The timer for my hot water circulation pump can only be turned on/off in 15 minute increments. This pumps too much water around because it runs for too long and then again, it doesn’t run often enough.
And when the power is out for a few hours (yup, I live in California so that happens regularly) who knows when the circulation pump will run the next day
So, I bought a 5-pack of Etekcity power plugs and a Hook gateway.
Still trying to figure out the ideal timing, but for now the pump runs every 10 minutes for 2 minutes - still working on getting night hours excluded, but everything seems to be working fine so far.
And when the electricity goes out and comes back on, it’s all back on the right time.
Only drawback of the Etekcity plugs is that I can’t poll the state so it’s a fire & forget for the commands, but for simple automations like this one I don’t mind too much.
Got a bunch of more ideas where I can use these plugs.
I’m an early riser for work and 99% of time it’s still dark in the house - I have lights come on throughout the house at the time my alarm clock goes off so I can see while getting around in the house - however, since I’m usually gone before others are up in the house - I have the same lights go off 15 min after sunrise - all this occurs on weekday/work days only - not weekends, My alarm goes off and out of the corner of my eye, just like clockwork, I see the rest of the house lighting up so I can get ready for work. LOVE it - so simple, but so helpful!
Play media on Kodi (movie media only) - dim lights - pause, lights come back up - so cool to demo!
I used the aeotec door sensor and a z wave dimmer switch on our master closet doors in our bedroom - no more lights left on in the closet by the wife = me
Owntracks to notify my wife via pushbullet so she knows I made it work ok and that I’m half way home on the way home from work so she can kick her boyfriend out - lol - j/k - but that way she can start dinner etc when I’m 1/2 home from work.
Thanks to everyone else’s idea/posts in here - fun seeing what everyone else is doing!
I assume this is for heating? Perhaps you could build a sensor and place it on the heater?
I don’t know how comfortable you are with programming, but I would try a project with an arduino, a temp sensor and a esp8266 module for wifi. You might even be able to skip the arduino and let the wifi chip handle the sensor on its own.
I am still waiting for my wifi modules to arrive, so I haven’t tried it out yet myself, but there is a lot of tutorials online.
But it’s really only for hot water and to ensure that I don’t have to run the kitchen faucet for some time before I have hot water there. A temperature sensor would be overkill for that, although it sounds like a nice project
My favorite is a MiniMote that have a scen “Night” that turns off my light
A Automation that turns off all TVs/Mediaplayers at 03.00 on weekdays, so if i fall asleep with the tv on, its atleast off when i wakes up.
Notifiys about when washing machine and laudry is ready.
Some lights that turns on when someone comes home, and turns off when noone is @home.
What i would love is a input thing where I can set when I should wake up, and then it turns bedroom light to a low dim, and then dim it up. Havent checked it out yet how i would do this, but is the next thing on the list.
I have an appdaemon solution that sort-of works. It’s based off of your google calendar. It looks for a meeting called “wakeup”. Whenever that meeting is scheduled, it turns on the lights in my bedroom. The reason I say sort-of is everything with google calendar seems to be more complicated than it needs to be. But the good side, is I just put in a recurring event for every morning at 5:30 and my lights turn on at 5:30. My kids have different schedules for different days of the week depending on class and work schedules, so their recurring wakeup times are a little different, but it’s all configured in google calendar.
I would like a device for my car, that plugs into my cigarette lighter, providing a two port USB charger, as well as connecting with my house via WiFi or Zwave as a simple beacon so that I can easily detect the presence of the car. It should have a rechargeable battery as part of it so that even when the car is off, it continues to advertise it’s presence. It only should attach to the network I configure it with, and when it can’t find that network, or the zwave network it is associated to, it should stop advertising for security reasons until it finds the correct network again, or is placed into setup mode.
One more I would like and I’ll be quiet for a little while. I would like to be able replace the on/off switch on a lamp with a smart on/off switch of the same type. So you need pushbutton switches, twist switches, etc. Either that or I’m going to start taping live wires to the switches so people that try to turn the light off at the switch get shocked. Maybe that way they will learn to stop touching the light and use the control pad, or Alexa.
My most useful one is the central ventilation control. Turns on if the stovetop is turned on (measured by power draw), the humidity in the bathroom is above the adjacent room (with a threshold), or the lights have been on in the bathroom for a while.
Another one I am very happy with is the light control - turns on based on motion detection, and keeps it on for a while, which is extended every time a new movement is detected. But, if the light is changed manually (through app or switch), the automation backs off for a while (also extended by movement in the room), so that it is very simple to override. It also dims the lights to a low level before turning it entirely off.
[quote=“stiansoevik, post:40, topic:15389”]
Turns on if the stovetop is turned on (measured by power draw)
[/quote] Nice, what equipment do you use to check power usage for the stove? Is it one of those meters using clamps around the wire?
My fav is more about the cost and hardware than the automation, but the automation is simple and helpful.
I have a dash button in my bedroom, so when i goto bed i leave everything on and on getting into bed, i press my dash button and everything shuts down. £5 button for quite a time saver, great!
I have a Blukii beacon left inside the glovebox for exact same purpose along with Bluetooth LE Tracker setup.
Works reliably and has been for last 6 months
This particular one has a large battery and I haven’t changed it yet(More than 6 months). Batteries on the small beacons has lasted only for about 3 months though.
Run roomba if nobody is home during the weekday. Standard scheduling doesnt account for sick days, long weekends, or other events that change the week.
If someone does come home, just stop the roomba.
Second favorite is a simple light on the patio, managed by the sun. I live on the ground floor, it helps the patio cam, and acts as a deterrent.
Third would be some presence detection’s to flick stuff on/off. I have an inside camera, and I like to keep the paranoia to a minimum when we are home.
My favorite WOULD be the automation for climate, but I am having trouble figuring out what makes us ‘feel’ cold. Half the time it triggers, we don’t want it. The other half is when it doesn’t trigger but it does actually feel cold… winter is gone so will have to wait till next year to play with it.
I’ve tried some formulas on “feels-like” calculations in the past but didn’t have a humidity sensor in the house. We should start a thread about this now that I have one. Maybe some other people can chime in.
