What Is Your Most Useful Automation?

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28

Yes. I have a wall switch in the hallway.
When I come down from sleeping.
I press this switch’s. So, alarm turns off. power goes on. Door unlock. Heating starts (if needed)

I use this switch also for my parents.
They visit us sometimes (when we are not home)
So they also can turn alarm off when entering house.

You can also use a keyfob. To open the house and turn alarm on/off. (Young kids coming from school/parents)

29

Pressing the switch shouldn’t be needed. Your house should know.

30

When I’m home and they house is activated as “armed home” what will happen if I open my window or door? (Indeed, the alarm would activate) so, you need a solution to turn it off.
That way I use a wall switch.

How would you do it? I’m open for suggestions

31

Not 100% sure, but my point was that your system should know with a degree of certainty when you get up. the button should be a backup/over-ride.

32

We live here with 3 people. If somebody is sick or just want to take a drink. (Downstairs kitchen) they can walk free in the house. (With alarm armed)
Also we have a dynamic morning cycle. (Different times) waking up. So that’s why we use this solution.

You can automate it. If you always go out of bed “alone” on a time schedule or other trigger.
(But with a family in house it’s difficult :sweat_smile:)

2 Likes
33

Just to name a few besides the obvious (movement+)dark=light on, and scenes for home, away, sleep and vacation:

  • Damp in bathroom (=shower) sets fan high, cranks up thermostat, increases volume on bathroom smart speaker (shower is a lot of background noise). EDIT: this has now been augmented with activity from my smart shower head
  • Dry air turns off fan, light off restores thermostat and speaker volume in bathroom
  • Window/door open for x time lowers thermostat in that room
  • No presence for long time in a room lowers thermostat in that room
  • Kid leaving lowers thermostat in that kids room
  • Everyone left lower all thermostats and boiler temp
  • Home, away, sleep, vacation mode to influence automations, such as fake lighting as if we are home while we are actually on vacation, kill all lights when gone, turn on basic lighting etc. no notifications when asleep (also based on bed sensors)
  • Warnings on smart speaker to close windows when it is raining, op open close on temperature difference inside/outside, open when air quality bad
  • Block automated rollerblinds/screens when window open or rain, wind too strong
  • When window closes that previously blocked the rollerblind, mimic the blindposition of adjacent window.
  • Door and temperature sensors on fridge to warn if doors are open or temperature too high
  • Humidifiers/dehumidifiers react on humidity levels
  • Warning when things are done: car/bike chargers, washing machine, etc based on power usage
  • Warnings to water the plants or irrigate when soil is dry
  • Fire alarm sets all lights to maximum brightness and notifies on mobile, closes fire retarding door
  • Car home and plugged in unlocks the car charger
  • Low tariff kicking in or solar panel overproduction starts charging car
  • Notifications when car or bike is not home while owner is home (BLE tracker on bikes)
  • Leaving home while window open notifications, also lower screens in front of some.
  • Turn 3d printer off when inactive and nozzle temperature is low (keeps fan on while still hot)
  • Turn rpi with octoprint on/off based on if 3d printer is on/off (including safe shutdown of course).
  • Turn power on for crosstrainer when the vibration sensor detects movement (the thing has absurd high standby usage).
  • Turn on/off subwoofer based on amp power usage (also due to high standby use)
  • light sensors to turn on/off lights, open/close curtains (while also looking at preset mode for sleep/awake)
  • Doorbell or garden movement casts camera to google hub (unless door opened, because that is us)
  • Smart lock on or off night lock when away/home/sleeping/awake
  • Livingroom door (fire retarding near stairs) closes when there’s a fire
  • Livingroom door closes or when some one left it open too long in the heating season:
5 Likes
34

That’s pretty cool. Amazing all the connectivity that new cars have. I guess it’s showing that my car is 11 years old already.

35

I haven’t implemented an automatic home stay (sleep) alarm because I don’t have yet a reliable way to deactivate it without manual intervention. A delay could help with accidental tripping, but I don’t want to have to be wary of that. I guess sensing conditions for auto deactivation will be possible later on as I add logic for people asleep/awake states.

36

I have a lot of the standard light and time based automations.

  • Most important cause the wife likes it is announcing over Sonos that washer or dryer are finished.

  • Notification via Sonos if garage doors are open for more than 30 minutes after sunset.

  • Most important to me is an automation to monitor the loop temperatures in my Geothermal system and switch to AUX heat if temp gets down to 31 degrees entering the loop. Resets after every heating cycle. Poor designed loop was causing ice lenses under my flagstone deck.

