Home Automation

it depends on what you have technology wise in the house,

I have my blinds & curtains linked to lights, so in the dark they close when the lights come on

morning music linked to lights in the kitchen, nice gentle radio whilst I trip over the dogs in the morning

Been messing around with HA for about 2 years now, although more focussed on stuff that amuses me or is interesting rather than useful 😂. I am trying to re-focus now & concentrate more on things that will save me time/a job although you might find that actual automation (i.e. having it do things by itself, with no input from you) is a lot trickier than you think. Having an understanding OH is definitely a bonus 😀

Lights (Shelly for me) & heating (Drayton Wiser) are two fairly easy things to start off with. If you have cameras (especially IP cameras) they should be fairly easy to integrate & you can do some pretty cool things with them quite easily. Robot hoover (Roborock) is probably my #1 favourite & most time/effort saving thing as I hate hoovering 😂 Although the automatic doors for the chicken coops which stop us getting out of bed at silly o'clock in the morning are a close 2nd 😀

I initially shied away from the idea of having a futuristic-style control panel mounted on the wall but actually, after I implemented it (and spent FAR too long making it look aesthetically pleasing) it's actually really useful & this is one of my favourite things about HA. You can just grab an Amazon Fire HD 8 or 10 half-price in one of their many sales, they're perfect for this.

Love the auto chicken coop 😁. I was thinking power monitoring to start as seems straight forward ish then moving to other things. AliExpress seems to have a lot of add-ons a lot cheaper than most places, appreciate you have to wait but any experiences or is it just spin the roulette?

I've been using it for about a year to handle my solar + battery setup. It runs on a Raspberry Pi 4, although if doing it again I'd use a cheap mini-PC from eBay instead. The wireless chipset on the Pi is particularly poor if you're unable to use Ethernet. It also struggles during high loads (eg a backup) and will chew through MicroSD cards over time.
It mainly looks at the solar forecast for the day ahead and charges the batteries up to cover the predicted shortfall during the Intelligent Octopus cheap period.
Also automates some stuff like the immersion heater and hot water tap and bodges the Drayton Wiser heating and Mitsubishi heat pump into working together.
The integrations I'm using:

• Octopus
• Tesla
• Podpoint
• Forecast.Solar
• Sonoff
• MELcloud
• Drayton
• FoxESS Modbus

The learning curve is unpleasantly steep, with appalling documentation. The way you implement stuff has changed two or three times in the last few years, and much of the documentation refers to an older way that doesn't work. YAML is a simply awful way of doing anything. Get a space in the wrong place and the whole lot will break.
You can do good stuff with an old Android tablet though - I use a £30 Lenovo thing from eBay which doesn't have a battery, so can be left plugged in all the time.

I'm not using HA but I have three Pi's at this house:
Pi 1) Just controls a number of lights internally and externally (runs a little web server allowing me to control these things manually also)

Pi 2) Watches our [very old] oil boiler and records when it starts and stops running and uploads these events to IFTTT which adds data to a Google Spreadsheet which is the basis of my oil consumption/tracking app.  It also connects to the Agile Octopus API every 30 minutes and switches the electric underfloor (and other) heating on and off via IFTTT when the cost of electricity falls below the threshold I have set.

Pi 3) Very old pi lives in a stable connected to our PV Inverter and uploads generation data to pvoutput web site.  It also switches on the electric UFH when there is enough spare generation.

I probably should combine Pi1 with Pi2

..... at the place by the beach I also have 3 Pi's

Pi 1) records house temperatures and controls the [all electric] heating and lights - I can connect to this remotely

Pi 2) Is attached to the hot water cylinder and monitors the temperature - boosting the immersion if it drops too low at a time when we are likely to use it

Pi 3) Connected to the PV Inverter and uploads generation data to pvoutput web site.  It also switches on the electric UFH when there is enough spare generation.

It runs on a Raspberry Pi 4, although if doing it again I’d use a cheap mini-PC from eBay instead.

The learning curve is unpleasantly steep, with appalling documentation.

I probably should combine Pi1 with Pi2

Love the auto chicken coop

I have a kettle which turns itself off when the water boils.

 using AI to count the number of eggs we have 😂

That is brilliant!!

I've been meaning to start this thread for a couple of years now, so thank you.

I'm hoping that Matter will eventually fix this but, right now it annoys the crap out of me that everything comes with its own app, it's own bridge, &c &c. I have a bunch of Calex(sp?) bulbs which have their own app, but it's a crippled version of Tuya's Smart Life app which seems to support various rebranded stuff, and last I looked there was two different versions of that as well. In order to configure it with Alexa I have to set things up in the app, then add the Skill, then set it up all over again in Alexa.

