While HA is growing, my automations, triggers, switches and sensors are growing too.
My HA built is way ahead. I have TTS, motion detection, face recognition, alarm, notifications, I even setup a tablet on the entrance! I have a whole list of things I am controling/monitoring/automating in my house.
What I am trying to say is that I love home assistant and it is part of my life for almost a year now. But, I dont live alone. My wife is here too. HA is also part of her life. It reminds activities for her, waking her up, informing about the weather to dress accordingly and I have many things that would make her familiar with an automated system as part of her life. Maybe even more -later- with a kid.
I find HA, and the way I have organized the views and switches, very easy to use.
BUT⌠I am having trouble with my wife⌠She is not using HA as I would expect her to. The only thing she does is to arm and disarm the alarm. Is anyone having this kind of problem?
I think HA is so easy, that she WOULD WANT to use it more often! OK, I admit I am a tech freak and I shouldnt expect her to use it as much as I do, but she barely does!
My thoughts are, if there is a way to introduce her to HA? Can I do something to give her the urge (wrong word?) to use it? Just think about it. If you are a husband, does your wife use HA? Same question goes to everyone, in any situation. Does your wife, parents, siblings or kids use HA? Can we give any ideas to each other to make it even simpler, or attractive, for people not so geeks as we are?
If your wife is like mine, sheâs simply not interested and only sees it as a gimmick / something I âwasteâ my time on instead of spending more time with her.
No amount of âhow cool is thatâ / âthis could help youâ will actually work.
In addition, the constant trying to make things better normally leads to minor hiccups which she doesnât like.
(Iâve been trying to get her to âtalkâ to Google Home so many times, sheâs just not interested)
The only thing sheâs kind of got used to are the lights that automatically come on and off based on PIR motion sensors.
Iâm trying to set up an alarm so this will be the next step for me, but I need to make it as basic / no frills as possible so that it simply works without her having to think about it and without requiring any additional steps for her.
Would like to hear otherâs views on this thoughâŚ
Thank you for answering. I can positively say that my wife is interested. She even calls me when I am at work and she notices that TTS didnt work (I have tts saying when a window is open or closed)
She wants the whole thing. The downside is she doesnt use it. She expects it to âjust workâ. I am not saying she MUST use HA⌠I just want to know everyones thoughts.
Itâs quite simple for me. My WAF consists of three elements:
Security
planning
wellbeing of the kids.
So I implemented the following features:
I run a script for sleepingmode: Gates are closing, lights are switched off, message are sent when specific door or window sensors are open.
For her happiness i show the calendar on HaDashboard so that I donât forget her important things
When itâs bedtime for the kids, we are notified on the phone when the light is switched on in their rooms.
Itâs just marketing: solve her daily lifeâs problems, if there arenât any, create some (in her imagination, not real) and solve them. kudos guaranteedâŚ
Itâs your hobby, not your wifeâs. Just make it work stable and, probably, some day you will feel the appreciation.
Start discussion on my next project trying to fish for ideas as I am ever hopeful that my next idea will be the one that finally gets my other half interested as opposed to just disgust at my pointless endeavours
Part of discussion throw out an idea which gets the âmmm yeah ok I think that would be quite handyâ
I get excited start busily researching where to buy components how to implement code etc.
Over next few weeks bits start arriving from China or amazon. Try not to get put off by the âyouâre not ordering more stuff for youâre shed project are you.â Me: âYes dear for that thing we discussed remember?â OH: âno not reallyâ.
The big reveal: all tested and hopefully bug free working. Excitedly start explaining what Iâve been doing and how itâs going to work and carefully highlight you wonât really have to do anything.
Best response Iâve had is âmehâ. Most frustrating is âwell what did you do that for?â Err because we discussed it and you thought it was a good idea
Then so we try again.
Problem is the stuff that just works does exactly that so goes unnoticed. Itâs only the stuff that wasnât quite right first time that gets remembered and endlessly brought up as the reason that all home automation is pointless.
I might try making that point the next time the washing machine breaks⌠? or not
My experience is no different. My first project was (probably like most) to automate a couple of lights that were already on timers. I was never happy that they came on at the wrong time most of the year due to season changes not to mention daylight saving time. Being my first foray into HA of course they didnât work right for a few iterations so it wasnât met with, ahem, approval. Now they work well and come on at sensible times, based on cloud cover as well as sun elevation but my wife just accepts that that is how it should be: âwhatâs the big deal?â!
My next strategy was to implement a garden irrigation system which I am quite proud of. It was a joint project as we dug up the garden to install the sprinklers and hoses etc. and the whole system works really well. My wife is really into it especially since I gave her a dash button to start it whenever she likes.
The trouble is she sees it as something entirely separate from everything else I do in HA!!.
