Hey, yet anotherone where I’m curious to hear how other people approached a topic. Context: my original reason for setting up HA was that I wanted the bathroom radiator to switch on and off depending on the bathroom window, mostly to save energy. My partner didn’t care too much about the whole home automation topic in the beginning, but we recently talked about it and it turned out that it has another advantage for her I didn’t even consider in the beginning: she has rather severe endometriosis, so shutting off the radiator valve 20cm above the ground always was a painful experience, and she is actually quite happy that the automation took over there.
Now I’m wondering: do you have things set up that support you or someone else in your household with chronic illnesses or disabilities?
I found an old thread from 2019 (Home Assistant for everyone), but the last entry there is also already years old.
Therefore: anything more recent that makes things easier for you or your surrounding?
I’m extremely allergic to molds. So I have automated my ventilation so, that the combination of temperature and humidity in my house never becomes fine for growing of molds. It’s a common problem, where I live, the climate is very mold friendly. I got completely rid of it now.
I’ve build a medicament chiller with a Peltier unit and Sonoff switches for someone, who also has HA running, and needed a small format chiller to be placed next to the bed, that also alerts, when temperature gets out of range.
And I know someone, who uses a Zwave scene controller button as a panic button for his ill mom.
I love HA for the convenience (classic “home automation”) but I would do things differently if my family was dependent on it. When that automation fails (power outage, hardware failure, software bug, etc.); and it will fail, how will you recover or work around that failure?
Well, in that last situation, it is like: This is better, than nothing.
A professional solution is impossible to pay. His mom is not ill enough to get that covered by insurance. So they just came up with something, that just gives a bit more possibilities, next to the classic phone. It’s just an add-on. And she knows, after the button press it still is needed to try reach the phone.
Happily they only used it until now by their monthly test…
I meant to say: “think about how you would plan for preventing, mitigating, or recovering from that failure.” Every situation is different and I understand that.
