3 ms·
> My outdoor lights slowly brighten as it gets dark outside - not by a timer, but by checking the actual times of sunrise / sunset as well as how cloudy it is,
by jfk13 9y ago
> My outdoor lights slowly brighten as it gets dark outside - not by a timer, but by checking the actual times of sunrise / sunset as well as how cloudy it is, which might make it darker sooner.
Sounds like a task best handled locally with a light sensor. Why mess with indirect inputs such as sunrise/sunset times and weather reports, which incidentally imply connectivity (and therefore more potential points of failure and vulnerabilities) when a simple, standalone solution exists?
- growse 9y agoNow you have to figure out where to put your light sensor so that it's not affected by the outdoor lights. And then get power / connectivity to it, keep it clean etc etc.
- zach 9y agoSounds like a task that had better have a good software-only fallback, because not many people are going to have a light sensor. And if the software-only implementation works well enough, why would they buy one?
- enobrev 9y agoI may use a light sensor as a backup or even the primary driver for how bright the lights are. I just haven't gotten there yet. You're spot on about connectivity, although I could potentially keep a table of sunrise / sunset times to reference while offline. These outside lights were my very first foray into home automation after I'd moved into our new house. It's been working so well, that I just kept going with other things. Until this thread, I'd practically forgotten about the automation.