Iâm now working on door sensors, for fun I had it announce when the front door was open like a commercial alarm system. It drove her mad and I had to turn that off!!!
To be fair, she does like the morning announcement with the weather and a random one line joke
For all you my peers, what provided somewhat of a turn around was when we moved house.
Until then it was always âwhy are you wasting money on useless things that donât work well.â Iâm going to ban you from buying more stuff
Then we moved house. I took the smart switches off (to take them to the new home) and refitted the old dumb ones. Wife comes home on a dark night with hands full of shopping. And the she complained that the lights did not come on automatically.
Biggest victory ever, and whenever Iâm told Iâm wasting money, I make sure I bring this topic back into the conversation (albeit somewhat softly as getting head on against the wife always results in her winning )
So sometimes itâs worth stopping an automation from happening just so the OH realises how useful it is
Very similar situation here: when itâs implemented and works, well, thatâs just the way it should be, or not?
I had a few things that helped me in some cases.
Her office is downstairs; so she needs to leave through the front door, go downstairs, turn the lights, both monitors and the printer on - preferably have the balcony light on while sheâs going downstairs. Initially, I had it all set up as a shortcut (via the HTTP Shortcuts app to HA) on her phone. Worked like a treat and even turned the balcony light off when the sun was up high enough. Now I have installed an Amazon Dash button so she doesnât even need to use the phone. Full approval and support! But I will get an earful in case it doesnât work and she has to push four buttons instead of one, just like in the old days
To change the timer on the drip system during the year I had to climb under the stairs and fiddle with it. Since I installed a solution using a WEMOS D1 Mini and a bunch of relays to drive it I donât need to go there any more and she can even turn it on manually from her smartphone - reaction: meh! Whatâs the big deal? And a big deal it was to set up, I promise, especially setting up the systems so that it considers precipitation over the last week.
Ideas from her side normally come in when itâs about security, e.g. âCan you set up the lights so that they turn on and off at random times when weâre not home?â or âCan you have the alarm to automatically arm when we leave and disarm when we get home?â. And while the former was easy, the latter is still work in progress because I cannot afford for the alarm to go off because presence recognition doesnât work fast enough - this would get my home automation budget slashed immediately
Thereâs a few more like âPushing a Dash Button to trigger a timer when the washing machine is started and send a reminder to the phone after a set time!â but they are so simple (in her mind) that it isnât really home automation - heck yeah: Itâs just pushing a button and getting a reminder on the phone, duh!
âHow difficult could this have been?â
âAnd how long did that take you?â
âReally?â
The dog really likes HA as long as it dispenses food when he wants it. He does get upset when the food dispenser is empty. I guess I need to incorporate a low food level notification to my phone followed by an alarm if I donât respond within 30 minutes. Call to the Sheriff Department for failure to feed the dog / animal cruelty after an hour goes by.
From what I read, you guys are in worse situation than me. At least my wife likes the whole setup. My problem is how to get her to interact with the interface. Iâve never heard any phrase like âthis is uselessâ, âwhat is this thingâ etc.
Oh, my⌠I thought you could help me, now I am thinking I should help you!
In that case: Obviously she hasnât any troubles with taking a few steps more to accomplish something HA can do automatically. Donât expect her to have the same enthusiasm about HA as you do. But when a situation occurs that you (read HA) can solve a problem for her, donât hesitate and fix it. The least she will do is appreciate you another bit more
What I did to get my wife to interface with HA was to make it as transparent in her life as possible. She doesnât care about dashboards/buttons. I set up an Alexa to control lights/garage door/ etc. Now she gets mad when HA is down and she canât turn on a lightâŚ
I had my biggest win last night. We are converting our back patio on the back of the house to a âsunroomâ. The electricians came out yesterday and did the rough in wiring. They put in a standard switch to turn on the overhead recessed lights.
Last night she got up to let the dogs out. When she came back to bed she wanted to know how I turned on the lights in the sun room. I told her that it was with the wall switch by the door. She got this embarrassed look on her face and said I opened the door two or three times trying to figure out how to get them to turn on and they didnât.
Sheâs finally getting used to the house doing things for her and to asking Alexa to do things.
She will never say that she likes it, she gripes about me spending money on it. Gripes when I do a HA update. But then for some reason itâs my fault when the power goes out during a lightning storm too.
Mine was âand what?â until I setup Homekit in HA and on her phone. Now she can ask Siri to enable the alarm, turn on and off lights or check our daughter room temperature. Now sheâs asking for PIR and smart lights in every room
my son is dating a young lady named Allegra. My wife gets frustrated sometimes because Allegra wonât turn on the lights. Iâm just waiting for her to make that mistake when Allegra is over at the house sometime.
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