I’m sure everyone has seen Home Alone. Back in 1990 everyone was using those analog dial timers to make their lights turn on at a set time every night, making it easy for the Wet Bandits to know who was using them. Does HA have something that would trick the Wet Bandits? Something like an occupancy simulator that would turn random lights on at random times? Or specific lights on at random times?
I’m sure you could kind of do this by setting different automations to trigger on different days at different times, but is there a true randomizer automation?
Believe it or not, I searched before posting, I even carefully scanned the suggested topics while composing my post. I must not have used the correct keywords.
But not in blueprint form. I converted it to a regular automation.
It works prettt well. So well that my son (who was watching our house last week while we were gone) thought someone was actually in the house. Wet bandits!
We had a neighbour asking us about our smart home yesterday, and he was asking “can you set them to come on/off throughout the evening when you’re away so that it looks like you’re home”. I was about to say “yes”, when I realised we don’t actually use the switches any more as pretty much every light is on a timer (fade up to wake, morning routine, breakfast prep, kids lights flash for school departure minus five, then off once they’ve gone, office desk light on low for home working if its overcast, kids lights back on after school if lux are down, sunset shades down, lights up in living room, kids lights flash for tea, table lit for evening, master bedroom on, kids lights fade down at bedtime, amber nightlights until midnight, master bedroom fade off…)
Adding in a random occupancy simulator would just be a signal for Wet Bandits.
Marv: Its almost too easy…
Harry: Check it out. All the houses with somebody home have automatic timers on their lights. But I got it all figured out. Watch this. Number 664 will be going on right about… now. Wait, wait, wait… number 672, right now. Wait a minute, wait a minute. 671… now. Now… Now??
Marv: It didn’t turn on, Harry.
Harry: That’s the one, Marvin. That’s the silver tuna.
I have a random time occupancy simulator I created a few years ago which takes the predictability out of it completely, but since then the custom component I linked above has come out which seems a bit more polished.