I've thought for a while that I probably should look at HA but my fear is, well, as ever there's an XKCD for this:

In particular it's not clear to me how much of it is, as above, a branded standard or is actually proprietary. Like, can I replace the Hue bridge with a Zigbee stick in a Pi? Compounding this is that I share a home with a technophobe who will accuse me of "messing" if I dare fart in an unconventional key. If I could reconfigure Alexa's wake command to "oh for ****'s sake" it'd likely be more consistent.

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PV, Battery, Heating, Hot water, Ring Doorbell and lights.

I’ve thought for a while that I probably should look at HA but my fear is, well, as ever there’s an XKCD for this

Like, can I replace the Hue bridge with a Zigbee stick in a Pi

Compounding this is that I share a home with a technophobe who will accuse me of “messing” if I dare fart in an unconventional key.

If I could reconfigure Alexa’s wake command to “oh for ****’s sake” it’d likely be more consistent.

PV, Battery, Heating, Hot water, Ring Doorbell and lights.

Built our own house and I fitted a Loxone system which runs all the lights, ventilation and various other stuff.  It doesn't actually do the heating - the most efficient way to run most boilers is using weather compensation controls from the boiler manufacturer so the heating is fully automatic in that I never need to touch it (except to put it in holiday mode if we're going away for any length of time in winter) .

If I was retrofitting I'd definitely be looking at Shelly kit.

A lot of the nice stuff is around convenience - all the light switches are 'push' buttons so you can have some extra (secondary) functions on them.  A triple click on the one by the front door switches all the house lights off (and the radio, and turns down the ventilation) 30 seconds after you trigger it.  We can also turn all the lights off from the bedside at night (and a long press on the bedside switch puts on very dim lights in en suite if you need them in the night)

I've jumped into this with some TP-Link cameras, bulbs and extension plugs and Google Home. I've got Google Speakers and Hubs and they sit in various rooms. All accessible and controllable from the Google Home app, but the cameras don't really have much control via that so I use the TP-Link app for those (viewing them and switching them off and on.

I've got 2 houses with this all running via the Google Home app and it seems to work well, but most of the control stuff is really being done on the Google speakers and hubs. I've got a couple of routines I can activated by voice or via my phone. I'd be keen to get more of the houses set to use more voice control stuff, but I also think I might need to get a hub for the lights - I'm happy to add them all as individual wifi connected devices, but I'm pretty sure my home router (in either house) may struggle with the volume of things connected like that.

I'd like to get my blinds connected up as although I don't change the blinds just now, I think that is because I can't readily reach the drawstring so I leave them as they are...being lazy if I had these set on a controller then I could close my blinds when it got dark. I need to do a bit more looking into this as I've got an extension cable near the window so could plug something in that had the blind controller connected.

This thread is proving useful as it gives plenty ideas of what could be done...thanks for starting it.

I've shied away from home automation despite it being right up my street - partially because it keeps being my plan "to move house next year". The one thing I have set HA up to for is to control a single tp-link plug which is connected to my espresso machine - wake up, hit the coffee button on my phone and by the time I've made my way downstairs my machine is preheated. I could've done this without HA but I didn't really love the idea that a wifi enabled plug to feed my coffee habit needed access to the internet to work...

Ive started to play about with the google home script editor. Apart from issues with humidity reporting it seems to be able to do a lot of IFTTT type of automation. i.e it sensors a person on an ourdoor camera and switches the outside lights on.

I have seen a lot of people using HA for solar automation but recently the luxpower apps have been down because people with HA are pulling lots of information from the servers. I wonder how long its going to last before they pull the API?

Apart from dashboards im curious as to what actual automation you folks are using it for,

recently the luxpower apps have been down because people with HA are pulling lots of information from the servers. I wonder how long it’s going to last before they pull the API?

Outside lights: motion sensor on camera and gate sensor with times so that the lights don't come on just when local cats come through the garden as with pir and also don't stay on longer than needed late ar night.

Inside lights: presence sensing and natural light levels and automated different shades of white and brightness time dependent. More blue in the morning while having breakfast, dim late at night.

Ebike battery charger: monitors current and switches of with the power dropping below something like 80w that's about 95% charge in the battery and the charge current is sloping down. Also set to stop after being on for x time and if the current is power is higher than it should be.

ooh good thread. Some great applications up there.

