Projects that have made life easier and more enjoyable

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21

The best automation I have is using a xiaomi door sensor on my sons door which sounds an alarm on my phone if he tries to sneak out at night. He has down syndrome, and we had issues with him sneaking into the kitchen when everyone was asleep and gorging on food. If it was just a small amount we could live with it, but he would literally stuff his face with a whole pack of stuff, normally involving bread, donuts or something similar. We’ve had lots of times when he has nearly choked on them where he is trying to wolf them down before getting caught.

We tried using a simple door sensor that sounded a high pitched alarm when it was opened, but the batteries would only last a short while before running out, and because we had to manually set it we would sometimes forget and have issues. It would also wake his siblings. Now if he tries to get up it sends an alert and sound to my phone using pushover. Enough to wake me, but not disturb the whole house. He hasn’t tried his luck from about a week after we started using it!

Another favourite is custom greetings using alexa tts whenever someone comes in from being away. Have also now set up a tts reminder stating what my sons homework is and when it’s due - this will probably be my new favourite but probably not his!

8 Likes
22

I was going to do this with a TP Link smart plug, and have it trigger by motion, haven’t decided where to place the sensor yet. Only issue is that I’ll probably forget to fill up the kettle each night!

Now that I’ve written this, I think I may as well give it a shot. I think I’ll set it as an input boolean and then I can just tell Alexa to boil the kettle and use it in the evening as well.

23

Some excellent stuff here, just wanted to add a couple of things I’ve been using:

  • entity filter card in Lovelace, which shows me a card with currently open doors & windows

  • insect repellent + z-wave plug = time-programmable insect protection (soon w/duration-based notification when the liquid runs out)

  • humidifier + z-wave plug + humidity sensor = correct humidity with just the occasional water replenishment (would like to add a scale sensor here to notify me when I need to add more water)

  • sandwich maker + z-wave plug = semi-automatic, voice-controlled sandwich maker - most such devices don’t have buttons and would need to always be plugged in, then unplugged after the light turns off, this way power is only provided for the 6 mins it takes to heat a sandwich and there is no need to fiddle with the plug

  • dumb sprinkler + motorized water valve + z-wave switch = time & weather-based sprinkler system (will also add an outdoor humidity sensor in the future)

  • floorplanner.com + component in Lovelace = visually controlled lights, AC, heating, remote, etc. Kid loves it :slight_smile:

  • zwave-controlled window covers + period of day automations = excellent for waking up easier, keeping the house lit just right, etc.

  • Harmony Hub + Chromecast Audio + Google Home Mini + AVR = a very silly little automation, but very handy. It is set so that whenever I turn off any of my TV-watching, Xbox-playing, Apple TV macros, it starts the AVR again and sets it to the Chromecast Audio input, which alongside the Google Home Mini means that I can always ask for Spotify songs and have them play via the full audio system.

1 Like
24

Mine are:

  • Shut down the air conditioner of my daughter after 1h (she always forgot it!)
  • Notify when the wash machine as finished
  • With an Amazon dash button turn on the coffee machine (and turn it off after 15 mins)
  • Wake me up with soft light and music (but, gradually, raise the lux and the volume!)

And of course, a lot of automatic lights on/off based on movement sensors.

2 Likes
25

You’ve got quite a bit going on there. Very interesting! I really need to get into lovelace. UGH

26

Couple more I have that are not mentioned.

  • Rubbish collection type sensor. Pulls info from the council for the current week to indicate the colour of bin to take out
  • SQL sensor to check if my data collection of air quality has glitched and not collected data for 1 hour. Same for collection of water tank temperature.
  • Sonoff control of outdoor lighting
  • Automationg to turn on the babies room light at 7 pm as a night light
  • Wifi and guest Wi-Fi control
  • Sensor to show rolling guest Wi-Fi password
  • Nest thermostat has away mode, so we use that to control security lights.
  • Various media controls eg turn off TV ambi-light if tv is off
  • Turn off water pump for shower past 8 pm so it doesn’t wake the baby
  • Computer power on and power down via WOL
  • Tablet with kiosk app mode that has HA running all the time.

