. If the TV is on the notification is also showing on the TV.
Okay, I now got 2 Ikea tradfri rgb bulbs and will experiment with replacing the usual hallway light, and then we see how it goes. Another thing came up as well: we’re planning to get one of those “mini-gardens in a big bottle” thingies for the livingroom, and that one will have a nice little light inside as well. Not zigbee-compatible, but I’ll come up with something. And once I have figured out all my issues with the epaper displays, one of them will probably also go into the hallway where we walk by on a regular basis…
