Projects that have made life easier and more enjoyable

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41

Don’t want to Necro this thread out of no-where but I have a few handy automations for my HASS install, but always looking for more!

“Door chime for front and back doors”
Door sensor triggers, it sends a notify.alexa_media to my kitchen and basement echo dots and tells me “back door (or) front door has opened” Super handy for knowing exactly when people come and go.

When the doors open Turn on the corresponding porch light. Handy for leaving late at night or early in the morning.

When the door closes, turn off the porch light after 120 seconds, goes for both lights on both porches.

A handy counter I made out of an alexa button to count how many cigarettes I’ve had today. I can also reset this counter and get a readout from alexa.

Garbage/recycling reminder for 2 days before, and the day before. This was actually 4 different automations. 2 for garbage, 2 for recycling.

If someone knocks at my front door, alexa notifies me with a alert. This was a bit tricky, but doable and really not that hard, just took some hot google action.

if my stock rises or falls to a certain point, send an alexa notify.

If my phone battery is fully charged, and still on the charger, breath the basement lights green.

if my phone is below 20% battery, and no charging, breath the basement lights red.

notify me via my phone if any door is opened when I am not home.

alexa notify about the current status of my EUFY robovac. HASS will tell me when it has started cleaned, or when it is returning to base for charging.

Turn off all lights when no-one is home

turn off outside lights at 1am

and motion sensors for pretty much every light, front door (inside and out) back door, basement, bedroom. The bedroom motion sensors are kinda tucked away and only activate at specific times of day (when we’re not sleeping)

Love love love all of this.

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42

Thought of some more I use:

Telegram text every Friday afternoon with a list of any batteries that are <30%. Some devices don’t report battery level, and only report 0% when the battery is near dead. Those devices text me immediately when they go to 0.

Telegram reminder if device tracker sees nobody home and alarm is not armed.

Telegram message listing all perimeter openings left open when nobody is home.

Added a ‘xmas light’ input boolean to turn off the front yard plug at 10pm if the xmas lights are installed (700W worth of old school C9’s, costs a lot more if I run 'em 'til sunrise… same plug runs walkway lights sunset/sunrise most of the year).

Sprinklers open for 2 seconds every 2 hours if outside temp is below freezing (prevents bursting pipes).

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43

I’m glad that users are continually posting their ideas. I was hoping it would become an ongoing thread. I have some more things to add in the next few days when I get around to finishing them up. Keep it coming!

44

If someone knocks at my front door, alexa notifies me with a alert. This was a bit tricky, but doable and really not that hard, just took some hot google action.

Like, Physically knocks on the door and doesn’t ring the doorbell?

I’d be interested in this, 90% of the time people dont ring my doorbell and just knock, which we can’t hear very well due to our porch door being a heavy old wooden one that muffles the noise.

45

Yes, Physically knocks. It’s a bit long winded, but it works for the most part. It flashes my basement lights and everything. I use the knock sensor knocki. A quick google search will show you that, they are not the best solution, nor the cheapest, but for what I paid ($10 per sensor) they get the job done. I am looking into a more reasonable/and responsive solution, but from what I have seen knocki gets the job done for me.

2 Likes
46

I actually have one more that I’m trying to part ways with, I bought a pack of 4 from someone who no longer needed them once they got them, I’d be willing to work with ya one it depending on shipping. otherwise, yea, they are sort of a burden for the price. BUT, I will say that I believe a cheaper solution could be crafted from scratch with custom components. Either way, 10-20$ from me, or build your own for about the same, but building your own would be better for various reasons like responsiveness, but from my experience, and judging from talking to knocki’s support team via facebook, and even having words with their CEO, they have plans to do some updates to make them more viable. Just ideas here.

47

I’ve just looked into it and by the looks of it, if I get a “SW-420” vibration sensor, a ESP32/8266 and some power I should be able to set something up in ESPhome. I just never thought of it previously!
Even found an example

I’m in the UK so imagine I’d be looking at a fair whack of postage, probably just as easy buying an ESP32,SW-420, Project box and USB power bank for similar cost.