Sadly our Ground Source heat pump is one generation too old for any integration. We do lights (mainly Shelly - recommendation off here and the control over the LEDs and Smart lights is very good), I binned the EV app and used the HACS OCPP add on to control/monitor the charger. Have around 12 Smartplugs that I converted to Local Tuya so they don't need to poll China!  Also have around 10 wireless (some old BT) temp/humidity sensors

Use those for stuff I can't get at (heating in shed office based on temp so it's warm when I start work), and a few useful things like 'if it's wednesday and < 10 degrees in workshop and I'm not in (so out on a night ride), turn the heater on so it's warm when I get back)

Agree with @couger et al, Yammer is horrible as was a lot of the functions for moving stuff in the UI. But it's way better/easier now. Voice integration with google works well. 

how have you pulled the charger current into ha?

Apart from dashboards im curious as to what actual automation you folks are using it for

For example I've recently deployed a HA addon that uses the audio feed from my outdoor Tapo cameras (100% the best cameras to go for at the moment IMO based on their a) frequent cheap prices on Amazon and b) they have by far the best HA integration that I'm aware of) which obviously runs 24/7 and runs it though the Cornell Uni ML algorithm to automatically detect & log local bird activity by recognising their songs/calls. Logs all the data to a database obviously although I haven't got to grips with Grafana yet so not turned it into any pretty graphs so far 😃 Not "useful" as such but now I know we have a heron who regularly visits about 5am 😂 Also regularly detects a Black Redstart which I've never seen and is apparently quite rare (although according to the RSPB site [I]does[/I] hang around where we are). I really want to do the same thing with bats as we have quite a lot of bat activity but that will depend on the investment in a €300 Wideband ultrasonic mic which I can't really justify at the moment 🤣

I've also really got into developing my own IoT devices using HA's ESPhome platform, current project is smart-ifying our hedgehog house - just finished 3d-printing an automatic dry-food dispenser which will re-stock the house with food depending on the previous nights hedgehog activity (as detected by the in-house camera!). Will record various useless data like temperature, frequency of visits/duration of stay etc, again might make some graphs out of it at some stage 😃

Sadly our Ground Source heat pump is one generation too old for any integration.

Oh also use the excellent energy template to monitor power usage in the shed (and remind me if I've left a heater on when I switch SSIDs to the house). When I finish 'work', I just need to say 'home time' and after 60 seconds lights and heaters go off. 

We have the EV charger and the rest of the house on different circuits. So when Octopus FINALLY put us an aerial in so we can have a smart meter, I'll be using the octopus app to make sure we're making best use of the variable tariffs. £20 aliexpress wireless power sensors just clip onto the board and work really well.

My original HA died due to SD corruption. So now I run it as a VM on my Syntology NAS. And back it up to the cloud. A lesson hard learned there! 

Had loads of sensors off Ali Express, a few are hard to crack (ie get bindkey so you can either root or locally add them) but at $2 a shot, it's not a big issue.

here’s probably some way of bodging dependent on what exactly you want to do and/or what data it presents! For example there’s a great project someone’s developed using Edge AI to monitor water or non-smart electricity/gas usage by literally photographing & interpreting the analogue readouts as they spin round!

That's amazing. And also worrying because now I'm going to have to go research that!

how have you pulled the charger current into ha?

Just using a smart socket with power monitoring. Wattsin is directly related to watts out.

The current power shows as an entity.

how have you pulled the charger current into ha?

If it runs the OCPP protocol (which most do), and you can redirect the outputs to HASSIO on a specific port. Our charger is an ICS and it's easy to get to the config to do that (if you can navigate the mad UI!)

Here's a sample of what data we can collect. 

This is what the HACS OCPP automation picks up. (there's a load more off screen)

That’s amazing. And also worrying because now I’m going to have to go research that!

And back it up to the cloud. A lesson hard learned there!

So once we get the Octopus plug in, I'll basically trigger a charge via an automation based on a KWH price threshold.

I’ve also really got into developing my own IoT devices using HA’s ESPhome platform, current project is smart-ifying our hedgehog house – just finished 3d-printing an automatic dry-food dispenser which will re-stock the house with food depending on the previous nights hedgehog activity (as detected by the in-house camera!). Will record various useless data like temperature, frequency of visits/duration of stay etc, again might make some graphs out of it at some stage 😃

I can't decide if it's this or the egg counter I love the most 🙂

Watching the thread with great interest!

