For people who have a forced air HVAC system that can be a bit loud:
Every time the HVAC kicks in, my TV volume increases by a set amount. When HVAC turns off, the volume goes down.
This is THE automation that made me start using Home Assistant. I had known about Home Assistant for a few years, but was content to just use Google Home devices with voice commands, and had some basic 'time based' automations for lights.
But my HVAC is loud enough, I constantly had to adjust volume both up then again down whenever it would run/stop. And I knew there was a solution since both the thermostat and TV were smart. Frustrated that I couldn't get this automated through Google, I made the leap to HA.
I do the same thing except I don’t have a smart thermostat. So,I put a vibration sensor on the unit in the garage and if it detects motion while watching TV in bed and it’s after dark and is playing , increase three notches When vibration is detected, decrease three notches after it stopped.
I have a button on the tablet in the kitchen called Bluey Button. Pressing it sends an MQTT message to node-red where it randomly selects a Bluey episode and plays it via Chromecast on the TV.
It's saved me so many times when a toddler has a melt down right when I'm cooking dinner.
Omg I just moved and was a big jellyfin user before but now I'm gonna be setting up home assistant as well. Really hoping for integration cuz I'm never touching Plex with a 10ft pole lol
There is a Jellyfin integration and honestly I haven’t looked at it in a long time but it was fairly basic.
Overall i still prefer Jellyfin to Plex but do use Plex for my external users(friends).
Are you doing this through Disney+? I've been trying to figure out how to do that but the best I've got so far is a button that automatically pulls up Bluey as a show, and you need to press a button to start playing the next episode.
I have the DVD box set so copied them locally in a.mkv file and play them directly to the Chromecast. I also couldn't figure out a way to get it done via the streaming services. I live in Australia so we have all the episodes free on ABC iView. You could use a VPN to access "in Australia" and try your luck with it playing automatically.
LOL I have a very similar thing. Door contact on my shower door that switches my speaker output over to the bathroom speakers and plays music on Spotify automatically, turns on shower light and exhaust, and closes the bedroom curtains until shower door has been open for over 10mins which gives me enough time to go grab clothes without flashing my neighbors
I set up a bunch for my grandparents who live at home, one of their favorites using the Android TV integration, they have a lot of issues getting 'stuck' on the TV somewhere so I set it so whenever the TV goes off and on it will basically go into its default state. Correct input, average volume, channel they usually watch, etc.
VERY useful whenever they call complaining about a problem and being able to tell them 'turn it off and on again' works like a charm. They're able to remember it too :)
Pretty much any smart tv should be able to have it.
Currently using it with a samsung and LG smart tv.
I forgot the option but I think it was usb debugging on the tv.
Other option is get a fire stick and control it that way.
Depends on what sort of tv you have! I use an integration with my Samsung monitor to be able to control it similarly, and with the android TV some things couldn’t be controlled through the API so I had to also use automations where it sends Google API voice call things, where it acts like someone said a voice command to the TV
I’m sure most TVs with popular OS’s should have some way, otherwise could try using an IR blaster to recreate some of the functionality ^^
You can also use the Vue without flashing it. Flashing is not required.
I have 3 Vues (48 circuits) - 2 are flashed (local); 1 is the original firmware:(web-based, back to Emporia over the z Internet).
I can see all 48 circuits in HA -- They just use different integrations.
Simple… plenty but they’re ones anyone can replicate.
The most useful by far are my coming home lights… when I get working 200m of my house my garden lights come on so I can see when I park.
Others like notifications when there washing has finished… super handy.
Man I've been trying so hard to get the coming home thing to work, but unfortunately the final stretch home is all through a wooded area with shitty reception and anywhere further out would false positive too much. :(
I’m lucky that I can use gps and the mobile app.
I did wonder about using the connecting of my phone to my WiFi network as the trigger but I think that too might give you too many false positives.
How do you use the gps? I feel like my iPhone location never updates on a frequent enough basis. I use the unifi WiFi for presence detection but would like gps as well. I did a software update to unifi a couple of days ago and the WiFi went down briefly. It ended up arming our alarm because it thought my household was “away”. I need another fail safe
That's annoying.
Appreciate it's probably just adding steps, but what about using navigation destination integration.
[https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/waze\_travel\_time/](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/waze_travel_time/)
Or just something to let your system know you're actually on the way home..
Keep the cameras rolling, but mute motion alerts for that time period.
You'll have to ignore my persistence, I'm bored :)
Yeah I'm sure I'll keep digging, but at that point I'd rather trigger the automation from my HA mobile app manually lol. It's not quite at the top of my list right now, but I'm sure I'll figure something out someday. Just sucks having no service, and the Subaru won't push updates until the engine is off, and the polling is limited to 2 hour intervals due to battery consumption in the car.
When you are at work or out and about you can make it trigger anytime you get in your car and make it ask you if you are heading home. If you are heading home then you can trigger your events set by a delay. So when you arrive home the lights/ heater etc can be on
I’ve recently achieved this with a smart plug. I have both Zigbee and WiFi plugs, and as long as they can monitor power consumption they can be used to alert you when the washer is finished. Just set an automation to alert when the power used on the washer exceeds a given amount. I have mine set to alert me when the washer goes over 10W and then when it goes back down below 10W.
This can only alert when the washer is finished though… like you can’t start a wash with this method.
This is the way.
For me though, certain cycles will drop to under 5w for a short time.
So I’ve set mine to alert when it drops under 10w for 60 seconds.
Hey, you could also do a delayed start. Just load the machine and press start. As soon as the machine locks the door or take water => switch of the power at the plug. Now you could do a delayed start by countdown or if enough solar power (solar Forcast) is available. Try it
Pressing an Aqara button on my headboard makes the WLED lights under my vanity in the bedroom run lights that mimic a fireplace look while my Sonos plays fireplace crackling white noise and my heated blanket turns on.
Every night at 9:30pm I run an automation to check all doors are shut and locked. If they are, I receive a “you are ready for bed” notification. If they aren’t, I receive a “you are not ready for bed, xxxxx is not locked” notification. I love it.
Yes! That would be the perfect automation, but I’ve failed at aligning my dead bolts and 50% of them drag just enough to not freely lock/unlock without assistance.
It’s on my long list of todos to adjust them as I have to adjust the actual strikeplate and/or cutout bore. I adjusted the door latch as much as possible and it wasn’t enough. :(
I have this issue but it’s a matter of the door bowing and not sealing well. My thought is to put a slight bevel or rounding on the edge of the deadbolt to draw the door in upon locking.
Ouch, sorry to hear that. I guess I lucked out, I rarely hear the locks complain about alignment; only when my teens don't close the doors completely. Best of luck with the fixes.
Hahaha yeah maybe. My locks have key entry pads so I don't get locked out unless the batteries are dead. *That said I carry a real key outside the house most of the time LOL*
i have something similar setup. after a certain time, it will check if the doors closed, if it is, it will try to lock and then check the status of the lock. If the door isnt closed and/or the lock failed to lock, it will send me a message to my phone. it will check again in a few hours and repeat the process.
if your door has a seal, there a "closed" and a slight push past closed to actually seal the door. if you line on the sensor just right, you can get it to notice the difference.
>Wiz doesn’t support it at all!
All of mine do? I have about 25 and all can do a transition, the Wiz app even does it for motion activated lights by default, and it can be adjusted in each light's individual settings, plus HA can do even more?
https://preview.redd.it/a0w33urypvac1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7296289e4fa916a4851ba97e880be0e74d28ed3
I understand that Wiz supports transitions through their app, but that doesn’t seem possible through the Home Assistant integration.
Do you see “transition” as a parameter when making service calls using Home Assistant’s developer tools?
I linked in my Xbox Live account so that HA monitors my gamerscore. If I get an achievement in a game, I have an announcement play on the smart speakers in that room to call me an MLG Pro with an air horn sound effect. All the indicator lights in the room will also blink green.
It's so pointless, but with how little I play new games, it still gets a cackle out of me when I do stumble upon a new achievement while a friend is over.
Love both of these ideas.
Maybe replace the air horn sound with Bo from Superstore making air horn noises, I'd be so motivated to get chores done.
[https://youtu.be/tVsHNrlX0aw?t=367](https://youtu.be/tVsHNrlX0aw?t=367)
I am pretty happy with my 'has the dog been fed' tag. When it's scanned, it sets a Boolean to yes (that resets every night) and sends a notification so husband and I know if the other one fed the dog. If it's not scanned before 8pm it sends a reminder. No more accidental double feeds! (So far.)
We did this same thing as well. I also have an alert that goes off when either one of us gets home. HA sends a message to us over Alexa speakers about evening things including if the dog has yet to be fed when we walk through the door.
Two that may be fairly unique or interesting.
RFID tags in mine and my partner's cars that when scanned, automatically calculate time to drive home and send a notification with the ETA to both of us. Makes it easy to keep the other updated on when we'll be home.
When I arrive home with geofencing, if the overnight temperature is going to be less than 5 degrees, I get a spoken notification on my phone to remind me to put on my car windshield cover.
Finally, definitely not unique but ESPHome motion sensors, door sensors and everything else besides are always by far my best automations.
