Awesome, love the welcome home feature. I’ve setup owntracks with GPS and a home BLE beacon for home detection so I plan on doing something similar with Google Home and TTS.
Here are my favorite automations.
- When the toilet room lights have been on for over 5 minutes, turn on the exhaust fan (if you’ve been in there over 5 minutes, you are probably making a stink). After the lights turn out, leave the fan running for another 5 minutes just to get the remnants.
- Turn the carriage lights on the garage on at sunset and off at sunrise. I know it’s simple but sometimes it’s the little things that make us the happiest.
- Dim the lights when the tv is turned on, brighten them back up when the tv is turned back off. (assuming they are on, if they aren’t then nothing happens with the lights).
- Start the fan in my office when it gets over a certain temperature, and turn it off when it gets back below it.
- Alexa integration
- Christmas lights automation. Turning on and off, and turning off the outdoor lights if it’s raining.
- notification when there is a weather alert. (requires Appdaemon)
- Notification of printer toner/ink levels (requires Appdaemon)
- Monitor the status (printing, pre-heating, stand-by, off) of my 3d printer.
I have some typical ‘lights on at sunset’ and ‘lights off at sunrise’ automations, but the one that always makes me grin is that the kettle gets turned on when I or my wife arrive home (only at certain times).
And if it’s my wife that returns home the Google Home in my office says ‘[wife’s name] is home, so I’ve put the kettle on’ 
(I work from home, so I’m always in when she arrives home from work).
How are you doing this? Is it those plugs that monitor how much electricity is being used, so sends a notification when the power usage drops?
which coffee machine?
I have a basic coffee machine plugged into a RF plug.
I have to remember to fill it the night before, which isn’t ideal, but I haven’t the budget for a fully smart solution… yet…
The one I use the most is by bedtime script… either triggered by an Alexa Skill on an Echo, via homekit using Siri on my Apple Watch or iPhone or via an Amazon Dash Button (to be replaced by a push MQTT wall mounted button)
- Turns off my TV
- Transition dims my living room lamp down to light the room while I leave
- Turns on my landing light for 5mins
- Turns on my bedside lamps and ensuite bathroom light
- Turns off all other lights and some sockets
I then have another push button above my headboard in the bedroom that turns everything off when it’s time to go to sleep.
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I have the lights at the top and bottom of the stairs triggered by motion detectors, they come on normally during evening and night time hours up until 2 AM after which they will illuminate at their dimmest setting if triggered by someone going to the bathroom. If you go downstairs they all light normally which was kind of accidental but I like it like that, usually if I’m going downstairs in the middle of the night I prefer more light.
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I’m using two Aeotech SS6 smart switches and sensing the current. I laid out how I did this along with the template sensors and automations in this thread. Start at the post I linked to and then read down a post or two for more details.
Should give you a good starting point.
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Great, thanks a lot!
PM me if you run into any issues. No guarantees I can solve them but I’ll try. 
Thanks, will do.
The code looks pretty easy to follow (even for an idiot like me), so hopefully I shouldn’t have any problems :fingers crossed:
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This is a great topic. Copied a lot of ideas from github configs. As I still haven’t got my hands on creating a secrets file guess i can share some here.
So the ones not mentioned here before.
Most favorite:
Receiver and projector automated depending time of day and input selected. Brightness levels, volume level, late night sound options, lights dimmed etc. radio stations switched…
As that wasn’t enough added an option that when movie starts in kodi - everything gets settled automatically. So all you have to do is choose a movie from the phone
Others
The first one who walks into the bathroom in the morning gets greeted and a weather forecast spoken out (usually my wife). Once in a while - rewrite the greeting texts for a surprise (use a random function)
Alarm clock with the help of lights and sound.
Dedicated buttons in bedrooms to switch everything off and arm the alarm_home routine (door/windows sensors)