I honestly don’t know what we would do without HA

Have other plans for Garage door and reminders

Just build slowly, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

3 Likes
27

I’ll go ahead and add one of my recent projects:

I converted a sonoff basic to dry contact mode and connected it to my garage door opener. It now opens the garage door automatically upon arrival home, and then closes it again after 10 minutes. I set one of the output timers in tasmota to turn the output off after two seconds, greatly simplifying the logic of open/close as all I have to do is trigger it via mqtt. There is a 433mmhz wireless sensor(433mhz sensor open/close code) setup for the open and close detection through a sonoff bridge. I got a large amount of WAF points today when she came home and the door opened and then closed automatically.

28

Yesterday I found out about Hue emulation!

I can finally control my wemo switches and alarm from my Harmony Remote.

I created a Sleep activity in my Harmony. It turns off all the wemo Switches and sets my alarm in Stay mode! Life changer.

1 Like
29

May I ask , how would you be able to tell if your washing machine is finished ?

Thanks
Vaughan

30

Monitoring current on the electricity, vibration/motion, or if it has a cycle end buzzer. All have been used in this community from what I’ve seen.

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31

I just check if the used W are under the value 1 for five minutes!
I am using a switch smart Plug TP-Link HS110.

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32

Hi
Thanks guys , yes my washing machine does finish with a buzzer , now to see what device I can use to monitor current or react to the buzzer.
Thanks

33

I was going to do the exact same thing, and had my concerns about dry-boiling the kettle. I think I could set a timer for the length of time it takes for the kettle to boil (a full kettle so its correct each time - I just have dumb rf sockets, no power monitoring),
then send an alert saying the kettle has boiled… Then a minute or two later (hopefully while making my cuppa) send text to speech reminding me to refill the kettle ready for next time.
I’m less likely to ignore it/forget if the kettle is physically in my hand at the time.

1 Like
34

I had to monitor the LED status light (cycle complete LED) of my washer with an LDR photoresistor as my voltage sensing power plug wasn’t giving me helpful enough data (it was giving me an accumulated number of power usage over time instead of what the power was at the moment).

1 Like
35

I have my gas clothes dryer with it’s exhaust vent located close to a window in the dining room. When the window is opened and clothes are drying, sometimes the noxious gasses enter through the window (dangerous CO!). So I plugged the dryer in to one of those enerwave power meter switched outlets, and made an automation that triggers beepers (located throughout the house) and sends me a text reminder to close that window if the dryer wattage is high and that window is open. It is the one automation my wife immediately appreciated.

Also having beeper reminders when doors are left open is nice… a text when the garage door gets opened and closed (no more turning around to verify if I closed the garage on the way out)… day/night exterior lighting (no more programming timers or issues with photocells)… text advice to open/close windows based on interior and exterior temps.

Just think of things you do daily and consider if that can be helped along with automation… this is the most enjoyable part of home automation imho.

1 Like
36

My vertical blinds quietly open Monday-Thursday at 6:45 am to a tilt open position. See https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3798776. It uses ESPHome and required very little modification of the stock Select Vertical Blinds.

4 Likes
37

For me all started from me and my wife constantly forgetting to turn off the lights… So I started with lights controlled by motion sensors. Then some more advanced automations come:

  • notification on phones when iron is in use for more than 30 minutes. It is actionable, so I do not need to go to attic to switch it off, I can make it straight from notification on the iPhone.
  • added Husqvarna automover presence sensor to charging base, so I get notification if mover does not return to base within 2 hours… means something stopped it in the yard…
  • opening main gate and garage door when I’m approaching house in car (started from adding garage door sensor and dry switch to trigger opening/closing)
  • replaced somehow dumb timer for my sprinkler system to control irrigation depending on rainfall history and precipitation as well as temperature forecast.
  • added ambient lighting and motorized blinds to TV room, so when the TV is switched on lights are dimmed and window covered. Additionally all entertainment system is controlled with Logitech Harmony Elite, also integrated with HA.
  • home presence simulation - if nobody home it starts 30 minutes before sunset and stops randomly after 11PM switching on/off random lights. It also detects our return to home to stop ‘disco’ :slight_smile:
  • finally I have quite complex lighting in my leaving room (27 bulbs together in 5 groups), so I created several scenes that can be activated with push of the button… (dinner for 2, large dinner, coffee time etc).
  • Christmas lights automation to turn them on on sunset and off at 1AM
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38
  • Every 15 min a reminder that the front gate was left open (after sunset) (TTS - Google Home)
  • Grab snapshots every 5 seconds of all my cameras and send them via to all family members (wife, parents, parents in law, …) when the alarm is tripped (Telegram)
  • Open the garage door and front gate before I arrive home
  • Sleep mode: activated by Google Home: lights in occupied rooms go to a min brightness (if they are brighter at that moment, the brightness is not changed) so we can go to bed with enough light to take the stairs
  • Turn off lights in the kitchen after variable minutes of no motion + turn them on when there is motion (variable lux depending on time of day)
  • Turn on outside lights whenever the gate is opened at night, and automatically restore them to the previous state after 5 minutes - unless they are manually changed in between
  • On warm days: link the sonos that is used our ‘garden-room’ with the one in the kitchen (outside > 24 gr and window open)
  • Turn on the sonos at a variable volume (depending on time of day) whenever the alarm is disarmed
  • Tune the sonos to a separate channel on friday whenever my wife is not at home (dance music), and revert to the normal channel once she is back
39