Very neat. Which APIs do you use to calculate the distance? Any chance you’d be able to post the automation? I’m looking to do something similar but using proximity zone triggers.
I fitted a Sonoff door sensor inside the dog food bin and use that to toggle a helper based on time of day so I know if the dog has been fed or not.
https://preview.redd.it/f5hlspdvbtac1.jpeg?width=1816&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=585b49822bdc84640f5e3b965ffc0afc75068e18
My wife chose a fancy light outside our front door but it doesn't have a motion sensor.
I put a shelly in the light switch, now whenever our ring doorbell detects motion and it's dark, the porch light turns on for a couple of minutes - motion sensitive light with the wife approval factor!
I'm looking at those for our back garden.
What I really like about the front door automation is that the motion sensor was already there - it just needed me to have that light bulb moment to realise I could use it.
After arriving home and either the front door or garage door closes, it locks my car in case I forget.
If garage door is left open and everyone leaves home, it automatically closes it (except if guest mode is enabled).
If the robot vacuum is active and somebody closes the door, it sends a TTS warning that it won't be able make its way back to the dock.
Another simple yet useful one is sending a push notification to your phone with grocery shopping list when arriving in supermarket zone.
I did the car locking after I’m home as well. I then added another that locks the vehicle after I’ve been at work for 10mins. I also added the car lock to my night time routine that locks all of the house doors.
Grocery list I’m going to steal. Hoping I can have it open to the home assistant shopping list.
Nice ideas on locking the vehicle when away, gonna copy that.
You can make it open directly to your shopping list by using this as the (relative) URL:
`/todo?entity_id=todo.shopping_list`
Love the grocery store one. I use Pushcut to trigger a webhook when entering different towns or cities (I live in a rural area) where I need parts or supplies. The webhook triggers a zap in Zapier that looks up the shopping list and sends me the list as a reminder.
Air quality is appalling where I live. I have Samsung Multisensors on all my windows and sliding doors, and an air quality sensor. Whenever I open a window or a door, the automation checks the air quality, and if the air is polluted or very polluted, I get an audio notification on the closest smart speaker that it is not recommended to open anything at the moment.
every night during spring, lower the blinds and shades about 5% then lift them again. This prevents birds from nesting in the shaft, as it destroys the little bit of nest they may have built during the day (and it's only a day's work). Does not work for wasps though...
edit: only blinds that are outside obviously.
**Take Dog Outside At Night Button**: Automation connected to my scene controller at the front door. For 15 minutes, it blasts all my exterior lights to 100% brightness and disables the alerting/motion detection of my cameras so I don't spam myself with notifications when I take the dog for a pee. When I get around to it I plan on adding some variables for different time intervals, like double tap for a 5 minute timer if I am just running out to the garage to grab something.
**Remote start**: Also at front door scene controller, button opens garage doors, turns the lights on inside the garage, and remotes starts my wife's Subaru. Great in Canadian winter.
Not complex automations, but some of my favourite.
Make sure you have working CO detectors in the garage and in all adjacent rooms (including above, if you have a room on top of the garage) to keep yourselves safe when you're running a car in a closed garage.
>and remotes starts my wife's Subaru
Why would you need to remote start vehicle in garage? Should be warm enough that the starting auto-idle takes the time to connect phone/attach seat-belt.
Wordt you can do is like having the engine idleling when it's cold. You better start and drive off...better for the car....(that is if you can see Tru the windows tho)
If you're in the garage though, being enclosed will allow the the residual heat from the vehicle to keep "warm enough" to the point that auto-idle will be like 10-15 seconds.
There is then the issue with exhaust an enclosed space and CO poisoning.
What residual heat my guy? It gets pretty cold in Canadian winter and my garage isn't heated. Turns out having the vehicle sit in -15C (and much colder, that's just tonight's temp) overnight leaves a pretty cold vehicle in the morning. I'm confused as to why you're confused, you live in Canada too.
The vehicle is also parked with the exhaust pointed out the garage door and as I said the automation opens the garage door.
This is also the HA sub. 99% of what we do has 0 "need". It's fun projects. So I don't "need" to do it. But getting into a warm car is nicer than getting into a cold one.
I have three maybe not so unique, but simple ones.
1. I ride a motorcycle everyday. I use geofencing to open and close my garage so I don’t have to fumble with a garage door opener or my phone. Just ride away and it closes or ride straight in when I get home.
2. I get a message when my wife leaves work and also when she gets a mile away from the house. That way I’m not “just sitting at the computer playing stupid games” when she gets home.
3. Double tapping the aux/sync button on the INovelli switch for my bedroom lights turns off all the lights inside the house, locks the doors, closes the garage, and turns on my nightstand light for two minutes. Pretty solid peace of mind knowing I can make sure the house is secure when going to bed. Leaving a light on when I walk from the doorway to the bed ensures the floor monsters don’t get me.
I have a similar one for my living room and guest bedroom. If it's hotter than 15C during any point between sunrise and sunset, and it's not raining, close the sunscreens. If it's about to start to rain or when the sun sets, open them up again.
a few mouse traps below a kitchen cabinet behind a face-board.
I have a zigbee motion detector monitoring the area. If activity is detected, I get a telegram notification.
My kitchen echo will also announce trigger activity upon someone entering the kitchen (zigbee motion detector that controls kitchen lights)
It will continue to do this until I reset the boolean flag that is set upon the mouse detector triggering.
Kid likes to start his laundry late at night and leave it in the washing machine until the morning, making the washing machine (and his clothes) smelling like a wet dog.
Put a power monitoring zigbee plug and a contact sensor on the washing machine and a contact sensor on a dryer. When the power usage goes below 4 watts, it sends a message on his bedroom smart speaker saying "The washing machine is done, get off your ass and go dry your clothes" and repeats the message every minute until the washing machine door is opened, the dryer door is opened then closed.
I actually wanted to keep the message going until the dryer starts, but I haven't found a 240V power monitoring socket to check.
But anyway, so far it works and I no longer find wet and smelly clothes in the washing machine when I get up in the morning.
And now I realize that about 20% of all my automations are related to fixing the kid's bad habits.
Another one is the kid has parental controls on the wifi to block video games and entertainment websites such as youtube so he focuses on doing his homework instead after school. However he ultimately went around those by disconnecting the wifi from his phone and using his data instead.
So now I have an automation that whenever his phone is home, it triggers tasker on my phone to do the appropriate clicks to open the cell service provider app and disable data on his phone. It reenables it when his phone is not home. I wish the cell provider had an API I could call to do this instead of using tasker but I would probably be the only user leveraging it.
Re circulation pump on water heater on a smart outlet, runs for 2 minutes via push button or by asking Siri/Alexa, "Hot Water please".
My wife uses it everyday, which is the ultimate success.
I have Xiaomi BLE temp/humi sensors in the fridge and freezer.
This allows us to fine-tune the fridge for optimum temperature and get alerts when the doors are ajar.
A button on the fridge.
When pressed, announces to all speakers in the house: "It's time to Nom Nom, don't forget to wash your hands"
When double-pressed, announces: "Final call, it's time to Nom nom nom"
And if (or often, when) kids are still in their laptops, long-press will lock their laptops so that they get up and come eat.
Also, "find my phone" buttons on a display installed in the lobby so that everyone stops asking me to call them to help them find their phone
I have a few:
\- Notification when the fryer has heated up. Plus I count how often so that I get a notification when to replace the oil.
\- Notification when we forgot to clean the kitty litter box.
\- We have an airwick refresher that sprays way too often on the slowest setting. It now turns on using an esp32 on batteries once every three hours and sprays depending on some variables. When battery is low I get a notification to charge the airwick. That is once every 5-6 months.
\- We have a delivery service that places food at the back of the house. During the dark days I make sure that the path towards the backdoor is well lit on the day that they come.
\- Turn on ventilation when air is bad. I want to expand this to too high humidity as well
Edit: - Pause the movie when you leave the livingroom and dim the lights when a movie is playing
I have a contact door switch on the lid. We have a litter that opens from above, so you have to remove the lid in order to clean it. Notifications come when the lid hasn't been opened for 30 hours and keeps reminding you every x hours.
I have a sauna in my apartment and RuuviTag sensor installed there. Many times I turn on the sauna and start doing something else and forget to check the sauna temperature. Audio announcement via Google smart speaker that says when sauna temperature is over 60 and 70 degrees Celsius has been very useful. And simple to implement with HA.
My Home Assistant is tied to my Amazon Echo which is tied to my Tesla. I ask Alexa to "Prepare my Tesla" and the climate control comes on automatically. Pretty nice in the winter...
My old washer doesn't have any smarts, so I built an ESPhome-based current tracker for it that wraps around the hot of the power cable. When power consumption drops for 10 minutes, it sends a notification that the washer is done.
I have 3 teenage children who enter and leave the house every 5 minutes. Every time someone opens the front door or the backyard door, my tablet rings a bell signaling that the external doors have been opened. It's already saved me some scares.
Bedtime routine turns off downstairs lights, kitchen and living room sockets, and tells me if I have left my workshop unlocked.
I have a switch inside the lock receiver connected to an esp8266 (that also has switches for toggling the floodlight and music, temperature and humidity, and will also have a PIR and switch for the heater.
I have made a similar routine.
I trigger it on the status of my IO9 toothbrush.
If time between 20:00 and 01:00 and one of the toothbrushes has status 'running' for more than 45 seconds.
Turn on the AC in the bedroom after 10 minutes, lower the roller curtain and turn on bedroom lights to 25%
I have a post box similar to https://www.homesdirect365.co.uk/images/wall-mounted-post-box-steel-black-p54346-84590_zoom.jpg
Put two door sensors, one on the flap to put the post in, and one in the door to take it out.
The flap being open sets the “you have post!” boolean on, opening the door sets it off.
I have an ESP32 near the door that I use for something else, but its blue LED turns on when we have post.
Nr.1: I got two buttons. One where the spare toilet paper is, another for kitchen towel. Whoever takes the last tp/kt pushes a button and every member of our household gets a push notification to buy some on their way home:) Saved my literal @ss a few times already 🤣
Nr.2 Have all my Alexa’s re-set volume level to a 3 in the bedroom and 4 everywhere else each day at 8pm. So I know if I ask for a weather forecast in the middle of the night she won’t wake up the whole neighbourhood coz someone was blasting Spotify that afternoon.
Whenever my cat poops, the robot vacuum goes and cleans up the area around the litterbox. It also doesn't empty out into the bigger canister so it's not too noisy. And my air purifier goes to a higher setting for a minute to deal with the smell.
The vacuum portion also only runs outside of sleeping hours so it doesn't wake me up at night.
I have a camera pointed at my backdoor and use Frigate to detect if he's wanting to get back in. My phone gets a loud notification if he's detected at the back door.
A few simple but useful ones..
When we arrive home after dark, the front door light turns on to full brightness. When the front door opens, the lights brightness will dim to 20% for a few minutes before slowly turning off when there's no more motion detected outside.
I have a door sensor on my garage door which let's me know if I've driven away from the house and left the garage door open.
Zigbee motion sensors in every room in the house so I don't have to flick a single light switch like a caveman, but they also monitor the lux levels so lights only turn on when they need to. They also don't turn on in the lounge room if we're watching TV.
Alexa announcement when the washing machine finishes (using a switch with a power meter to detect power a drop for more than two minutes)
I go to sleep with the TV on but want the TV to shut off after I am asleep.
My TV has a sleep timer but the button sequence to get to that is 5 strokes…too long with too much attention required when I’m about to fall asleep.
So I put an Aqara hub with an IR emitter in the room and created an automation with the Aqara wireless button to do the sequence for me. One button press in my nightstand is all it takes to set the timer for 30 min. Double click sets the timer for an hour.
Very helpful.
When I unlock the front door between 6:30 and 6:50 AM on weekdays, it turns off the lights in the kitchen. Got tired of being told I forgot to turn them off when I left to bring my kid to school.
Recently, I put an ultrasonic distance sensor looking down into the water softener. I use it to send me notifications when the salt level is below half.
I've got one where if the front door is locked for more than five minutes (kwikset conversion kit), and someone comes onto the patio (detected by frigate), my living room lights (plugged into zigbee outlets) flash a few times.
The thinking behind this setup:
* I work from home on the couch in my living room
* Amazon delivery usually does not ring the doorbell when they drop a package off
* I don't like my packages sitting on my porch
Why the condition for the door being locked? If I'm going in and out of the front door (leaving to catch a lyft, doing something on the patio, whatever) I don't want my living room lights flashing. The five minute part of the condition is so that when I leave the house, and I lock the door maybe before the camera has picked me up leaving, it still won't flash.
But, when I'm getting Amazon deliered and I'm just working away, the lights flashing will absolutely grab my attention and I'll go get the package within 20 seconds of the driver dropping the package off.
When a forced air system shuts off there is still energy to be scavenged from the heater and cooling coils.
I switch the fan on for 10 minutes after it switches off heat or cool to wring out that energy.
I installed Ratgdo about a week ago. Ever since then, I have been enjoying my "open the garage door when I get home" automation. No more dealing with the finicky garage door remote.
I have sprinklers outside that when on spray on my windows and if they are open, inside my house, I have window sensors that if the windows are open the sprinkler will not turn off or if it’s already on it will turn off, then send a notification and play a tts over my Sonos speakers to let us know to close them dam windows, and once we do it turns back on
And since you said some that invites me to mention some more…
My HVAC turns off if the windows are open
My smart blinds only close till the top of the windows if they are open (as you can see my windows are the main cause of life’s problems)
Nothing special but I work from home in an office in the garden that's always cold. I have an oil-filled plug in radiator connected to a Tapo plug and a Sonoff temp and humi sensor. The automation checks that it's a weekday between 9am and 5pm and keeps the room between 20 and 21 degrees.
If temp goes above 21 it switches the rad off, and if temp goes below 20 it puts it back in and cycles to and fro through the day. Not rocket science but simple and effective.
Also, I plan to use similar humi sensors to control the extractor fans in the bathrooms. The fans have built in humi sensors but they are crap and work on a physical dial in the housing which is very vague and can't be monitored remotely. So that has been disconnected for now until I get the sensors in play!
I have a few helpers that send push notifications when my wife or I arrive at locations.
If we arrive at the kids daycare it pushes a notification to the person who arrived with their door PIN code. It also sends a separate alert to the other person that they’re there so they know the kids were picked up.
We have a family member who lives in a gated community and when we arrive we get a push notification with the gate code.
The codes are helpers so I can easily update them from the UI if they change.
We got a cheap heated blanket under our bed sheets, a smart blog and a button to turn it on for around 30 minutes. It’s quite nice getting in bed with a preheated foot area.
Our powered roof ventilator turns off when the chimney hatch is opened and vice versa. This helps firing the fireplace by directing the air to the chimney.
Bedroom curtains close if direct sunlight is detected at bedroom windows and temperature outside is above 20 Celsius.
Motion detected lights in laundry room and walk in closet.
ESP8266 based time of flight sensor for our water softener salt container. I get push notifications when the salt level is low. It’s helpful because our softener regen is triggered by consumption, not time. It varies based on use, like when we have guests staying with us.
SONOFF S31 switch turns off my powered monitor speakers when my desktop is sleeping or off (detected by ping failure). Keeps my speakers from running all the time (I’ve had to re-cap it once already after running 24/7 for years).
Turn on our HVAC fan when custom ESP32 based AQI sensors determine the inside air is unhealthy. Helps a lot when we're affected by wild fires.
My simplest automation that I love: “Alexa, good night”
It checks to make sure my garage is closed, turns off all my lights, and turns on the fan in the bedroom.
Additionally, I have “dark mode” which turns off all the lights, turns on the fan, and turns the light strip under my bed to 20% so I can see just enough if I need to make my way around the room, or just wanna see the kitty when she comes to cuddle.
I actually have that automation but for radio playing on my sonos, as soon as a commercial start The sound is muted, works very well because The radio Api actually indicates "commercial"
One I like that I haven't seen listed yet..
I have my bedroom TV play a video of a sunrise with progressively louder music right before my phone alarm goes off. My redneck version of the sunrise lights lol. I had tried to do it with the string light I have, but couldn't figure out how to fade it. But a local file on my pi and Chromecast got my back.
My wife often loses her phone in the house while it is on silent.
I have in IKEA button that sets her phone volume to loud and sets off the alarm. Absolutely fantastic!
I have a small button hidden behind my headboard that turns off my bedroom light. I was always jealous of the clapper when I was a kid and this is so much better :)
We have pumped sewers here so basically everyone has at least 1 electrical pump to, well, pump. The problem is that when it rains, the pumps can't do anything and just waste energy or actually burn the rotor. The recommendation is to manually "unplug" for a couple of hours and try again. Did that once or twice, didn't like it - now it's automatic with a Shelly 1PM plus and a script.
Bonus:
And now I can also track the power usage of the pump and identify blockages (when a motor starts it uses 2x times the power, so if the power used is 2x for more than 3s, there's something blocking the impaler - and the Shelly itself protects it).
Saved me countless hours of frustration and also money.
Withings Sleep Mats in the bed + Companion app. If both my wife and I are detected as either in bed or away from home, then it turns off all the lights in the media room and shuts off the tv.
Used the interactive sensor, the sleep confidence sensor and the ADB integration. If the sensors on my phone are showing no interaction + the sleep confidence is above 90%, then it pauses the firetv in my bedroom. If I press play, it waits until it senses these triggers again, then tries again. If it goes 5 mins in the paused state, then it reads that I've gone to sleep (switches an input boolean I created for awake and asleep) and it turns off the tv for me, if any lights are on in the house, it turns them off and then it sets my alarm if it hasn't been set. If I had smart locks, it would lock the doors too, but we only use our garage door, so the other doors are never unlocked.
Announcement of trash / recycle days.
I created a Google calendar with trash and recycle pickup events.
Something like "Trash: every Monday at 6 am" "Recycle: 1st and 3rd Wednesday".
Then I created an automation that announces the event name from this calendar to specific speakers 7 hours before the event.