37

My favorite ones:

  • Turn on bathroom furnece 30 min before alarm.
  • Turn on subwoofer when whatching movie or listening to music, turn off after that, for normal tv I don’t use subwoofer
  • Turn on lights when movie stoped/pauzed
  • HAVC which consists of AC and gas boiler, use AC to heat when outside temp is above 10 celcius, gas boiler when below.
  • Turn on lights when entrance to the attic is oppened, turn them off when closed.
  • When we go out ask us if we want to turn on the vacuum.

This are my favorite ones, but I have about 70 automations running right now

1 Like
38

One that has quietly contributed a lot to household comfort is pulling in cool air from the outside when the upper floor tends to get too warm in cold but sunny days. I don’t like to put the thermostat in Auto mode due to the risk of condensation when switching between heating and cooling rapidly. “Free Cooling” to the rescue.

(“Why not simply crack a window open?” Because this area is very dusty, while the intake has a filter; and automation gives better control and uniformity of the temperature inside.)

Other related automations provide “Smart HVAC” by pulling air in when the furnace is active if the outside temperature is towards the target temperature inside.

The house came with a convenient fresh air intake with a damper controlled by a dumb wall switch. Replaced the switch by a smart one and was in business.

1 Like
39

I have three automation worth mentioning:

  • The outside shutters of our roof windows close automatically, depending on outside UV-intensitiy and inside temperature.
  • In our basement, there is often a high humidity and we have RADON there. I installed a fan, that blows the air out, if the humidity is higher insight, then outside. (based on dew point comparision)
  • Most recently, we got a water heater installed, which works with a heat pump. It is in the same room, as our washing machine and where we dry our clothes. The heat pump of the water heater dries the air. In addition, we do have an air de-humidifier, which is in the same room. Water heater and air de-humidifier are connected via Sonoff POW R2. If the water heater switches on, the air de-humidifier switches off. → save energy.
1 Like
40

What a nice topic!

For me the most usefull automations are the following:

  • Turn off all lights and smart devices / reduce heating when everybody is away from home.
  • Turn off all lights and smart devices when we are all in bed (after a certain time of the day).
  • Adapting heating temperature based on outside temperature.
  • Media Player auto-pause/resume when watching a movie and standing up to go to the kitchen or the toilet.
  • The LED Seek Tracker.

Should anyone need more information about any of those automations i am happy to provide!

Thanks

2 Likes
41

Just migrated from smartthings… night and day difference… anyway I integrated my Rivian and my garage door with Ratgdo. Now I can prevent my garage door from closing if the rivian is in the garage and the lift gate is up.

Damaged our tailgate several times on the old minivan this way.

If it stops the door from closing on my rivian tailgate just one time then it will effectively pay for my entire home automation setup…

At least that is why I’m telling my wife.

2 Likes
42

I guess other than the normal on/off voice commands for lights and things is the automation which turn on/off a bunch (about 15, depending on the season) remote candles. These are all from different manufactures thus different IR codes. I modified the candles using a remote board from some very cheap tea candles thus making them all work with the same remote. With that taken care of one simple command to the IR blaster turns on/off the candles. So with evening approaching a automation runs turning on several lights in different rooms including the candles, then at bedtime when we say good night everything goes off in a somewhat staggered sequence including the candles.

My SO loves the fact she can have all the candles on without getting to within 3 feet and trying to remember which remote works for what set every time and now she can decorate any place in our very open floor plan living room with candles as she sees fit!

One side note to the operator of the HA for your house, you WILL be modifying a lot of candles for each season!!

43

Which device(s) are you using as trigger to indicate someone leaves the sofa?

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44

not so much an automation, but having a washing machine reminder notification when the drier is finished if the washing machine hasn’t been unloaded already

45

Interesting topic! One of my most useful automations is when I leave work, my actuel ETA is announced at home. The funny thing is that the people at home knows I’m stuck in traffic before I do. :laughing:

1 Like
46

Dead man’s switch. :skull:

I use the Bayesian integration to work out whether I’m probably home (surprisingly accurate). If I am, and no motion has been detected for 24 hours, several friends get SOS messages.

Never been activated yet, but if it were to be I’m sure it would be really, really useful. :roll_eyes:

5 Likes
47

I have something like that for my bike trips far out in bear country. Given a set of conditions my wife will get an emergency notification to call 911.

1 Like