What Is Your Most Useful Automation?

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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 hasnā€™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 Iā€™m stuck in traffic before I do. :laughing:

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46

Dead manā€™s switch. :skull:

I use the Bayesian integration to work out whether Iā€™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 Iā€™m sure it would be really, really useful. :roll_eyes:

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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.

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48

Wow. Thatā€™s actually a shockingly good (though morbid) idea.

How are you sending the SOS messages?

49

How exactly are you calculating travel time? This is something that I think would be useful as wellā€¦ For example, adding a page to the dashboard with travel times from current location to various popular locations. eg: Daycare, Grocery Store, etc.

Iā€™m also curious - what if you decide to stop somewhere on your way home? Does your automation account for this and announce the updated ETA?

50

I use an automated service called My SOS Family. They have an Alexa skill, so an input_boolean triggers an Alexa routine which launches the app. Everyone gets a text, an email and a robot phone call.

51

I am using the integration Waze travel time.

It doesnā€™t give updates but that should be possible.

52

Hello,

Perhaps it would be good to explain all the parts of the automation. I use PLEX to consume media and i have a plex client installed on my android tv. I have an automation with the following logic:

If Plex client on Android TV starts playing after 20:30 ā†’ Send a notification on my phone, if i want to activate the ā€œCinema Modeā€. The Cimena mode is a toggle helper i use and when itā€™s on, it turns the lights off in the Living Room and turns on the ambilight only if i respond to the message positively.

Now since the Cinema is a toggle, it can be used as a condition to other automations. So to control the play/pause i use normal motion sensors (PIR) in the kitchen and in the toilet that when they detect motion and if the Cinema Mode toggle is on they will pause the movie, and turn on ambient light in the living room.

Now, i wanted also the movie to resume it self when i return to the sofa. For this, i am using an mmWave sensor (LD2410B) that i have mounted on the TV and i count the ā€œstill energyā€. If the ā€œstill energyā€ is more than 95 for more than 10 seconds, the movie will resume and the lighting will return to the cinema mode. This avoids resuming the movie if i just pass from the room but i donā€™t stay.

Of course, to finish it all up, if the movie finishes or is stopped by me (plex client ideal) then the lights will turn on, ambilight turns off and the ā€œCinema Modeā€ toggle will turn off.

Hope this helps
Kind Regards
M

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53

Nice one. Would you mind sharing how you did this?

54

I use a slightly different script, but this script should work when you use the MQTT integration for Octoprint, provided you replace the entities with the ones for your printer:

alias: OctoPi Power Off safely
sequence:
  - if:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.creality_cr_10_smart_pro_connected
        state: "off"
    then:
      - service: button.press
        metadata: {}
        data: {}
        target:
          entity_id: button.octoprint_shutdown_system
      - wait_for_trigger:
          - platform: state
            entity_id: binary_sensor.creality_cr_10_smart_pro_connected
            to: unavailable
        continue_on_timeout: false
        timeout:
          hours: 0
          minutes: 5
          seconds: 0
          milliseconds: 0
      - delay:
          hours: 0
          minutes: 0
          seconds: 30
          milliseconds: 0
      - service: homeassistant.turn_off
        data: {}
        target:
          entity_id: switch.octopi_power_switch
mode: single

You can call the script from an automation when your printer disconnects. The script will do nothing if the printer is still connected. The delay is to give the pi some extra time to shutdown after the integration no longer sees octoprint. You could possibly do with a shorter one if you time how long the shutdown usually takes.

This is the automation calling it:

alias: Octopi uit
description: ""
trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.creality_cr_10_spart_pro_ingeschakeld
    to: "off"
    not_from:
      - unavailable
      - unknown
    for: "00:01:00"
condition: []
action:
  - service: script.octoprint_power_off_safely
    data: {}
mode: single

I have both the printer and the octopi on a smart power switch with power metering. If the printer is idle for a while and the temperature of the bed and nozzle is low, I turn off the printer, and when that happens this is triggered because of it.

Of course, I do the reverse when the printer is turned on (starts drawing energy from the smart plug): I turn the power on for the rpi running octoprint. It will automatically start Octoprint and is also set to automatically connect to the printer.

55

Out of curiosity how do you know if the bins have been taken out or not?

56

He might be using a vibration sensor.

57

Really low tech - a sensor on the garden gate.

If the gate hasnā€™t been opened since 18:00 then we havenā€™t put the bins out yet.

Others do it with cameras, BLE beacons, or vibration sensors. For us though vibration sensors would be set off by the wind, BLE beacons are almost certainly going to be detectable where the bins are out for collection, and thereā€™s no camera covering where the bins go.

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58

You could put an NFC tag on the bins. Just scan the tag with your phone with you take them out. Super cheap - hereā€™s a 60-piece pack for $14USD: https://amzn.to/42ipCx1

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59

If you do it based on multiple devices it would be better. So for my gate to open automatically it has to be my wifi mac of my car, wifi mac of my phone and the ble mac of my phone.

60

My council tags bins, or says they are in the process of doing so. I must run a scanner over mine.

62

Not necessarily the most useful, but the most satisfying to me is the automation that turns on my espresso machine when the alarm on my phone goes off. When I come down after showering g and getting dressed itā€™s all warmed up and ready to go.
There are much more useful things like light and heating but this one is secretly my favorite.

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