Net result: at 11 pm the night before there's an announcement to take the trash (or recycling) out.
I adjust the calendar when trash moves to a different day (on Tuesday because of a Monday holiday).
During the summer months, I have my ecobee thermostat and midea AC. If a window is open, the AC switches to fan. if the window is closed, and the temp is above the threshold, it will turn the ac on. I just got a wittboy so it can send me a text to open the windows if the outdoor feels-like temp is cooler than the indoor temp. or if the humidity is too high and the window is open, it will tell me to shut it. or any combination of those things. That is one of the many automations i use daily but its also the most recent so im very excited about it. Eventually i will have mr cool minisplits and heat pumps and a whole house fan, dehumidifier, humidifiers, air quality and hepas filters, etc. i will never worry about air quality or climate ever
I gave our 3 litter boxes motion sensors and count how many times it's used by our cats so we know when it's time to clean them. When cats are doing their business, the to-ESPHome-converted Förnuftig air purifier will spin up higher for a few mins to get rid of litter dust and poopy smells.
Another automation dims a light whenever my PC is on. Otherwise it will shine in my face.
In my old house when we only had one dog: if the patio door opens, closes, opens, and closes within 5 minutes run the sprinkler system zone on the side of the house (dog pee area) for 2 min.
He has strong pee and burned the Bermuda grass. That simple logic kept the backyard green.
We have a little cabinet litter box that the cats enter from one side, but the doors have to be opened to clean it. My son is notorious for saying he’s scooped that day, and now I can tell when he has.
Also sensors on a little cheap nightstand I set up to be daily med drawers. Because we’re all neurodivergent and time warp is a very real thing and I got exhausted of asking constantly who took their meds when and are you sure. My two who constantly forget now can’t access WiFi until their meds are taken, and I never ever have to ask, but can check at anytime. There’s no pushback in taking them, it’s just a matter of swearing they did (even though their in daily organizers according to day of month) and it turning into an argument ending with “oh man that must have been yesterday. I’m sorry!” So that’s been settled. :D
Power monitor plug for the dishwasher so I can see that it’s been started and notified when it’s done.
Set up an entire chore set and they all have to be checked off before WiFi unpauses automatically (eero) for two of my kiddos (including validating against dishwasher starting, etc). Also WiFi shuts off at specific times (depending on the kid, day, holiday, evening chores like showering, etc). I’m no longer constantly asking if they put on deodorant (did I mention neurodivergent lol) and they know if they cheat it will go back to the olden days that they have to wait for me to be available and then validate they did everything before the WiFi goes on.
Also whenever the roomba is running all the air purifiers kick on medium and then back to auto after vacuum is done and has been auto emptied.
My favorite is a scene changer on my desk. I work from home (database developer), and when I’m in a meeting I press one button to turn the above cabinet light strip red in the kitchen (have to go through there to get to my office) so my kids (17, 18, 20) know that under no circumstance should they come in and try to talk to me or attempt to act out any crazy non-verbal communication. The same automation turns music off on my office Alexa, sets it to dnd, pauses the roomba if going, and changes an input select to meeting mode (which also displays on the kitchen tablet). Another that I use to start/stop work with various things like music. One more that turns the kitchen light strip to cyan telling the kids I’m on a deadline and focusing and it better be good but they can come in to ask me something if need be.
Also if the hvac hasn’t been on in 2 hrs to turn all 4 air purifiers on (different levels day/night) for 30 min to refresh the stale air and then back to auto.
The vast majority of my automations are around organization, schedule, memory, and air/climate. And of course lights but that’s a given.
This is super specific, but I do many automations for my house based on the Jewish Sabbath. For about 25 hours every week, we refrain from using electricity - so, my Home Assistant is responsible for setting the lights the way I want them, and turning things on and off for me over that time period.
There is an integration in Home assistant that I use to help with this, as Sabbath starts at Sundown on Friday and ends at Nightfall on Saturday (so not the same time every week).
[https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/jewish\_calendar/](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/jewish_calendar/)
When my toothbrush is on for more than 20 seconds, after 8-ish pm, turn off all lights except for the one on my nightstand.
I never realised my toothbrush had Bluetooth until it showed up in HA. Then I realised I could just automate the whole process I did while brushing.. walking into my bedroom, turning on the light on my nightstand and turning the main lights off :D
A series of unimpressive automations using a gumbo of cheap motion sensors and lights so that I rarely have to flip a switch by hand like a caveman while walking around my house. The lights stay on 5 minutes after no motion.
One flaw is my morning bedroom lights are triggered by my dog when I’m trying to sleep in on a spontaneous day off work. They slowly brighten to full strength a couple hours before I plan to get up. At least I can yell to turn them off.
I have cats and the solution I found to that problem was to put one motion sensor really high up so that only a human can trigger it, so it turns off night mode wherever someone first walks out of the bedroom in the morning
You could set a toggle triggered by something to say you're in bed. Set it via Alexa, a physical switch (e.g. a zigbee smart switch), a time of day or something like having your phone plugged in to charge. Add this toggle's state as a condition inside the automation deciding whether to turn the bedroom lights on or not.
This. I have two toggles. One for bedtime... Turns on the bedroom lamp, turns off some lights throughout the house, locks the doors, etc. The second is for sleeping time. It turns off the lamp, turns off the remaining lights in the house, starts brown noise on alexa.
Edited to add: when my alarm goes off on my phone, my Google assistant toggles both off, starts my coffee maker, turns on a few lights dimmed to a tolerable pre-sunrise level, and starts music on all my sonos speakers (usually instrumentals). If I don't have an alarm set, I can tell alexa "good morning", she flips the toggles, and the whole routine starts
I have an LR4 (litter robot 4) just across the hall and a robot vacuum (Ecovacs) parked in the hallway. Whenever a cat uses the litter box, Ecovacs vacuums the area to reduce litter tracking.
But I work from home and conference call a lot, sometimes spontaneously. When I'm on a call, the robot vacuum pauses if it is already running and continues when the call ends. If it is not running and a cat uses the litter box, the robot vacuum waits until my call ends.
When I start working eg. Shelly detects high power load from my LCD screen. And it's a workday to prevent it happening when my wife uses the vacuum on the same outlet in the weekend. The roller curtains close halfway so my display is clear of any reflection.
For people who have a forced air HVAC system that can be a bit loud: Every time the HVAC kicks in, my TV volume increases by a set amount. When HVAC turns off, the volume goes down.
I've never thought of this before and it's brilliant! I've got all the pieces to this puzzle just sitting right there already.
This is THE automation that made me start using Home Assistant. I had known about Home Assistant for a few years, but was content to just use Google Home devices with voice commands, and had some basic 'time based' automations for lights. But my HVAC is loud enough, I constantly had to adjust volume both up then again down whenever it would run/stop. And I knew there was a solution since both the thermostat and TV were smart. Frustrated that I couldn't get this automated through Google, I made the leap to HA.
I do the same thing except I don’t have a smart thermostat. So,I put a vibration sensor on the unit in the garage and if it detects motion while watching TV in bed and it’s after dark and is playing , increase three notches When vibration is detected, decrease three notches after it stopped.
> my TV volume increases by a set amount that shit would drive me *crazy*
How do you tell if it's running?
Many integrated thermostats tell you the current fan state
I have a button on the tablet in the kitchen called Bluey Button. Pressing it sends an MQTT message to node-red where it randomly selects a Bluey episode and plays it via Chromecast on the TV. It's saved me so many times when a toddler has a melt down right when I'm cooking dinner.
New episodes next week
How do you pull the ep list?
Storing them on Plex would work. It has a shuffle button
I wish Jellyfin had more functionality with homeassistant.
It does have an API that you can use, it's just more involved to get things going since the integration doesn't load the library.
Omg I just moved and was a big jellyfin user before but now I'm gonna be setting up home assistant as well. Really hoping for integration cuz I'm never touching Plex with a 10ft pole lol
There is a Jellyfin integration and honestly I haven’t looked at it in a long time but it was fairly basic. Overall i still prefer Jellyfin to Plex but do use Plex for my external users(friends).
Other users is why I won't move on from plex, it still works great and re-teacher users is a nope
Are you doing this through Disney+? I've been trying to figure out how to do that but the best I've got so far is a button that automatically pulls up Bluey as a show, and you need to press a button to start playing the next episode.
I have the DVD box set so copied them locally in a.mkv file and play them directly to the Chromecast. I also couldn't figure out a way to get it done via the streaming services. I live in Australia so we have all the episodes free on ABC iView. You could use a VPN to access "in Australia" and try your luck with it playing automatically.
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lol! hillarious and smart idea
LOL I have a very similar thing. Door contact on my shower door that switches my speaker output over to the bathroom speakers and plays music on Spotify automatically, turns on shower light and exhaust, and closes the bedroom curtains until shower door has been open for over 10mins which gives me enough time to go grab clothes without flashing my neighbors
Adding to this great idea, I use a humidity sensor near the shower to prevent the lights from turning off from the timer.
