Thanks for the details. Sorry for the off topic question.
To bring it back on topic.
Some very basic things I have setup which makes life easier
-TV and amp are powered by TP-link plug. When PS4 or chromecast are turned on the TP-link powers on and then the broadlink IR transmitter will change the channel if the HDMI signal hasnt triggered the input change. All devices turn off after when PS4 or chromecast turn off.
-If garage door has been open when we arrive home and we forget to close it an actionable notification is sent to phones and if this is ignored then a broadcast of google home speakers.
-If it is after a specified time and both phones are plugged in to charge HA assumes we are going to bed and turns lights off if actionable notification isn’t dismissed
A bit off topic though I would like to warn you for the danger of charging your phone while you sleep. When you sleep you will not wake because of the smell of smoke in case the charger or the phone has a malfunction. I hope you have a smoke detector in the room where you charge the phones.
@Skye Easy to solve: just get a smart plug and connect your phone when you go to sleep & turn your plug on 2 hours before you wake up.
Optional: get a smart plug with electrical usage monitoring. Let it turn off when the usage is at a certain Watt (my phone is 90-95% charged when it‘s below 3 Watt)
i have been working on this with a mate actually. Using the phone charging status from the HA app you can charge to 80% then turn off and 1 hour before waking up it turns back on to finish the charge. this also helps preserve your battery.
What’s really really helped both wife and me is making the water heater remote controlled and our thermostats wifi. That way we can turn on the water heater before we get home so when we arrive it’s ready to use. Thermostats rely on presence so that helped keep the bill 50% lower.
Other things include smart tvs, pc, lights etc, but that’s just for showoff.
I’m waiting for parts to make a bed occupancy sensor. That will change the automation to a whole new level.
Like lots of others, I love having the lights automated and being able to ask Google to turn them on/off but something I really enjoy is having the light switches send MQTT commands. If I flick the switch, the light goes on/off but it I toggle it twice, I can do things like:-
toggle my son’s lamp from his bedroom switch
turn all the lights off downstairs from the landing switch
turn my landing light on from my bedroom
I’ve got a pretty old-style heating system and so my other favourite project has been hacking in to the temperature controller to make my heating smart. Home Assistant RPi Zero Thermostat Control
I can’t believe I haven’t seen this post before, I’ve really enjoyed reading through everyone’s projects. Thanks for sharing
I think most of us did start from lights automation. So am I. For me it was just joy discovering new possibilities. But my gf quickly stepped into with functional demands. Not many thing but I started in January.
first thing was to enable more lights automatically when returning home after work. The point was to enable light in house antechamber, corridor dinning room and kitchen all together as it was our main route almost every day. For this job I utilise geo fencing, dumb motion sensitive lamp over main door powered by Shelly with power metering and the Sun phases.
second major demand was sending notification to mobiles when washing machine finishes. For this job I use Shelly Socket S
following notification route, I added one for case everyone left home leaving some lights turned on. tbh we getting notifications from time to time this time allowing us to turn light off remotely
to help with turning lights off I automated switch in antechamber to turn all lights in the house off on longpress. the same I did for switch next to bedroom.
there is also automation informing us about incoming waste collection (mixed, bio, high volume)
Next big thing on roadmap is smart heating. I have a few months yet.
Automated the heat in my conservatory. Got a 3KW heater in there, used a motion sensor, temp sensor and smart plug. Used the virtual thermostat device, can set a temp via automation or via my google home. If there is no motion detected in the conservatory for 10 mins or more the thermostat is shut off… comes back on next time motion is detected.
Usual lights automation, certain lights come on 30 mins before sunset. If noone is home then they will shut off at a random time between 10pm and midnight. Porch light comes on if I arrive home after sunset…
used the virtual alarm system and wireless pir sensors, have it arm itself when everyone leaves the house and disarm when someone comes home. When triggered it currently flashes every light in the house, intend to get a siren for it.
I have zoneminder setup with object detection… got it so when zoneminder detects a “person” round the back of the house it triggers a virtual pir sensor in HA… which of course it wired into the alarm system.
Got a zoneminder camera pointed at the cat flap and a virtual pir sensor setup that is triggered when zoneminder recognises a “cat”.