My experience thus far has been that I've saved probably 90 seconds of getting up to turn a light on or off, roll down a blind, switch on the oven remotely on my way home, etc. And probably taken about 10 years off my life with the stress of it randomly not working!

Okay Google, turn off the lights

- "The lights are already off"

Okay Google, turn on the lights

- "Turning on the lights"

Okay Google, turn off the lights

- "The lights are already off"

NO THEY ARE NOT GOOGLE

@chvck Same approach here, though the socket for the coffee machine is behind the dishwasher under the worktop. (Kitchen designed by Stevie Wonder?) A wifi plug was a boon for this, timer set for 20 minutes before I get up so that I can make tea for herself and have the first coffee of the day while it's brewing.

@multi21 here it's Siri just do your ****ing job!

I have a kettle which turns itself off when the water boils.

Mine whistles.

Raspberry PI arrived yesterday but didn't get chance to look it. Open it this morning, excited to start to tinkering and it needs a micro HDMI which I don't have,  doh! Will have to wait until tomorrow and my prime delivery now.

Been looking at Wifi and Zigbee for connectors. From what I have read so far it seems Wifi would be better as Zigbee needs line of sight?? Any real world experiences though please?

it needs a micro HDMI which I don’t have

For a monitor? Pesky.

Neat though! I used to just SSH into mine and use the command line.

@leonthepro HA is designed to be run headless so you don't actually [I]need[/I] to see the monitor output from the Pi, most people wouldn't have one permanently connected. You can get up & running simply by inserting the SD card flashed with HA! You'll need to know what IP address it's using (which is displayed) but you can get this info from your router.

WiFi & Zigbee are totally different wireless protocols, both have their pros/cons. Zigbee does not need LoS no. (Phillips Hue bulbs/switches use a version of Zigbee, for example). It has the advantage that any mains-powered device (lightbulbs, switches, smart plugs normally) can act as repeaters, boosting the range of the network.

Most of my devices are WiFi. The main problem people run into with that is most free wifi routers are garbage and fall over regularly, especially if you add too many devices. I have a Unifi setup so don't have any problems like that.

There's also a third option, Z-Wave. Not as common here as in the US, so not loads of devices to choose from, and they tend to be expensive (not many cheap Chinese options!) It's even more robust than Zigbee tho.

@multi21 I lay in bed last night listening to my 11yo have exactly that conversation , but with added subplots involving various colours and brightness % numbers, with google for about 20 minutes.

This stuff is fun, and I love what people with more patience than me ( hi @zilog6218 !) do with it.  But even branded versions are not exactly mature/reliable/intuitive yet

@ziglo6128 Thanks, loads to learn. Will have a play now.

Gone from rPi to Synology NAS for my HA install. Would like to move of my NAS to a dedicated mini-PC with a Coral TPU. Any recommendations for what's good atm? Bit lost with the choice and the different intel model numbers.

PC hardware isn't really something I expend a lot of brain energy on, but at least Intel make it simple! The 2 main differentiators are the "i" number (i3 being most basic and i9 most powerful) and then the first 1 or 2 numbers of the rest, which indicate generation number, 14 (I think) being the most recent. You don't want anything too old tbh. I'm running a 10th gen i5 (16Gb RAM) which has been more than adequate so far including being used as an NVR & Plex server. You don't need massive storage (I've got 250Gb with about 60% of that unused) but HA is a bit funny about using external drives etc for extra storage, and running out is very bad indeed.

I don't get HA.

Like I can't think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a "that's useful"

I'm not a luddite I don't think... Although I do believe car windows are perfectly functional with little arms you turn...

thanks @zilog6128. I'm definitely expending too much brain energy on this. Currently looking at intel N95/N100 based NUCs which look pretty good but now I. don't. know.

Currently looking at intel N95/N100 -

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”-

a fairly mediocre mobile CPU. Is this in one of the cheap Chinese brand mini-PCs that are suddenly everywhere, as opposed to a genuine NUC?

Yes, they are no-name PCs but in comparison the chips stand up well against older gen i5s. Also I am trying to do this without splurging too much! Struggling to find a >9th gen i5 for a decent-ish price 😞 

sounds more like a terminal lack of imagination more than anything else 😂 but fair enough 😀

🤣 🔥

I'd love to be able to justify it but for core jobs like turning lights on and off I'm not for doing that when we frequently get visitors.

Curtains and blinds would be handy though, put them on a light/temperature sensor. Boiler is obvious. Only thing that bothers me is relying on Google and other providers not to just can something with little warning, I'd want to do as much as possible self served.