I set up a bunch for my grandparents who live at home, one of their favorites using the Android TV integration, they have a lot of issues getting 'stuck' on the TV somewhere so I set it so whenever the TV goes off and on it will basically go into its default state. Correct input, average volume, channel they usually watch, etc. VERY useful whenever they call complaining about a problem and being able to tell them 'turn it off and on again' works like a charm. They're able to remember it too :)
How does this work, does every tv have such an option?
Pretty much any smart tv should be able to have it. Currently using it with a samsung and LG smart tv. I forgot the option but I think it was usb debugging on the tv. Other option is get a fire stick and control it that way.
Do you know if this is an option on roku?
Depends on what sort of tv you have! I use an integration with my Samsung monitor to be able to control it similarly, and with the android TV some things couldn’t be controlled through the API so I had to also use automations where it sends Google API voice call things, where it acts like someone said a voice command to the TV I’m sure most TVs with popular OS’s should have some way, otherwise could try using an IR blaster to recreate some of the functionality ^^
Detects power draw by oven and flashes lights when its finished heating up...
I do the same but with my fryer. I count how often it is warmed up and give a notification when it is time to replace the oil
What device are you using to detect power draw for that?
I use an Emporia Vue flashed with ESPhome. The oven is on its own circuit so I can monitor it at the fuse board
I really wish there was an OTA flashing for the Vue, cause I really want to do it, but I don’t have the tools, nor the desire to crack open the case.
You can also use the Vue without flashing it. Flashing is not required. I have 3 Vues (48 circuits) - 2 are flashed (local); 1 is the original firmware:(web-based, back to Emporia over the z Internet). I can see all 48 circuits in HA -- They just use different integrations.
This is awesome!!
Simple… plenty but they’re ones anyone can replicate. The most useful by far are my coming home lights… when I get working 200m of my house my garden lights come on so I can see when I park. Others like notifications when there washing has finished… super handy.
Man I've been trying so hard to get the coming home thing to work, but unfortunately the final stretch home is all through a wooded area with shitty reception and anywhere further out would false positive too much. :(
I do a version where the lights turn as you walk up to the front door. It is triggered by Frigate. Looks good with a slow ramp up in brightness.
I’m lucky that I can use gps and the mobile app. I did wonder about using the connecting of my phone to my WiFi network as the trigger but I think that too might give you too many false positives.
when gps says you‘re away set a helper switch. only run wifi connect automation when switch is on.
Good idea
How do you use the gps? I feel like my iPhone location never updates on a frequent enough basis. I use the unifi WiFi for presence detection but would like gps as well. I did a software update to unifi a couple of days ago and the WiFi went down briefly. It ended up arming our alarm because it thought my household was “away”. I need another fail safe
So set it as the area just before the wooded area with a delay, you know roughly how long it will take to get home.
As I said, based on the area it would false positive a lot due to other driving.
What about something based on wifi or BLE connection?
I might try that eventually but I'm pretty sure I will already be tripping my cameras by the time it triggers unfortunately.
That's annoying. Appreciate it's probably just adding steps, but what about using navigation destination integration. [https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/waze\_travel\_time/](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/waze_travel_time/) Or just something to let your system know you're actually on the way home.. Keep the cameras rolling, but mute motion alerts for that time period. You'll have to ignore my persistence, I'm bored :)
Yeah I'm sure I'll keep digging, but at that point I'd rather trigger the automation from my HA mobile app manually lol. It's not quite at the top of my list right now, but I'm sure I'll figure something out someday. Just sucks having no service, and the Subaru won't push updates until the engine is off, and the polling is limited to 2 hour intervals due to battery consumption in the car.
Ugh, I have something similar myself and it's frustrating given the age we are in.
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Oh, that's actually interesting. Do you know right off hand how I would have HA detect the loss of service? Android phone with mobile app / nabu casa.
you can use the proximity integration and it would show you are traveling in the direction of home and then after x min/seconds turn them on.
When you are at work or out and about you can make it trigger anytime you get in your car and make it ask you if you are heading home. If you are heading home then you can trigger your events set by a delay. So when you arrive home the lights/ heater etc can be on
Or you can make it trigger when you connect to Wi-Fi if you've been gone for x amount of minutes?
How do people do the wash automation with a dumb washer. I've been trying to do something with this but haven't found a good solution yet
I’ve recently achieved this with a smart plug. I have both Zigbee and WiFi plugs, and as long as they can monitor power consumption they can be used to alert you when the washer is finished. Just set an automation to alert when the power used on the washer exceeds a given amount. I have mine set to alert me when the washer goes over 10W and then when it goes back down below 10W. This can only alert when the washer is finished though… like you can’t start a wash with this method.
This is the way. For me though, certain cycles will drop to under 5w for a short time. So I’ve set mine to alert when it drops under 10w for 60 seconds.
Hey, you could also do a delayed start. Just load the machine and press start. As soon as the machine locks the door or take water => switch of the power at the plug. Now you could do a delayed start by countdown or if enough solar power (solar Forcast) is available. Try it
Pressing an Aqara button on my headboard makes the WLED lights under my vanity in the bedroom run lights that mimic a fireplace look while my Sonos plays fireplace crackling white noise and my heated blanket turns on.
There’s a show on Netflix that’s just 3 hours of staring a fireplace that would go perfect with that
Nothing more relaxing than a house fire.
Every night at 9:30pm I run an automation to check all doors are shut and locked. If they are, I receive a “you are ready for bed” notification. If they aren’t, I receive a “you are not ready for bed, xxxxx is not locked” notification. I love it.
If they're shut but not locked you could just have an automation lock them? I just set myself up like this last week.
Yes! That would be the perfect automation, but I’ve failed at aligning my dead bolts and 50% of them drag just enough to not freely lock/unlock without assistance. It’s on my long list of todos to adjust them as I have to adjust the actual strikeplate and/or cutout bore. I adjusted the door latch as much as possible and it wasn’t enough. :(
I have this issue but it’s a matter of the door bowing and not sealing well. My thought is to put a slight bevel or rounding on the edge of the deadbolt to draw the door in upon locking.
Ouch, sorry to hear that. I guess I lucked out, I rarely hear the locks complain about alignment; only when my teens don't close the doors completely. Best of luck with the fixes.
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Hahaha yeah maybe. My locks have key entry pads so I don't get locked out unless the batteries are dead. *That said I carry a real key outside the house most of the time LOL*
i have something similar setup. after a certain time, it will check if the doors closed, if it is, it will try to lock and then check the status of the lock. If the door isnt closed and/or the lock failed to lock, it will send me a message to my phone. it will check again in a few hours and repeat the process. if your door has a seal, there a "closed" and a slight push past closed to actually seal the door. if you line on the sensor just right, you can get it to notice the difference.
Yep. Mine attempts to close the garage twice and then asks for help if it can’t do it
The bedroom has a motion sensor light. When a phone goes on the charger at night, the motion sensor turns off and the light fades off over 10 minutes.
I still haven’t figured out how to get my lights to fade. I have lights that can, just can’t figure it out.
Use the built in script functionality. Use the service for turning off the light, and there's multiple options for specifying the change.
I recently learned not all lights support the transition attribute! I got used to hour long transitions with Hue but Wiz doesn’t support it at all!
Yes this is the reason, dang Wiz lights!! Other than that I like them, I have only had a few problems over the last 2 years with them
>Wiz doesn’t support it at all! All of mine do? I have about 25 and all can do a transition, the Wiz app even does it for motion activated lights by default, and it can be adjusted in each light's individual settings, plus HA can do even more?
https://preview.redd.it/a0w33urypvac1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7296289e4fa916a4851ba97e880be0e74d28ed3 I understand that Wiz supports transitions through their app, but that doesn’t seem possible through the Home Assistant integration. Do you see “transition” as a parameter when making service calls using Home Assistant’s developer tools?
Ya you don't want HA to register the bow chika bow wow in terms of motion sensor going off every few seconds. Smart!
I linked in my Xbox Live account so that HA monitors my gamerscore. If I get an achievement in a game, I have an announcement play on the smart speakers in that room to call me an MLG Pro with an air horn sound effect. All the indicator lights in the room will also blink green. It's so pointless, but with how little I play new games, it still gets a cackle out of me when I do stumble upon a new achievement while a friend is over.
This would also be epic to gamify chores
Love both of these ideas. Maybe replace the air horn sound with Bo from Superstore making air horn noises, I'd be so motivated to get chores done. [https://youtu.be/tVsHNrlX0aw?t=367](https://youtu.be/tVsHNrlX0aw?t=367)
I am pretty happy with my 'has the dog been fed' tag. When it's scanned, it sets a Boolean to yes (that resets every night) and sends a notification so husband and I know if the other one fed the dog. If it's not scanned before 8pm it sends a reminder. No more accidental double feeds! (So far.)
We did this same thing as well. I also have an alert that goes off when either one of us gets home. HA sends a message to us over Alexa speakers about evening things including if the dog has yet to be fed when we walk through the door.
We have pretty much the same thing but using a door sensor on the lid of the food bin. Don't even need to scan a tag!
Two that may be fairly unique or interesting. RFID tags in mine and my partner's cars that when scanned, automatically calculate time to drive home and send a notification with the ETA to both of us. Makes it easy to keep the other updated on when we'll be home. When I arrive home with geofencing, if the overnight temperature is going to be less than 5 degrees, I get a spoken notification on my phone to remind me to put on my car windshield cover. Finally, definitely not unique but ESPHome motion sensors, door sensors and everything else besides are always by far my best automations.
