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The most useful thing I have is a little script that logs into my bank, downloads a CSV and sends me the latest transaction via email daily. Saves me time to lo

The most useful thing I have is a little script that logs into my bank, downloads a CSV and sends me the latest transaction via email daily. Saves me time to login to online banking, and also serves as a useful way to search for previous transactions inside my mailbox from time to time. Besides that I use Home Assistant[0] with a few simple automations. For example, when the lights are on in the bathroom, and it's after dark, increase the heating/towel warmer (using Tado[1]). Tado has its own home/away detection, plus some schedule for the heaters. It's supposed to save on energy costs. When we're on holiday, I switch on/off various lights (with some random offset) at night... Or some times I might leave a radio on timer / connected to an IoT power switch. (I don't use any burglar alarms, cameras etc, but I try to deter them with those simple fake occupancy tools) Philips Hue has a nice way to slowly turn the lights on. Useful to wake up during the dark winter months. [0] https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/ [1] https://www.tado.com/ https://www.tado.com/

mehrdadn 8y ago
> a little script that logs into my bank I've wanted to do something like this for so long but it just seems so painful. How do you do this with just a little script when there's so much Javascript involved in the page, as well as random interjections like random extra security verification steps? Do you have a particularly scrape-friendly bank?
- vbezhenar 8y ago
  Try to watch network requests in developer console of your browser. Sometimes there's a simple REST interface behind that JavaScript and all you need is to login and issue one request. Extra security verification steps probably won't let you do that, though, if implemented correctly.
- uptown 8y ago
  You can emulate a user driven browser using a headless instance of Chrome. Look up some “chromedriver” tutorials. Hooks together nicely with Selenium.
  - mehrdadn 8y ago
    In theory, yeah. I actually did try Selenium and Chrome several months or maybe a ~year ago. I don't remember exactly what the pain points were but I remember it was really painful to figure out how to get it to work. Everything from figuring out how to inject JS into a page to figuring out how to wait for events, etc. it was just a massive pain. I don't think I ever figured it out entirely.
paublyrne 8y ago
For your banking script, are you able to use an API with a limited access token? Or does it use your normal credentials. I don't save my various banking credentials anywhere, not even 1password, as they're so sensitive, curious how you do this.
- gizmo 8y ago
  Your banking password isn't that sensitive, because banks are used by regular people who don't have any conception of good security practices. The worst case scenario of your bank login credentials leaking are really not that bad. Your personal email account is probably a million times more sensitive. It contains enough personal information to get your identity stolen a thousand times over, and once your email has been compromised there is no way to ascertain the damage.
  - gingerlime 8y ago
    Couldn't agree more. See my comment above. My online bank only provides readonly access with a password. Anything else requires a one-time-password anyway. I'd be much more worried about my email getting hacked though.
  - HumanDrivenDev 8y ago
    Your banking password isn't that sensitive, because banks are used by regular people who don't have any conception of good security practices. The worst case scenario of your bank login credentials leaking are really not that bad. Huh? The worst case scenario of your bank login details is... someone depositing all your money to their account, surely.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Nope, the login in (some? many?) banks is just a first step, to actually perform transactions they require a second stage auth. Most they can do is transfer money to some of my family members (I've disabled the second stage for a few specific destinations).
    - 8y ago
voltagex_ 8y ago
I really want to like Home Assistant, but at least on Windows there's some gnarly concurrency issues with it the last time I looked: it launches two Python processes and one of them fails every time. Also, there was no auto-discovery of LIFX lights and I was told I needed to re-implement the LIFX protocol from scratch because no extra dependencies were allowed in the discovery module.

mehrdadn 8y ago

> a little script that logs into my bank I've wanted to do something like this for so long but it just seems so painful. How do you do this with just a little script when there's so much Javascript involved in the page, as well as random interjections like random extra security verification steps? Do you have a particularly scrape-friendly bank?

vbezhenar 8y ago
Try to watch network requests in developer console of your browser. Sometimes there's a simple REST interface behind that JavaScript and all you need is to login and issue one request. Extra security verification steps probably won't let you do that, though, if implemented correctly.
uptown 8y ago
You can emulate a user driven browser using a headless instance of Chrome. Look up some “chromedriver” tutorials. Hooks together nicely with Selenium.
- mehrdadn 8y ago
  In theory, yeah. I actually did try Selenium and Chrome several months or maybe a ~year ago. I don't remember exactly what the pain points were but I remember it was really painful to figure out how to get it to work. Everything from figuring out how to inject JS into a page to figuring out how to wait for events, etc. it was just a massive pain. I don't think I ever figured it out entirely.

paublyrne 8y ago

For your banking script, are you able to use an API with a limited access token? Or does it use your normal credentials. I don't save my various banking credentials anywhere, not even 1password, as they're so sensitive, curious how you do this.

gizmo 8y ago
Your banking password isn't that sensitive, because banks are used by regular people who don't have any conception of good security practices. The worst case scenario of your bank login credentials leaking are really not that bad. Your personal email account is probably a million times more sensitive. It contains enough personal information to get your identity stolen a thousand times over, and once your email has been compromised there is no way to ascertain the damage.
- gingerlime 8y ago
  Couldn't agree more. See my comment above. My online bank only provides readonly access with a password. Anything else requires a one-time-password anyway. I'd be much more worried about my email getting hacked though.
- HumanDrivenDev 8y ago
  Your banking password isn't that sensitive, because banks are used by regular people who don't have any conception of good security practices. The worst case scenario of your bank login credentials leaking are really not that bad. Huh? The worst case scenario of your bank login details is... someone depositing all your money to their account, surely.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Nope, the login in (some? many?) banks is just a first step, to actually perform transactions they require a second stage auth. Most they can do is transfer money to some of my family members (I've disabled the second stage for a few specific destinations).
  - 8y ago

voltagex_ 8y ago

I really want to like Home Assistant, but at least on Windows there's some gnarly concurrency issues with it the last time I looked: it launches two Python processes and one of them fails every time. Also, there was no auto-discovery of LIFX lights and I was told I needed to re-implement the LIFX protocol from scratch because no extra dependencies were allowed in the discovery module.