Home Automation

[Neophyte]

I'm falling into the rabbit hole that is Home Automation. Nothing serious too serious yet but a little bit of stuff.

Amazon Echo Dots for Alexa Voice controls
Samsung Smartthings Hubs for a mesh network and device control
10 Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Mini Plugs

I have just programmed some basic lighting scenes around the house and set up voice control for my Fire Sticks.
I also have an Ecobee thermostat with sensors for each bedroom upstairs.

I am looking at setting up some dedicated hardware to run Home Assistant because I want to do some more advanced things with motion sensors, as well as tie in devices that won't talk to either Smartthings or Alexa (my damn garage door!).

Is anyone else playing with home automation?

 

[MikefromOH]

Google nest.

For someone who doesn't trust our government and hates technology, my phone and dots will turn on/off anything. And, my security system can record a squirrel peeing on a leaf at 500 yards lol

But, it allows music in whatever room we program it from, pictures to be saved, watching security, and the boys can facetime the grandparents in Oz whenever they want.

 

[Chris]

I wouldn’t like to live without Alexa voice controls with most of my household lights, ceiling fans, and Nest thermostat.

I have also set-up accent lighting in the kitchen, master bedroom 🤠, and living room wall unit.

 

[Neophyte]

Forgot my thermostat. I have an Ecobee controlling the HVAC upstairs and I'll be adding one for the ground floor in the next few weeks.

This is more than just convenient, btw. I can see savings in my electric bill and this was the first summer since we moved in here that I haven't experienced a freeze-up on the AC compressor during the worst of the summer heat.

 

[Boone]

I control my golf simulation software with voice commands using a program called 'Voice Attack'. Pretty cool. That's all I got.

 

[Neophyte]

Hey, automation is automation, brother. This is a judgment-free zone.

 

[Neophyte]

With all the new members, I thought I'd resurrect this thread.

It's top of mind because I'm working on installing Home Assistant in a docker container on an old laptop running Debian. At some point, I'll buy a second-hand thin client or set up a Raspberry Pi and dedicate that to running Home Assistant OS but the this way I can get my hands dirty now, work out how I want it set up and start playing with some advanced automation using conditional if/then statements.

 

[Boone]

So what does 'Home Assistant' do? Can it help win arguments with the spouse? I could really use that kind of help....

 

[Neophyte]

Home Assistant won't help you with your wife, sadly.

What it does is allow for more complex home automations using conditions.

Example - right now I have the lights in my backyard set up to turn on using a voice command so when I get downstairs in the morning I just tell Alexa to turn on the backyard. Once I have Home Assistant set up, I'll put a sensor on my bedroom door to detect it opening and turn the lights on. Honestly, I could do this today but the lights would turn on every single time my bedroom door opens. Once I have Home Assistant set up, I can then set a condition on that action like time of day. What I want is for the backyard lights to come on when I open my bedroom door only between the hours of 3 and 6 AM.

That is a fairly simple example. With Home Assistant you can get a lot more complicated by stacking those conditions.

I also have devices like my garage door that do not integrate with Amazon Alexa so I need Home Assistant to control them.

 

[Chris]

So what does 'Home Assistant' do? Can it help win arguments with the spouse? I could really use that kind of help....

For a giggle start at the 7 minute mark.

 

[skinsmarydu]

For Sale: "Ring" motion detector light/camera, unopened. $150/OBO.

PM me if interested.