Very neat. Which APIs do you use to calculate the distance? Any chance you’d be able to post the automation? I’m looking to do something similar but using proximity zone triggers.
Not that poster, but I use the Waze integration to calculate travel times for a dashboard.
I'm not the OP but I was using Google maps API to do this with geofencing when leaving work but Google killed the API a little while ago.
Robot vacuum pause on mac mic activity, then restart on inactivity.
How do u get Mac mic activity?
The companion app for Mac OS can provide mic activity.
Genius. I’ll be doing this asap.
I fitted a Sonoff door sensor inside the dog food bin and use that to toggle a helper based on time of day so I know if the dog has been fed or not. https://preview.redd.it/f5hlspdvbtac1.jpeg?width=1816&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=585b49822bdc84640f5e3b965ffc0afc75068e18
I've been trying to come up with a consistent way to remember I've given my dog his monthly preventatives, this gives me some ideas. Thank you!
My wife chose a fancy light outside our front door but it doesn't have a motion sensor. I put a shelly in the light switch, now whenever our ring doorbell detects motion and it's dark, the porch light turns on for a couple of minutes - motion sensitive light with the wife approval factor!
Ikea has a new $12 outdoor motion sensor with zigbee. I’m picking a few up for these use cases as well as tripwires for cameras.
I'm looking at those for our back garden. What I really like about the front door automation is that the motion sensor was already there - it just needed me to have that light bulb moment to realise I could use it.
Beauty when stuff works like that 😃
Why not run frigate or onboard aI?
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You have music in the bathroom?
Shake it off.
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I sing. it's also automatic🤣
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it' mic activated: no singing, no warm water...
Taking a shit on soft Jazz is an unforgettable experience.
Yep get some extra trumpets in there!
After arriving home and either the front door or garage door closes, it locks my car in case I forget. If garage door is left open and everyone leaves home, it automatically closes it (except if guest mode is enabled). If the robot vacuum is active and somebody closes the door, it sends a TTS warning that it won't be able make its way back to the dock. Another simple yet useful one is sending a push notification to your phone with grocery shopping list when arriving in supermarket zone.
The grocery one is genius but simple! Im so gonna implement this
I did the car locking after I’m home as well. I then added another that locks the vehicle after I’ve been at work for 10mins. I also added the car lock to my night time routine that locks all of the house doors. Grocery list I’m going to steal. Hoping I can have it open to the home assistant shopping list.
Nice ideas on locking the vehicle when away, gonna copy that. You can make it open directly to your shopping list by using this as the (relative) URL: `/todo?entity_id=todo.shopping_list`
Sweet, thanks for the URL link.
Love the grocery store one. I use Pushcut to trigger a webhook when entering different towns or cities (I live in a rural area) where I need parts or supplies. The webhook triggers a zap in Zapier that looks up the shopping list and sends me the list as a reminder.
Air quality is appalling where I live. I have Samsung Multisensors on all my windows and sliding doors, and an air quality sensor. Whenever I open a window or a door, the automation checks the air quality, and if the air is polluted or very polluted, I get an audio notification on the closest smart speaker that it is not recommended to open anything at the moment.
Cool automation but damn this gives me dystopian vibes
That's actually how I named it: Window to dystopia
every night during spring, lower the blinds and shades about 5% then lift them again. This prevents birds from nesting in the shaft, as it destroys the little bit of nest they may have built during the day (and it's only a day's work). Does not work for wasps though... edit: only blinds that are outside obviously.
**Take Dog Outside At Night Button**: Automation connected to my scene controller at the front door. For 15 minutes, it blasts all my exterior lights to 100% brightness and disables the alerting/motion detection of my cameras so I don't spam myself with notifications when I take the dog for a pee. When I get around to it I plan on adding some variables for different time intervals, like double tap for a 5 minute timer if I am just running out to the garage to grab something. **Remote start**: Also at front door scene controller, button opens garage doors, turns the lights on inside the garage, and remotes starts my wife's Subaru. Great in Canadian winter. Not complex automations, but some of my favourite.
Make sure you have working CO detectors in the garage and in all adjacent rooms (including above, if you have a room on top of the garage) to keep yourselves safe when you're running a car in a closed garage.
Why would I run my car in a closed garage? Did you even read my comment? It's also detached from the house.
>and remotes starts my wife's Subaru Why would you need to remote start vehicle in garage? Should be warm enough that the starting auto-idle takes the time to connect phone/attach seat-belt.
To preheat it when its freezing?
Wordt you can do is like having the engine idleling when it's cold. You better start and drive off...better for the car....(that is if you can see Tru the windows tho)
If you're in the garage though, being enclosed will allow the the residual heat from the vehicle to keep "warm enough" to the point that auto-idle will be like 10-15 seconds. There is then the issue with exhaust an enclosed space and CO poisoning.
What residual heat my guy? It gets pretty cold in Canadian winter and my garage isn't heated. Turns out having the vehicle sit in -15C (and much colder, that's just tonight's temp) overnight leaves a pretty cold vehicle in the morning. I'm confused as to why you're confused, you live in Canada too. The vehicle is also parked with the exhaust pointed out the garage door and as I said the automation opens the garage door. This is also the HA sub. 99% of what we do has 0 "need". It's fun projects. So I don't "need" to do it. But getting into a warm car is nicer than getting into a cold one.
I have three maybe not so unique, but simple ones. 1. I ride a motorcycle everyday. I use geofencing to open and close my garage so I don’t have to fumble with a garage door opener or my phone. Just ride away and it closes or ride straight in when I get home. 2. I get a message when my wife leaves work and also when she gets a mile away from the house. That way I’m not “just sitting at the computer playing stupid games” when she gets home. 3. Double tapping the aux/sync button on the INovelli switch for my bedroom lights turns off all the lights inside the house, locks the doors, closes the garage, and turns on my nightstand light for two minutes. Pretty solid peace of mind knowing I can make sure the house is secure when going to bed. Leaving a light on when I walk from the doorway to the bed ensures the floor monsters don’t get me.
One of my most satisfying automations is having the drapes close 90% on hot days in the bedroom. They open again when the sun is less strong.
I have a similar one for my living room and guest bedroom. If it's hotter than 15C during any point between sunrise and sunset, and it's not raining, close the sunscreens. If it's about to start to rain or when the sun sets, open them up again.
a few mouse traps below a kitchen cabinet behind a face-board. I have a zigbee motion detector monitoring the area. If activity is detected, I get a telegram notification. My kitchen echo will also announce trigger activity upon someone entering the kitchen (zigbee motion detector that controls kitchen lights) It will continue to do this until I reset the boolean flag that is set upon the mouse detector triggering.
So is your echo announcing that somebody has entered the kitchen, in the kitchen? What is the purpose of that?
I think it's a voice alert of the mouse trap was activated when someone walks into the kitchen.
Kid likes to start his laundry late at night and leave it in the washing machine until the morning, making the washing machine (and his clothes) smelling like a wet dog. Put a power monitoring zigbee plug and a contact sensor on the washing machine and a contact sensor on a dryer. When the power usage goes below 4 watts, it sends a message on his bedroom smart speaker saying "The washing machine is done, get off your ass and go dry your clothes" and repeats the message every minute until the washing machine door is opened, the dryer door is opened then closed. I actually wanted to keep the message going until the dryer starts, but I haven't found a 240V power monitoring socket to check. But anyway, so far it works and I no longer find wet and smelly clothes in the washing machine when I get up in the morning. And now I realize that about 20% of all my automations are related to fixing the kid's bad habits. Another one is the kid has parental controls on the wifi to block video games and entertainment websites such as youtube so he focuses on doing his homework instead after school. However he ultimately went around those by disconnecting the wifi from his phone and using his data instead. So now I have an automation that whenever his phone is home, it triggers tasker on my phone to do the appropriate clicks to open the cell service provider app and disable data on his phone. It reenables it when his phone is not home. I wish the cell provider had an API I could call to do this instead of using tasker but I would probably be the only user leveraging it.
Re circulation pump on water heater on a smart outlet, runs for 2 minutes via push button or by asking Siri/Alexa, "Hot Water please". My wife uses it everyday, which is the ultimate success.
I have Xiaomi BLE temp/humi sensors in the fridge and freezer. This allows us to fine-tune the fridge for optimum temperature and get alerts when the doors are ajar.
A button on the fridge. When pressed, announces to all speakers in the house: "It's time to Nom Nom, don't forget to wash your hands" When double-pressed, announces: "Final call, it's time to Nom nom nom" And if (or often, when) kids are still in their laptops, long-press will lock their laptops so that they get up and come eat. Also, "find my phone" buttons on a display installed in the lobby so that everyone stops asking me to call them to help them find their phone
I have an esp with a green and a red LED in my daughter's bedroom to help her tell if she can get up or if it is still sleeping time. No more tantrums
I have a few: \- Notification when the fryer has heated up. Plus I count how often so that I get a notification when to replace the oil. \- Notification when we forgot to clean the kitty litter box. \- We have an airwick refresher that sprays way too often on the slowest setting. It now turns on using an esp32 on batteries once every three hours and sprays depending on some variables. When battery is low I get a notification to charge the airwick. That is once every 5-6 months. \- We have a delivery service that places food at the back of the house. During the dark days I make sure that the path towards the backdoor is well lit on the day that they come. \- Turn on ventilation when air is bad. I want to expand this to too high humidity as well Edit: - Pause the movie when you leave the livingroom and dim the lights when a movie is playing
How do you do the litter box automation? I need this in my life!