PC hardware isn’t really something I expend a lot of brain energy on, but at least Intel make it simple! The 2 main differentiators are the “i” number (i3 being most basic and i9 most powerful) and then the first 1 or 2 numbers of the rest, which indicate generation number, 14 (I think) being the most recent.

😂

You're going to love their new convention, they're zeroing everything, taking away numbers and basically smearing shit on the walls so nobody knows what the hell they're getting.

sounds more like a terminal lack of imagination more than anything else 😂 but fair enough 😀

Oh cont rare

My imagination pictures perfectly that I can open the curtains and turn off the lights without needing to have a computer to help me! We need to be using less energy not more!

We need to be using less energy not more!

True but closing curtains when you're not there keeps heat in the house. In an ideal world I'd have those integrated shutters that Germans seem to love, cover the job of blackout blinds and extra insulation.

Agree with you on the rest, a lot of the logic could probably be accomplished without a computer.

I've got automations for turning off the radiators near the bathroom when the bathroom window is open. When the humidity drops in the bathroom the speakers send out an alert to tell someone to shut the window. Then the radiators go back to their usual programme.

And turning lights off when no-one is in the room. And telling me when the garage door is open when no-one is at home.

Basically it's more satisfying playing with home automation than getting annoyed at your family for leaving windows & doors open and lights on.

But I really want to figure out what birds and other animals are in our garden.

Only thing that bothers me is relying on Google and other providers not to just can something with little warning, I’d want to do as much as possible self served.

That's what Home Assistant allows you to do. It can even bridge to the Google/Apple apps so that the rest of the family can carry on using what they are used to without suspecting a thing.

You’re going to love their new convention, they’re zeroing everything, taking away numbers and basically smearing shit on the walls so nobody knows what the hell they’re getting.

I’d love to be able to justify it but for core jobs like turning lights on and off I’m not for doing that when we frequently get visitors.

Only thing that bothers me is relying on Google and other providers not to just can something with little warning, I’d want to do as much as possible self served.

My imagination pictures perfectly that I can open the curtains and turn off the lights without needing to have a computer to help me! We need to be using less energy not more!

I’m not a luddite I don’t think

Only thing that bothers me is relying on Google and other providers not to just can something with little warning

I used to have one of the free Google Suites accounts. They announced they were pulling it something like 18 months in advance, gave you the tools to migrate and the old account still works (although not receiving mail) a long time later, I have no idea how long ago it was now 🙂

I'm less confident with Amazon but I only have a couple of hundred quid of Echoes accumulated over the years so I'll take that risk. The lighting stuff is Zigbee which is an open standard meaning it's not tied to any one manufacturer. We have a mix of Philips and Ikea; the former are better - more range and more vivid colours than the latter, but much more expensive. But they do come in B22.

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”

My heating turns itself off when the house gets to a selected temperature.

Ah okay, that makes a bit more sense. Cheers.

When the humidity drops in the bathroom the speakers send out an alert to tell someone to shut the window.

Humidistats are already built into fans, if the one built in is crap you can probably quite easily wire in the same one you're using.

Lights can be PIR logic controlled.

That's the thing, a lot of these don't need a computer interface to work.

Lights can be PIR logic controlled.

That’s the thing, a lot of these don’t need a computer interface to work.

We have a mix of Philips and Ikea; the former are better – more range and more vivid colours than the latter, but much more expensive.

That’s the thing, a lot of these don’t need a computer interface to work.

I do realise most folk just do without all of this stuff. I think that's pretty obviously the case? I don't need to justify my hobby but here goes anyway: I enjoy messing around with home automation, actually find it fascinating to understand how to use hardware and software in a living, physical environment in a way that is invisible and useful or fun, or whatever.

But honestly this is like arguing over whether mountain biking is "useful". You get it, and enjoy it and maybe it fulfils you in other ways too. Plenty of people don't go mountain biking, and that's fine too, it's not for everyone.

If you think home automation is weird and pointless, maybe just note we're mostly harmless and then go and find another thread to start an argument on.

I don't think Hue are the same as Ikea. They are definitely better all round - they go dimmer, brighter, they go redder, bluer, purpler etc, but not 5x better!