I’ve got much more setup but other peeps have covered it above.
tapped the door bell, it works and looks like a traditional door bell, but now I get a notification on both my girlfriend’s phone and mine. (Wemos D1 Mini as the brain, made my own board)
when alarm is triggered by a open door during the day when we are away (and the alarm is armed) ha sends notifications to our phones with a photo snapshot to our phones and Google TTS pronounces that. Google TTS also does this for pending, disarmed and armed notifications included.
my girlfriend, myself and our cleaning lady has a RF remote that enables and disables the alarm.
when alarm is triggered during night by open door all lights in living room light up full brightness and lights in our bedroom turn on. (Critical iOS notifications)
garbage Google TTS notification and to mobile phones when next day garbage pickup
When alarm disarmed lights turns on or off depending on sun state, including Sonos speakers plays a specific radio station on a specific volume.
for alarm we have two armed states. One when we are away an one when we are going to bed. When alarm is armed_home all lights will turn on with the lowest brightness as possible.
Markdown card on our mobile phones with all the things that are happening in our home:
doors open, windows open (per room), lights on (per room) media players playing (per room), motion sensor movement (per room) HACS updates available, Core updates available etc.
fully automated garden irrigation with a water tank, a aquarium pump and a nodemcu that has a temp/humid sensor and rain sensor. When there is no rain for the last 5 hours, the pump has not been triggered for the last 5 hours (manually) and the sun is set the irrigation runs for 5 minutes.
both in bedroom and living room we use Google Nest Hub’s with CATT to cast the complete Lovelace interface. It turns off the cast when the alarm is turned on and starts the cast again when someone turns the alarm off.
two camera’s: one to snapshot the back door when someone opens it when alarm is armed, other one to check on my bunny’s when we are at work
All my lights are smart either by a smart bulb or a custom built system that lives inside my wall socket. With blind plates and touch sensors we can turn on or off the light.
Hallway, upstairs hallway, toilet, bathroom, walk in closet, attic hallway all have motion sensors.
when there is rain detected and a window is open, Google pronounces a TTS message and a notification is sent to our mobile phones.
when we leave the house, enabling the alarm and there is a window open, ha sends notification to our phones which one are open.
Built three Lovelace views. One mobile phone friendly, one desktop friendly and one tablet view friendly.
Think there is more, but not on the top of my mind right now
@Troon Hm… good point, I was mainly thinking about overcharging. What would you suggest as a solution then? Turn everything off by hand when you go to sleep?
And where do you draw the line? I saw you have a Banana Pi, why do you trust it in the first place?
The Pi draws many many times fewer current than a phone that is charging. As long as the pi has a (real, not Chinese fake) CE logo and perhaps is UL certified, you can be sure it’s not spontaneously going to catch fire anytime soon.
Rule number one should be never ever get a cheap charger from China, they usually do not have internal protection circuits when they overheat or draw too much current.
Rule 2 is never leave your phone next to your bed in the charger, if it starts to catch fire, the smoke alone can incapacitate you before you even are waking up because of it.
What you COULD do I guess is use an adapter that has a very low current rating (<1 amps), that way the adapter and your phone will become less hot (less current flowing through).
The best idea: Get a smoke detector in the room where you charge your phones (or any mobile devices with big batteries).
I charge phones overnight, too, and “trust” the phone charger / USB power supply (same thing, really) that is running my Pi. There is plenty of electronics that runs 24/7 even excluding any “smart” stuff (fridge, freezer, cooker clock, PVR, heating controller, burglar alarm, router, switches and access points). Most people on here will be adding numerous permanently-on cheap Chinese power supplies into the mix with smart lightbulbs etc.
My point was that using a smart plug to control a phone charger for safety reasons is like taking a taxi rather than driving yourself because the roads are unsafe.
I hadn’t considered overcharging: I trust my phones’ circuitry to keep that all under control, and we have good smoke alarms in case something does go wrong, and we charge our phones in fairly non-flammable places relative to the amount of energy in a phone battery (substantial solid wood surface on a tile floor).
Say what???
Do you even know what the CE marking means?
It’s worth nothing more than my used toilet paper.
Yes really.
Remember a few years back when Samsung phones cought fire.
You’re saying they did not have the CE marking then?
What about all the Segway wannabes a few years ago? There was literally one exploding every day just in our country.
They had the marking so what could possibly be wrong?
For your own sake, read what the CE marking actually is and what is needed to put one on a product. I think you will be surprised…
You are 100% right about CE. That’s why I also noted the UL (at least for the USA).
Let’s take this into another thread if people want to discuss this further, so we don’t go off topic on this one