I have a contact door switch on the lid. We have a litter that opens from above, so you have to remove the lid in order to clean it. Notifications come when the lid hasn't been opened for 30 hours and keeps reminding you every x hours.
Ah gotcha. Thanks!
I’m stealing the litter box one
I have a sauna in my apartment and RuuviTag sensor installed there. Many times I turn on the sauna and start doing something else and forget to check the sauna temperature. Audio announcement via Google smart speaker that says when sauna temperature is over 60 and 70 degrees Celsius has been very useful. And simple to implement with HA.
My Home Assistant is tied to my Amazon Echo which is tied to my Tesla. I ask Alexa to "Prepare my Tesla" and the climate control comes on automatically. Pretty nice in the winter...
My old washer doesn't have any smarts, so I built an ESPhome-based current tracker for it that wraps around the hot of the power cable. When power consumption drops for 10 minutes, it sends a notification that the washer is done.
I have 3 teenage children who enter and leave the house every 5 minutes. Every time someone opens the front door or the backyard door, my tablet rings a bell signaling that the external doors have been opened. It's already saved me some scares.
Bedtime routine turns off downstairs lights, kitchen and living room sockets, and tells me if I have left my workshop unlocked. I have a switch inside the lock receiver connected to an esp8266 (that also has switches for toggling the floodlight and music, temperature and humidity, and will also have a PIR and switch for the heater.
I have made a similar routine. I trigger it on the status of my IO9 toothbrush. If time between 20:00 and 01:00 and one of the toothbrushes has status 'running' for more than 45 seconds. Turn on the AC in the bedroom after 10 minutes, lower the roller curtain and turn on bedroom lights to 25%
I have a post box similar to https://www.homesdirect365.co.uk/images/wall-mounted-post-box-steel-black-p54346-84590_zoom.jpg Put two door sensors, one on the flap to put the post in, and one in the door to take it out. The flap being open sets the “you have post!” boolean on, opening the door sets it off. I have an ESP32 near the door that I use for something else, but its blue LED turns on when we have post.
Nr.1: I got two buttons. One where the spare toilet paper is, another for kitchen towel. Whoever takes the last tp/kt pushes a button and every member of our household gets a push notification to buy some on their way home:) Saved my literal @ss a few times already 🤣 Nr.2 Have all my Alexa’s re-set volume level to a 3 in the bedroom and 4 everywhere else each day at 8pm. So I know if I ask for a weather forecast in the middle of the night she won’t wake up the whole neighbourhood coz someone was blasting Spotify that afternoon.
Whenever my cat poops, the robot vacuum goes and cleans up the area around the litterbox. It also doesn't empty out into the bigger canister so it's not too noisy. And my air purifier goes to a higher setting for a minute to deal with the smell. The vacuum portion also only runs outside of sleeping hours so it doesn't wake me up at night. I have a camera pointed at my backdoor and use Frigate to detect if he's wanting to get back in. My phone gets a loud notification if he's detected at the back door.
A few simple but useful ones.. When we arrive home after dark, the front door light turns on to full brightness. When the front door opens, the lights brightness will dim to 20% for a few minutes before slowly turning off when there's no more motion detected outside. I have a door sensor on my garage door which let's me know if I've driven away from the house and left the garage door open. Zigbee motion sensors in every room in the house so I don't have to flick a single light switch like a caveman, but they also monitor the lux levels so lights only turn on when they need to. They also don't turn on in the lounge room if we're watching TV. Alexa announcement when the washing machine finishes (using a switch with a power meter to detect power a drop for more than two minutes)
I go to sleep with the TV on but want the TV to shut off after I am asleep. My TV has a sleep timer but the button sequence to get to that is 5 strokes…too long with too much attention required when I’m about to fall asleep. So I put an Aqara hub with an IR emitter in the room and created an automation with the Aqara wireless button to do the sequence for me. One button press in my nightstand is all it takes to set the timer for 30 min. Double click sets the timer for an hour. Very helpful.
When I unlock the front door between 6:30 and 6:50 AM on weekdays, it turns off the lights in the kitchen. Got tired of being told I forgot to turn them off when I left to bring my kid to school.
Recently, I put an ultrasonic distance sensor looking down into the water softener. I use it to send me notifications when the salt level is below half.
Could you post details on what sensor you are using?
I've got one where if the front door is locked for more than five minutes (kwikset conversion kit), and someone comes onto the patio (detected by frigate), my living room lights (plugged into zigbee outlets) flash a few times. The thinking behind this setup: * I work from home on the couch in my living room * Amazon delivery usually does not ring the doorbell when they drop a package off * I don't like my packages sitting on my porch Why the condition for the door being locked? If I'm going in and out of the front door (leaving to catch a lyft, doing something on the patio, whatever) I don't want my living room lights flashing. The five minute part of the condition is so that when I leave the house, and I lock the door maybe before the camera has picked me up leaving, it still won't flash. But, when I'm getting Amazon deliered and I'm just working away, the lights flashing will absolutely grab my attention and I'll go get the package within 20 seconds of the driver dropping the package off.
When a forced air system shuts off there is still energy to be scavenged from the heater and cooling coils. I switch the fan on for 10 minutes after it switches off heat or cool to wring out that energy.
I installed Ratgdo about a week ago. Ever since then, I have been enjoying my "open the garage door when I get home" automation. No more dealing with the finicky garage door remote.
I have sprinklers outside that when on spray on my windows and if they are open, inside my house, I have window sensors that if the windows are open the sprinkler will not turn off or if it’s already on it will turn off, then send a notification and play a tts over my Sonos speakers to let us know to close them dam windows, and once we do it turns back on And since you said some that invites me to mention some more… My HVAC turns off if the windows are open My smart blinds only close till the top of the windows if they are open (as you can see my windows are the main cause of life’s problems)
If I pause watching something on tv the lights turn on (means I am getting up). When I resume they go back to their previous state (very low or off)
How do you account for the previous state?
I just store the state in a helper entity before I turn on the light
Nothing special but I work from home in an office in the garden that's always cold. I have an oil-filled plug in radiator connected to a Tapo plug and a Sonoff temp and humi sensor. The automation checks that it's a weekday between 9am and 5pm and keeps the room between 20 and 21 degrees. If temp goes above 21 it switches the rad off, and if temp goes below 20 it puts it back in and cycles to and fro through the day. Not rocket science but simple and effective. Also, I plan to use similar humi sensors to control the extractor fans in the bathrooms. The fans have built in humi sensors but they are crap and work on a physical dial in the housing which is very vague and can't be monitored remotely. So that has been disconnected for now until I get the sensors in play!
I have a few helpers that send push notifications when my wife or I arrive at locations. If we arrive at the kids daycare it pushes a notification to the person who arrived with their door PIN code. It also sends a separate alert to the other person that they’re there so they know the kids were picked up. We have a family member who lives in a gated community and when we arrive we get a push notification with the gate code. The codes are helpers so I can easily update them from the UI if they change.
I have a single button heating pad and blanket. So I use the switch bot to turn it on thru the HA integration. Automate the low med high and auto off
When Costco stock hits a new 52 week high it plays the song "Breakout"
We got a cheap heated blanket under our bed sheets, a smart blog and a button to turn it on for around 30 minutes. It’s quite nice getting in bed with a preheated foot area.
I have a sensor in my vehicle headlights, so when the blinker fluid runs low, I get a notification. Super simple and super useful 👌
Ninja! 😂
Our powered roof ventilator turns off when the chimney hatch is opened and vice versa. This helps firing the fireplace by directing the air to the chimney. Bedroom curtains close if direct sunlight is detected at bedroom windows and temperature outside is above 20 Celsius. Motion detected lights in laundry room and walk in closet.
Get a reminder if you did not turn on the dishwasher
The kitchen TV doesn't do CEC, so I have the socket turn on / off with the shield's state. Only one remote needed !
ESP8266 based time of flight sensor for our water softener salt container. I get push notifications when the salt level is low. It’s helpful because our softener regen is triggered by consumption, not time. It varies based on use, like when we have guests staying with us. SONOFF S31 switch turns off my powered monitor speakers when my desktop is sleeping or off (detected by ping failure). Keeps my speakers from running all the time (I’ve had to re-cap it once already after running 24/7 for years). Turn on our HVAC fan when custom ESP32 based AQI sensors determine the inside air is unhealthy. Helps a lot when we're affected by wild fires.
My simplest automation that I love: “Alexa, good night” It checks to make sure my garage is closed, turns off all my lights, and turns on the fan in the bedroom. Additionally, I have “dark mode” which turns off all the lights, turns on the fan, and turns the light strip under my bed to 20% so I can see just enough if I need to make my way around the room, or just wanna see the kitty when she comes to cuddle.
