How do you handle guests while away?

Hope this is correct here if not please move.

I was wondering how do. Ok handle guests in your home when you are away. I have, like my wife, HA companion and with leaving the zone home the house knows if one of us is at home or not. And if not it activates the away mode, shut off all light, shut off tvs and other things.

But what if there is a guest for some days and we both leave the home. The guest is there and the home should not go into away mode.

I have no good idea how to handle this the best way for the guest and my wife. Iclike that’s the house knows automatically if we are home or not. And I would love to have something similar for guests.

Maybe you have absolution or an idea.

I periodically have overnight guests. Here are a few things I’m thinking about trying, but haven’t implemented anything yet.

  • Create a guest user and a guest mode input_boolean.
  • Use a device tracker to see if their phone is on the wifi. Set this as a long timeout as devices often disconnect when they are asleep. If it shows they are home, leave guest user as present.
  • If there is activity on any of the motion sensors anywhere in the house while the house is in ‘guest mode’ the guest user should be considered present. If all motion sensors are inactive for a long time, consider guest user away. You could do something similar with doors opening/closing, or the state of media players, or lights changing, or other appliances or devices that you have access to in HA that guests may use while they are at your place.
  • If you have a smart lock, you could check if their code recently locked the door (likely away) or if they unlocked the door (likely home).
  • I have an Inovelli switch by the door. If the house is in guest mode and the guest user is present, the Inovelli should be green. If they are away, the Inovelli should be red. When my guests leave or arrive ask them tap the switch up twice. This will toggle the presence of the guest user. You could do this with any type of button, or you could make something with ESPHome that has some colored LEDs to indicate presence.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to try bayesian sensor. Perhaps with a few of the above ideas and the bayesian sensor you could come up with a reasonably reliable presence detector.

For me, the bigger challenge is going to be my nighttime routine. When my wife and I are both in bed, lights turn off, TVs turn off, etc. Sometimes our guests stay awake for a little bit after we go to bed. Now I need to find a way to know when everyone is in bed.

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I use a helper that I can manually toggle, but it’s also managed by the local (HA) calendar.
So at the start it’s get set to true and at the end to false.

that’s all nice ideas, will check what I can integrate

Lights that are still on, some device related to the TV still on, still movement in the TV room after you went to bed?

Because of your nighttime routine, I handle it like this

  • as sone as nighttime routine is started every room is check if there is still activity. Live movement, tv is on
  • all rooms without activity are shut down
  • if a room changes to free sleepmode in that room is activated
  • I have an automation for every room that checks if occupied or free. I use mmWave in most rooms but before I had regular movement sensor so I used a timeout of some minutes for movement. Or if tv is on.
  • For tis I use plugs that measure the power usage and tis are set to eco mode so if not used they shut off screen for example so the power usages drops. If that stays below a threshold for some minutes I count that as no longer used and shut off tv. And if then for some minutes no more movement also the room is free

Used this also when my wife goes earlier to bed and I want to watch some tv for example, for great since years with movement and now with mmWave sensors.

Only townsite, I need automation for every room but that helps me to really check for occupied rooms. So I did not need to change anything with guest.

I’ve considered ideas similar to this. Fortunately, our house has a main area (kitchen, living room, dining room are all in one ‘room’) and then the bedrooms, so it’s pretty safe to assume if no one is in the main area, they are in bed.

The downside is that my in-laws live a few streets over, so when my wife’s cousin comes over, we will often all spend the evening there. Because he is on holidays he likes to stay out longer than we do, so we are often in bed before he gets back. It adds a little be more complexity.

Regardless, it’s a week each year. It’s fine if he comes home with no lights on. That’s how it is at his dumb house :slight_smile: