Greetings. For sure, the main part of Smart Home is automation (that is the point, where it gets “smart”, not when you can controll lights through phone)
I have some simple automations done, and have some ideas. But it seems to be not enough and I would love to hear your advices, your examples (I do not mean code, idea is ina first place. If you don’t won’t to share your code - that’s fine)
Here is what can do my HA:
-Lights - turn on or off. (In future want to use xiaomi wall switches, so I can know the state of the switch)
-A/C
-Floor thermostat
-Camera
-locations
-TV (only on off)
-Plugs
-Sensors:
Motion, temperature, humidity, smoke, open-close door, water leak, illumination.
Done:
-lights on in bathroom based on open door sensor and motion sensor
-Hallway light turns on, when you come home (open the main door and there were no movement in hallway before that)
-lights in hall based on motion sensor. (Off after n minutes of motion sensor being off)
-notifications on smoke, leak
-notifications on motion, open door if this automation is “on” (when we leave home)
-notification on door being open more that 5 minutes
ideas:
-bathroom lights off
-presence imitation (random lights)
-constant level of illumination (if there is no enough light, lights turn on)
What ideas do you have? Share your automation, will be interesting and useful to read.
This is not exactly a full on automation but it is more of a mixture of automations. So, if you are away from your home, an someone rings the door bell, you get an alert on your phone. When you get an alert you basically go to your camera to check who is at the door and you can decide whether or not to open the door during which you can also attach google tts or something to say something like, “Welcome Home” or “Not at home please try later.”
Similar to @dishant, but when I am at home and on 3rd floor watching tv, if the doorbell is pressed, (only if the tv is on), my cinema room lights flash, and it pauses what I’m watching. Also if its after sunset it turns the kitchen light on as that’s the room right next to the front door. Never miss a takeaway again!
When TV is switched on and if the radiator in the TV room is off and the outside temp is cold the radiator valve is switched on into override (except if window is open)
Back door is open for 10 minutes heating is turned down
When someone arrives home the outside light switches on for 10 mins and the kitchen light is turned on but only if its around sunset
Send me a notification if I am at home - if the garage light has been left on for 10 minutes
Actionable notifications to turn off my sonos alarm if its a bank holiday or I am on annual leave. Reverse to turn back on.
What is interesting is most people think a smart home is just asking google home to turn off or on some switches…
I prefer to automate as much as I can and if I need something that might not have a clear trigger, then it is asked through google home.
We live on our boat so automating has been fun.
Coming along the dock the Pi over Bluetooth knows we are home so if it is after sunset the LED strips come on. Lights have bedtime scenes so no blue light before bed. About to wire up our cabin for LED lights.
Anytime no one is home it ensures the LED lights are off and any switches (kettle and heater) are turned off.
Have automation for when we should leave for work based on traffic.
Running sonoffs for all our cabin lights so still am working on how we will use that.
The kettle and heater is an interesting one because we only have so much draw and usually pop a circuit breaker if we try to run both. What I have done is if you turn the kettle on it will turn off the heater until it has boiled.
My favourite one is I get an email if we have mail in our post box. Home assistant gives us a push notification each with actions. I can select that I will pick up the mail and then my partner gets a notification saying I’m getting the mail rather than both of us picking it up.
I have heard that said before about completely automating everything but I don’t always find that works for me. Perhaps I am missing something.
I still find it more convenient to tell Alexa I want to watch Telly rather than use a sensor or motion detector. Perhaps that’s because in my case the tv room is 3rd floor up and the routine that runs has various delays and timings of things switching on which is all done by the time I have walked the 2 flights of stairs!
Same with turn off everything downstairs routine, turns off all lights, stereo shut down in sequence but I still want to control when that happens.
I think a “manual” trigger whether that is a button press in an app or a voice command can do a number of things and you do need to think about how you’re life and routines are organized to know what can work well but it does take time and a lot of tweaking getting it right.
Maybe my other issue is I have pets so some of the automation I could use would require a motion or presence detector that can accurately distinguish between me and a couple of lively cats and I’m not sure the tech is quite there yet.
Would be interested to know what other people’s solutions are to this. I love automating stuff it’s great when something just works. And if the issue is my lack of ideas or programming skills I am happy to work on that too
I don’t think your missing anything. Motion is something I’m staying away from. We don’t need it. As you say pets triggering the coffee machine etc haha.
Overall it boils down to is it more convenient?
I can turn the lights off for example by voice, automation or the switch and sometimes just the old switch is appropriate.