2 Likes
48

I have heard of ppl using an ST multisensor (has an accelerometer, reed switch, and temperature) for this purpose. I have one of those multi sensors and can vouch for it being sensitive enough to pick up a typical door knock. Another possible diy method would be rigging an esp with a mic and audio processing, but that would certainly be harder to do well.

49

I use a zooz outlet, which has a delay of no more than 15 seconds for power consumption. On/Off is nearly instant, but the power consumption reading takes a few seconds to update, which should be no issue for your use case.

50

Hi,

thanks for the write-up, sounds amazing. One question to the movement detection for light:

  • Which device do you use for the detection?

Greetings to Sweden.

51

Aqara. I have bought several, they work really well for me. I have connected the motion sensors with Aqara Hub, whereas the Aqara Switches I am using as zigbee devices w Deconz, which enables me to control stuff not from Aqara.

However for me I am using the Aqara sensors to control Aqara bulbs, so did not need to setup node red for this as automations in the hub are very simple.

52

I started with HASS about 2 months ago. Learnt to take it easy the hard way, and now taking it one step at a time.
Due to working from home (Covid-19) for 8 weeks now, I had some time to observe my wife and try to provide for some automations. Not all done yet. The WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) is something a lot of us have to take into account.

I mostly use Tasmota flashed sonoff devices for my lights (sonoff basics), and for wall switches the Sonoff touch T1 and T2. MQTT has proven to be my most stable integration combined with Sonoff. For WAF, most lights also need to have a manual switch.

My first WAF success came with the following:

In a single switch socket, I put a double switch (Sonoff T2). The non connected switch, when manually activated, has a simple automation behind which does the following: Switch off all lights in the living room, turn off the tv, turn on a single ceiling light for 5 minutes, turn on the light near the bathroom for 5 minutes. This is executed with a manual touch of the switch, and is exactly the sequence my wife used to do it all manually. First acceptance is in ! Now on to movement sensors, which are on the bench test using ESP8266’s also flashed with Tasmota.

Waiting for some more Sonoff T1’s, then I will use 2 of them to create hotelswitch in my garage, one switch on a spot where I do not have wiring. One will just work as a slave to the other, they more or less follow eachother by state changes, and only the main will actually drive the lightbulb.

Garden lights run off a battery, which is charged by 2 solar panels. 3 loops of lights in the garden which can be enabled separately. I steer it with a nodeMCU (again flashed Tasmota) over mqtt. Based on the month AND state of the battery either all loops turn on after sunset, or just one or two loops. Sort of seasonal limitation, as during winter months I do not get enough charge during limited daylight, and it saves the battery from fully draining.

I am lucky to have a BMW with connected drive. Although that system itself is very very very slow in response, I can do some nice things with the BMW Connected drive integration. The most simple but usefull automation is the following: This is a lease car, so whan I fill her up at the gas station, I need to key in my current mileage. Something I always forget to take a reading before walking in to slide the card. When my car PLUS myself show location presence at my regular gas stations (zones in hass), hass sends a notifiction to my mobile with the actual car mileage…

Keep on sharing your ideas, I need much more !

grtz
John

5 Likes
53

Hi Sparks, do you have any more details about your solar garden lights? I am keen to do something similar but was trying to figure how to run power. If your setup runs successfully on solar that is promising.

54

@vijaykbhatia In reply to your questions (it is a bit off topic), here we go:

2* 100W Solar panels in serial, feeding into…
1* MPPT solar charger, charging…
1* 12V sealed gel battery, powering…
1* Switching power supply, stabilzed voltage set 10V, which is powering…
12* 5W LED garden lights, placed in three loops of 4 lights each, enabled through 3 Relays which are triggered with opto separated couplers by my nodeMCU.
1 * BUCK converter to 5V, powering nodeMCU and relay steering
nodeMCU flashed with Tasmota, configured as 3 switches steering the relays and an additional temp sensor. MQTT enabled, and fully steered from Home Assistant.

There you go…
grtz
John

2 Likes
55

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

Next step is integrating alarm. I designed a board off of these instructions but with more sensors and triggers to send signals to the alarm - https://www.instructables.com/id/Alarm-PIR-Movement-to-Home-Automation/

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56

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.

57

@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)

58

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.

59

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.

1 Like
60

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 :+1:

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