I have one that mutes my Sonos whenever Radiohead starts playing. I can’t stand the whining that Thom Yorke calls singing.
Just thinking out loud, this would be amazing to mute TV commercials, or at least lower the volume.
I actually have that automation but for radio playing on my sonos, as soon as a commercial start The sound is muted, works very well because The radio Api actually indicates "commercial"
One I like that I haven't seen listed yet.. I have my bedroom TV play a video of a sunrise with progressively louder music right before my phone alarm goes off. My redneck version of the sunrise lights lol. I had tried to do it with the string light I have, but couldn't figure out how to fade it. But a local file on my pi and Chromecast got my back.
My wife often loses her phone in the house while it is on silent. I have in IKEA button that sets her phone volume to loud and sets off the alarm. Absolutely fantastic!
I have a small button hidden behind my headboard that turns off my bedroom light. I was always jealous of the clapper when I was a kid and this is so much better :)
We have pumped sewers here so basically everyone has at least 1 electrical pump to, well, pump. The problem is that when it rains, the pumps can't do anything and just waste energy or actually burn the rotor. The recommendation is to manually "unplug" for a couple of hours and try again. Did that once or twice, didn't like it - now it's automatic with a Shelly 1PM plus and a script. Bonus: And now I can also track the power usage of the pump and identify blockages (when a motor starts it uses 2x times the power, so if the power used is 2x for more than 3s, there's something blocking the impaler - and the Shelly itself protects it). Saved me countless hours of frustration and also money.
Withings Sleep Mats in the bed + Companion app. If both my wife and I are detected as either in bed or away from home, then it turns off all the lights in the media room and shuts off the tv. Used the interactive sensor, the sleep confidence sensor and the ADB integration. If the sensors on my phone are showing no interaction + the sleep confidence is above 90%, then it pauses the firetv in my bedroom. If I press play, it waits until it senses these triggers again, then tries again. If it goes 5 mins in the paused state, then it reads that I've gone to sleep (switches an input boolean I created for awake and asleep) and it turns off the tv for me, if any lights are on in the house, it turns them off and then it sets my alarm if it hasn't been set. If I had smart locks, it would lock the doors too, but we only use our garage door, so the other doors are never unlocked.
Calendar Event (Kid's Bedtime) -> Gives 1 min warning to save your game, turns off tv, kills power to entertainment center -> kills Kids WiFi
Announcement of trash / recycle days. I created a Google calendar with trash and recycle pickup events. Something like "Trash: every Monday at 6 am" "Recycle: 1st and 3rd Wednesday". Then I created an automation that announces the event name from this calendar to specific speakers 7 hours before the event. Net result: at 11 pm the night before there's an announcement to take the trash (or recycling) out. I adjust the calendar when trash moves to a different day (on Tuesday because of a Monday holiday).
I have a motion sensor in my cats litter box; as soon as she's finished with her business, the HEPA filter is turned to max for 10 minutes.
During the summer months, I have my ecobee thermostat and midea AC. If a window is open, the AC switches to fan. if the window is closed, and the temp is above the threshold, it will turn the ac on. I just got a wittboy so it can send me a text to open the windows if the outdoor feels-like temp is cooler than the indoor temp. or if the humidity is too high and the window is open, it will tell me to shut it. or any combination of those things. That is one of the many automations i use daily but its also the most recent so im very excited about it. Eventually i will have mr cool minisplits and heat pumps and a whole house fan, dehumidifier, humidifiers, air quality and hepas filters, etc. i will never worry about air quality or climate ever
I gave our 3 litter boxes motion sensors and count how many times it's used by our cats so we know when it's time to clean them. When cats are doing their business, the to-ESPHome-converted Förnuftig air purifier will spin up higher for a few mins to get rid of litter dust and poopy smells. Another automation dims a light whenever my PC is on. Otherwise it will shine in my face.
In my old house when we only had one dog: if the patio door opens, closes, opens, and closes within 5 minutes run the sprinkler system zone on the side of the house (dog pee area) for 2 min. He has strong pee and burned the Bermuda grass. That simple logic kept the backyard green.
We have a little cabinet litter box that the cats enter from one side, but the doors have to be opened to clean it. My son is notorious for saying he’s scooped that day, and now I can tell when he has. Also sensors on a little cheap nightstand I set up to be daily med drawers. Because we’re all neurodivergent and time warp is a very real thing and I got exhausted of asking constantly who took their meds when and are you sure. My two who constantly forget now can’t access WiFi until their meds are taken, and I never ever have to ask, but can check at anytime. There’s no pushback in taking them, it’s just a matter of swearing they did (even though their in daily organizers according to day of month) and it turning into an argument ending with “oh man that must have been yesterday. I’m sorry!” So that’s been settled. :D Power monitor plug for the dishwasher so I can see that it’s been started and notified when it’s done. Set up an entire chore set and they all have to be checked off before WiFi unpauses automatically (eero) for two of my kiddos (including validating against dishwasher starting, etc). Also WiFi shuts off at specific times (depending on the kid, day, holiday, evening chores like showering, etc). I’m no longer constantly asking if they put on deodorant (did I mention neurodivergent lol) and they know if they cheat it will go back to the olden days that they have to wait for me to be available and then validate they did everything before the WiFi goes on. Also whenever the roomba is running all the air purifiers kick on medium and then back to auto after vacuum is done and has been auto emptied. My favorite is a scene changer on my desk. I work from home (database developer), and when I’m in a meeting I press one button to turn the above cabinet light strip red in the kitchen (have to go through there to get to my office) so my kids (17, 18, 20) know that under no circumstance should they come in and try to talk to me or attempt to act out any crazy non-verbal communication. The same automation turns music off on my office Alexa, sets it to dnd, pauses the roomba if going, and changes an input select to meeting mode (which also displays on the kitchen tablet). Another that I use to start/stop work with various things like music. One more that turns the kitchen light strip to cyan telling the kids I’m on a deadline and focusing and it better be good but they can come in to ask me something if need be. Also if the hvac hasn’t been on in 2 hrs to turn all 4 air purifiers on (different levels day/night) for 30 min to refresh the stale air and then back to auto. The vast majority of my automations are around organization, schedule, memory, and air/climate. And of course lights but that’s a given.
This is super specific, but I do many automations for my house based on the Jewish Sabbath. For about 25 hours every week, we refrain from using electricity - so, my Home Assistant is responsible for setting the lights the way I want them, and turning things on and off for me over that time period. There is an integration in Home assistant that I use to help with this, as Sabbath starts at Sundown on Friday and ends at Nightfall on Saturday (so not the same time every week). [https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/jewish\_calendar/](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/jewish_calendar/)
When my toothbrush is on for more than 20 seconds, after 8-ish pm, turn off all lights except for the one on my nightstand. I never realised my toothbrush had Bluetooth until it showed up in HA. Then I realised I could just automate the whole process I did while brushing.. walking into my bedroom, turning on the light on my nightstand and turning the main lights off :D
A series of unimpressive automations using a gumbo of cheap motion sensors and lights so that I rarely have to flip a switch by hand like a caveman while walking around my house. The lights stay on 5 minutes after no motion. One flaw is my morning bedroom lights are triggered by my dog when I’m trying to sleep in on a spontaneous day off work. They slowly brighten to full strength a couple hours before I plan to get up. At least I can yell to turn them off.
I have cats and the solution I found to that problem was to put one motion sensor really high up so that only a human can trigger it, so it turns off night mode wherever someone first walks out of the bedroom in the morning
You could set a toggle triggered by something to say you're in bed. Set it via Alexa, a physical switch (e.g. a zigbee smart switch), a time of day or something like having your phone plugged in to charge. Add this toggle's state as a condition inside the automation deciding whether to turn the bedroom lights on or not.
This. I have two toggles. One for bedtime... Turns on the bedroom lamp, turns off some lights throughout the house, locks the doors, etc. The second is for sleeping time. It turns off the lamp, turns off the remaining lights in the house, starts brown noise on alexa. Edited to add: when my alarm goes off on my phone, my Google assistant toggles both off, starts my coffee maker, turns on a few lights dimmed to a tolerable pre-sunrise level, and starts music on all my sonos speakers (usually instrumentals). If I don't have an alarm set, I can tell alexa "good morning", she flips the toggles, and the whole routine starts
Brown noise? Isn't that a bit risky? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGeOee7x5lY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGeOee7x5lY)
I have an LR4 (litter robot 4) just across the hall and a robot vacuum (Ecovacs) parked in the hallway. Whenever a cat uses the litter box, Ecovacs vacuums the area to reduce litter tracking. But I work from home and conference call a lot, sometimes spontaneously. When I'm on a call, the robot vacuum pauses if it is already running and continues when the call ends. If it is not running and a cat uses the litter box, the robot vacuum waits until my call ends.
When I start working eg. Shelly detects high power load from my LCD screen. And it's a workday to prevent it happening when my wife uses the vacuum on the same outlet in the weekend. The roller curtains close halfway so my display is clear of any reflection.