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”

I'm not an evangelist - I don't insist that everyone needs it. We'd be better off if no-one had it, because it's needless tech junk. The things we use it for:

- Playing music, both on the standalone speakers and as a streaming solution for hi-fi
- Intercom around the house - it's got three floors, and teenagers with closed doors, so it's much better than shouting at the top of your lungs around the house
- My daughter used to use it to play music to get her to sleep when she was younger
- We have lots of lights - so for example we put the hallway lights on a low setting in the evening so the house isn't black but it's not using much power. This is done on three floors and four lights with a single command, it's a lot easier than turning them all up and down individually.
- Group actions - for example, "I'm watching TV" turns on the LED lights around the telly and two concealed uplighters which would involve rummaging around behind stuff otherwise.
- Scheduled stuff like having the coffee machine on and warmed up when I get up.
- Doing stuff ahead of time like making a house announcement asking people to put the hot water on as I'm coming home from a long freezing bike ride; also putting the coffee machine on again.

My next one will probably be a smart switch for the immersion heater. I've just fitted a dumb timer so I can heat water overnight for cheap but it's shit, and now Octopus have announced Octoplus I may be able to heat water for super-cheap or even get paid to do so.

It's worth noting that I originally thought voice control for stuff was pointless - I argued that very point on here a long time ago - but I quite like it now.

just realised you are the guy who doesn’t even have a smartphone which leads me to question this statement:

Ahaha.

If you recall that's because the bloody thing was having a very serious effect on my mental health. I'm better now though thanks. Got myself a smart phone and everything again. I stand by the fact it's quite nice to not have one sometimes.

I am all for tinkering, I think the problem solving aspect is interesting I just am not convinced by alot of the projects being actually useful.

IE

My heating turns itself off when the house gets to a selected temperature.

If a computer is doing the job of a single analogue component... It's not an improvement?

The smart thermostats do more than just turn it off and on, which is the point, but it's more effective the more modern and/or smart your other stuff is.

If a computer is doing the job of a single analogue component… It’s not an improvement?

My point was that we all have home automation to some degree, even if it's just a timer on the heating.

But honestly this is like arguing over whether mountain biking is “useful”. You get it, and enjoy it and maybe it fulfils you in other ways too. Plenty of people don’t go mountain biking, and that’s fine too, it’s not for everyone.

I don’t think Hue are the same as Ikea. They are definitely better all round – they go dimmer, brighter, they go redder, bluer, purpler etc, but not 5x better!

I’m better now though thanks.

PIR sensors don’t work for residential lighting. Your mrs will complain loudly if she’s still in the bath & all the lights go out.

So what do you use? Short of everyone carrying a token of some sort there's nothing else I can think of that would be appropriate for a domestic system. Cameras in particular.

I do realise most folk just do without all of this stuff. I think that’s pretty obviously the case? I don’t need to justify my hobby but here goes anyway: I enjoy messing around with home automation, actually find it fascinating to understand how to use hardware and software in a living, physical environment in a way that is invisible and useful or fun, or whatever.

Not looking to start an argument, just found it odd you would go to the trouble of doing something yourself that has an easy existing solution. Never considered the "because I can" argument which is fair enough. I'm more of a "keep it simple" pov which although isn't as expensive has a higher reliability.

I think there really is too much InternetofShit in devices these days. It's not the functionality that bothers me but the implementation and the fact you're nearly always reliant on someone else at some point in the chain. And at the end it'll all be e-waste. There's a balance to be struck and enthusiasts probably have a better chance of getting it right.

I’ve very much gone off the deep end and probably the things that most people are doing like lights/heating etc are just a distant glimmer now 😂 Current interest/obsession is leveraging AI & big data.

Sounds like an utter waste of your life. You should apply that knowledge to something genuinely useful like Elite (AI ****er > spreadsheet ****er)

😉

So what do you use? Short of everyone carrying a token of some sort there’s nothing else I can think of that would be appropriate for a domestic system.

But that's just the start of it... if you're in the bath or living room & have lit some candles for example, you might not want the lights to come on automatically. Same if you're watching a movie, or just happen to sit up in bed at night. Do you [I]always[/I] want all your lights to be off when you're away? What if burglars are scooping the place out? What if one family member prefers some lights being left on at night if they're the only ones in the house, rather than everything just going dark at bedtime? It's a lot more nuanced than people imagine when they're just thought-experimenting it, when you actually come to implement it you'll find you're still using manual controls a lot until you can account for all the edge use-cases (of which there are a lot!!)

All these scenarios can be handled, but you need more data (from other sensors, etc). One of the really interesting things (to me lol) about AI like ChatGPT is it can still make correct decisions based on fuzzy or incomplete data... obviously this was possible before but CGPT makes it [I]really[/I] easy i.e. no programming.