I was hoping to start a list like this, to get more ideas on what to do next…

For me…

  • The one most people see and ask about is the integration with our magic mirror (https://magicmirror.builders/), this gives a visual of if the garage/shed door is open, or the dishwasher/washer/dryer are done(https://github.com/jasondreher/MMM-door-sensor3). Gives lots of notifications like when I will be arriving home. And a new one I love when we set a timer on alexa the MM shows the timer (this could not be done without HA but unfortunately I need OpenHAB for this as I dont see how HA can know what I tell Alexa).
  • Light automation is a big one for everyone I bet, for me its having the outside lights turn on when we get home, or the lights in the garage (which can be dark) turn on when we open the door to the garage or the garage door. And our bedside HUE lamps come on at night with a random color.
  • TTS notifications over alexa when the dishwasher/washer/dryer are done.
  • An alarm system, when no one is home or we are in bed the alarm is set, if triggered it will send a picture of the outside camera, or alert me on my new alarm clock.
  • New alarm clock with TileBoard (TileBoard - New dashboard for Homeassistant) works great and automation turns it on and off for weekend. Uses tasker on an android phone and mqtt to trigger events.
1 Like
40

Hello,
I have in my HA some nice stuff I think.

First of all I have light automations for all windowlight using the sun. lights on 15min before sunset and turns of 23:00 and light on if movement is detected after 05:00 and turns off when sun goes up.

Second I have pellets burner in my house for heating and hot water. For that I have tempsensor checking the temp inside boiler. If temp goes under 65C I get at push notification to my phone. Also in this system I have an UL-sensor monitoring the pellet storage, if pellets storage goes under 10% I get notification.

Also I made a button that I press every time I have cleaned the burner, from that I can track how many days have gone since last cleaning, and if days is more than 10 I get a notification.

Im currently tracking 4suppliers that deliver wooden pellets to me, and for this I have made 4sensors that gives me the todays price everyday as a notification. And sometimes they have sale and sell it for half price. And if that happens I get a notification directly when they updates there price on the web. When I have this function I do not miss low price and this year I have saved ~$200 on this function.

I have a dog who is out in the garden during the workhours, for her I have made an homemade 3D-printed auger feeder that delivers food at 12:00 every day (If she is there). Also there is tempsensor and heatingelemnt inside doghouse that will keep a nice temp if it´s cold outside. (I live in Sweden so temp can get really freezing)

I have tempsensor in basement there we have our laundry, during winter its getting around 15C so I have installed an hot water convector. If temp is below 18 that’s activates the water pump if temp goes below 18 and closes again when temp is 22. Fan is always running even if it´s not heating.

I have a big pool 40´000liters, its hard to get a nice temp in that one in Sweden.
So I have 3 sunheters on the roof that’s heating it up. But here I noticed that’s if its colder in the air than the water the heaters ar cooling the water instead of heating. That’s not what I want. Therefore I installed an 3-way electronic valve that I controlling from HA. 1 temp in the pool 1m down, 1 temp on the roof in the sun, 1 temp in the inlet to the pool.

From this I can control my valve to close/open when the air temp is warmer than the water or vice versa. This is really effective and I can use the pool more during the season.

All my yard has camera surveillance, I get notification if there is movement. Every day at 12:00 i save a snapshot, this is just for fun so I can make a time-lapse over the years and see the changing over time.

I have z-wave doorbell. When button at frontdoor is pressed, camera take snapshot and delivering that as a notification to mine and my wife’s phone :blush:

Two of my four kids takes medication every morning so for that I have made an automation that talks to them via TTS every morning during breakfast.

That’s the biggest automations I have right now and its working really great. And best of all it´s working so well that’s it has been wife approved :smiley:

12 Likes