I think there really is too much InternetofShit in devices these days. It’s not the functionality that bothers me but the implementation and the fact you’re nearly always reliant on someone else at some point in the chain. And at the end it’ll all be e-waste. There’s a balance to be struck and enthusiasts probably have a better chance of getting it right.

Sounds like an utter waste of your life. You should apply that knowledge to something genuinely useful like Elite

I don’t get HA.

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”

Do you have a TV remote, or do you get up to change channels and adjust the volume?

"Alexa, dim the lights." I have a voice routine attached to "goodnight" which shuts down whatever crap my partner's left on without having to trail through the house end-to-end throwing switches.

Shopping list management is a killer app which even my technophobe girlfriend loves. "Alexa, add bananas" and it appears on my app when I'm in the supermarket.

I’m not a luddite I don’t think… Although I do believe car windows are perfectly functional with little arms you turn…

As a passenger perhaps, it's a pain when you're trying to drive at the same time.

But in the spirit of the subject: walking across the carpark on a hot summer's day you can press & hold the unlock button to open all the windows, get some air through for a minute before you get into the car. You can't do that with winder handles.

MMwave radar is what people are using these days. It’s much more sensitive (would be triggered by you breathing), zoned and also detects direction of motion (i.e. are you leaving or entering a room). Hence not at all suitable for just on/off control!

Huh, the more you know...

But in the spirit of the subject: walking across the carpark on a hot summer’s day you can press & hold the unlock button to open all the windows, get some air through for a minute before you get into the car. You can’t do that with winder handles.

Good point... Not mUCH of a problem in Peebles 😁 but it seems daft to me to stuff cars with motors and extra weight that could be used to increase range.

I'm not saying HA is a bad idea just most of the ideas seem frivolous.

Now if someone can make myhouse read the surplus supply on the national grid and tell everything now is a good time to turn on/refresh/charge cheaply so it can be rolled out across all homes reducing peak demand... I am in.

I think someone actually said something about that already...

That’s the thing, a lot of these don’t need a computer interface to work.

They do if you want to make the logic context based. I have different routines for lights, sound etc based on if i'm eating in the dining room, watching TV, working, cooking, getting up in the middle of the night, getting up in the morning, and so on.

Now if someone can make myhouse read the surplus supply on the national grid and tell everything now is a good time to turn on/refresh/charge cheaply so it can be rolled out across all homes reducing peak demand… I am in.

One of my colleagues, a very early adopter of home automation, has stuff that's been running since the mid 90's.
He has his solar, GSHP, ASHP, UFH, EV charging, external supply and home electrical storage all integrated into one model based on his internal demand, instantaneous cost from supplier, output from the solar, internal and external temps and local load, plus a degree of smart learning (i'll be waking up at 6:30 as it's tuesday, lets turn the heating up and make sure the car is charged to a minimum of 30% before 7:30 when you leave for work.) It's all there. Not forgetting lights, sound, blinds... Initial investment was, errrr, significant. But his current heating/electrical costs are almost zero, house is always "right" for him, wife (she hasn't left him) and kids.

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”

Isn't it just fun programming for nerds? I mean I make plastic models which essentially serve the same purpose as this, keep me from sitting on the sofa going blind from watching the idiot box when I can't be (or don't wanna be) outside on my bike. I mean none of things are life changingly important, but it's still just kinda neat, no?

Now if someone can make myhouse read the surplus supply on the national grid and tell everything now is a good time to turn on/refresh/charge cheaply

Not so hard.

I do this on the Agile Octopus tariff.  My current daily consumption is about 8kwh but in the early hours of Sunday morning the wholesale price of electricity was negative and the electric underfloor, various heaters, dishwasher and tumble drier all switched on. I used 45kwh that day!

Has anyone on here set up evohome to record to some kind of historian? (I've looked at domoticz but never got round to implementing it.

I'd love to record temperature demand/boiler use etc... so I can try and optimise/minimise our oil usage (and understand system performance for moving to something like ground source/air source). I'm not sure if that would be better done by putting sensors on the oil tank or boiler or both!

I’d love to record temperature demand/boiler use etc… so I can try and optimise/minimise our oil usage (and understand system performance for moving to something like ground source/air source). I’m not sure if that would be better done by putting sensors on the oil tank or boiler or both

wiser does that natively and its very useful - you can see which rooms are sucking heat very quickly and also which rooms the Rads are possibly undersized in.

Has anyone on here set up evohome to record to some kind of historian? (I’ve looked at domoticz but never got round to implementing it.

I've heard of Domoticz but had no idea what it was till I googled it just now, I'm sure it has it's hard-core fans but looks pretty awful/clunky/hard-to-use vs HA!

I’d love to record temperature demand/boiler use etc… so I can try and optimise/minimise our oil usage (and understand system performance for moving to something like ground source/air source). I’m not sure if that would be better done by putting sensors on the oil tank or boiler or both!

I've a setup on a RPi that accurately records oil use by recording when the burner is actually running and multiplying this time by the nozzle volume capacity.

All the data is uploaded to a Google Sheet.

I'm just getting started with HA and have so far managed to get lt connected to my Givenergy battery - it's not exactly user friendly is it? Admittedly I've probably not been helped by cold induced brain fog today, but is there a simple guide to creating a dashboard from all the entity data I now have available?

I'm having a whale of a time in the new house, new bulbs in most of the rooms connected to Alexa, along with the TV & heating. Got a couple of plugs on the way for the crimbo lights so I can further walk around in my pant sshouting for things to turn on like a 1960's sci-fi movie! 

I’m just getting started with HA and have so far managed to get lt connected to my Givenergy battery – it’s not exactly user friendly is it?

re. dashboards - this is IMO weakest point of HA so far actually and something they need to do a lot of work on. The GUI for this is genuinely appalling 😂 I would just spin up some YT videos (try not to watch anything over 6 months or a year old as it is evolving very rapidly so info is quickly out of date!) It's actually pretty easy to knock up simple dashboards for specific things once you get your head around the whole concept, you should be able to do everything from the GUI.

If you create a new dashboard it should load EVERYTHING on there including your Solar stuff (although I believe the very latest version which I'm not actually running yet gives you a bit more control over the default dashboard?) which shouldn't actually be loads if you're only just starting out. You can then "take control" over the dashboard and delete everything you don't want. It also allows you to see how the dashboard stuff works & you can even inspect the raw code if you like (which I actually find easier/quicker than navigating the dashboard editing GUI)

If you have any specific questions the HA FB group is extremely active and actually generally very helpful/supportive so you could ask there, or the forum on their webpage, or here or even shoot me a PM.

Thanks zilog - TBH I'd normally be all over this sort of thing - for instance I recently brute forced my way through learning how to build an automated Google Sheet to work on mobiles using Google App Script, so I think it's more to do with me having an off day. I'll try again when the brain fog lifts.

Just dipping my toe into the HA space having bought a Beelink N100 mini PC as opposed to a Pi.  Pretty easy to setup by creating an Ubuntu image which I booted from then installed HAOS.  The biggest issue I had was trying to get access to the dashboard until I finally realised that HAOS is designed to run headless - doh!  Anyway, the Reolink security camera is up and running and it automatically found my Sonos stuff.  Any recommendations for a smart immersion heater?

I've got this one.  Relatively inexpensive, and very easy to fit if you've got the right kind of immersion heater currently, because you can just swap it in as a replacement thermostat.

I wrote the HA integration for it 🙂  (available via HACS)

This has popped up at a convenient time. Had automation for most lighting in my old house but the bulbs in the new one were all different and it was too much hassle. However, we have a couple of lights in the hall, one of which has no switched live to it. While I'm redecorating, I'm trying to figure out a way of using this second light. Shelly controllers seem like the perfect solution, however, I'm not keen on giving up the wall switch control. What do people use to replace the normal switches (if anything)? Ideally I'd like something to fully replace this switch on the standard wall box, even better if it could power from the lighting ring (there is obviously power here to provide the switched live back to the light so I could get live and neutral easily enough).

Shelly controllers seem like the perfect solution, however, I’m not keen on giving up the wall switch control.

What Shelly(s) have you been looking at? With most of them (unlike Hue, etc) you still use them with your standard wall switch!

If you don't have a neutral then the only current options are the Dimmer2 (which you'd probably locate behind the switch) or the Pro Dimmer (which is bigger & DIN rail mountable so would have to go somewhere else!) You don't have to use them as dimmers (although the light they control must be dimmable for them to work!) and indeed they can't be used with a normal, analogue dimmer switch but instead are designed to be used with 1 or 2 on/off style switches (or ideally momentary switches).

They used to do a module called Shelly1L but I think a lot of people had problems with it and they've discontinued it. (Although I'm running a few & they've been fine!).

The other (non-Shelly) option is to go down the Zigbee route - of which Hue is one but there are probably better (certainly cheaper!) options. Philips sell a module now allowing you to use your existing switches with Hue lights although it's relatively expensive.