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I have a raspberry pi where I installed Home Assistant a few months ago when I moved into my new home. I did a little bit of messing with it, but stopped while

I have a raspberry pi where I installed Home Assistant a few months ago when I moved into my new home. I did a little bit of messing with it, but stopped while waiting to have more devices that could communicate with it. What are some of the more useful things people have found they are able to accomplish with this, and what was the best way to go about them? Ideas I currently am toying with: presence sensors to turn lights on/off, somehow measuring the voltage used by appliances (washer/dryer, dishwasher, etc) to notify me when they finish running, a camera in my backyard that uses basic image processing to tell when my dog squats and I have to go pick it up.

ohitsdom 8y ago
I'm using it with z-wave door sensors to play a simple chime sound (helps keep track of curious toddlers). Also have a few IP cameras connected to it, may be adding presence sensors too. Planning on adding an "armed" mode where I can get alerts if motion is detected when we're not home.
kop316 8y ago
My favorite things for it is a lot of the "scripting" you can do for it: - I have my outdoor lights turn on when the sun goes down and turn off 4 hours after sunset - If it is after sunset, if it detects mine or my significant other connecting to the wifi, it automatically turns my Nest from away mode and turns on lights inside. - It will automatically turn off all my lights and my nest to away mode if it detects that no one is home. There is a lot more flexibility to it (i.e. it can send you an email if someone gets home and you are not home, things like that). You can do a lot of those, I do not know how much work you have to do in it, but you can make your own "sensors" and it will integrate into home assistant.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  For those who don't want to go all in on home automation, you can buy solar timers for your lights that have an on off button, but also accept your lat long as a parameter and contain a solar calendar internally; they will turn your lights on and off automatically around dawn and dusk (and variations of).
  - adanto6840 8y ago
    There are now even LED lightbulbs (~$7-10 each) that have light sensors in them that will run dusk-to-dawn. Is a lot better than trying to remember to switch the porch lights on/off every day! :)
Klathmon 8y ago
some of the stuff i've wired up around my house: * zwave motion sensors that can turn on the stairs lights at night when I start to walk down * door/window sensors that will automatically turn the AC off if they are open for more than a minute. * several methods of presence detection for anyone in the house, and ensuring the doors are locked, lights out, and garage doors down if nobody is home (after an announcement on the google homes just in case anyone somehow is still home) * automatic notifications to my wife's phone when i'm on my way home after work so she would know when to start dinner (we don't use this one any more as I work from home, but it beat getting phone calls and me guessing how long I was from home every day!) * notifications that show an image of who is at the front door when there is motion there * an alert if a door in the house is left open for more than 1 minute * a vibration sensor combined with a tiny hall sensor on the door of the washer/dryer to notify me when laundry is done (trying to measure power usage on 220v wiring was looking to be more annoyance than it was worth, so i went a different route!) And one of my favorites that i'm working on right now: * a system to measure rainfall amount and only turn on the reclaimed water sprinklers when it's not enough, but adjust the runtime accordingly.
- beagle3 8y ago
  Where do you buy your sensors, and which ones do you use? Sounds like they are all over the place so they need power and wireless (or a lot of cabling....)
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    the motion sensors and door/window sensors are zwave. They are battery powered, but i've had the oldest ones for almost 2 years now and haven't had to replace the batteries yet, and when I do I can get a pack of like 10 for $15 so it's not bad. All of the light switches are zwave as well, and they go in the wall behind the toggle switches, so from the outside you can't see any difference. I get most of them from amazon, and i've used a bunch of vendors over the years. Aeotec, ecolink, linear, and a few no-name brands.
    - lostapathy 8y ago
roel_v 8y ago
In addition to most of the things other people have reported above, I have: - Scripts that open/close curtains depending on sunset/sundown and whether we're on holiday (presence simulation) - My seedling box - it's an Ikea rack with styrofoam in which I have LED grow lights, a heating element and a fan to control temperature and which simulates different lighting conditions, to start seedlings and to do first fermentation of wines - Monitoring/reporting of solar power generated - Automatically switch off devices that use a lot of standby power but are only used occasionally - printer/copier, that sort of thing. I made the money the switches cost back within a year.
- landcoctos 8y ago
  Hi. Can you provide details on the hardware and interfaces for the curtain setup?
  - roel_v 8y ago
    I use Forest drapery rails (https://www.forestgroup.com/ https://www.forestgroup.com/). They're awesome, they have a zwave interface build in (the ones I use - they have multiple systems) and they have been 100% rock solid for 4+ years for me. They behave like light dimmers, so you just send them a '50%' message to close them half way etc. Also, you can still open them by hand; if you give them a slight tug, they will open or close the rest by themselves depending on the current positions. Many electric curtain rails, you can't open and close by hand. So if, say, the babysitter tries to close them and she doesn't know that they're electrical, and she starts yanking them, it'll damage the motor. The ones from Forest don't have that. Furthermore, the company had great service. I wanted these rails when they were just on the market, and I told my installer what I wanted, but he didn't know about the zwave type yet. So I called my local Forest office (in the Netherlands) and they immediately put me through to an engineer who gave me the SKU for the installer to order, and he also gave me excellent advice on how to configure things (in a technical way, not in a 'this is what the manual says' way) and on the different options. They have different types, with different motors, depending on the curtain length. He said 'try the light one first, I think they'll work fine for your length. If they don't work as you want, you can just swap out the motors, it's all compatible. Just tell your installer to return it to <address>, label it <this guys name> and have your installer call me on <guys' cell phone nr> if he has any questions.' That was such a breath of fresh air, being used to companies that jerk you around from one call center lackey to another, reading you prepared scripts with snippets of the manual that you've already read half a dozen times.
cmsimike 8y ago
My current favorite ones: - My GF is a bit forgetful and sometimes leaves her purse behind when leaving somewhere. I had an automation setup with an ibeacon in her purse and owntracks on her phone to detect when the purse is far away from her, and send me and her a notification - i built a bed occupancy sensor so hass knows if we're in bed or not, and disables automations that would otherwise be annoying (mainly the motion-detected lights in the bedroom) - i come home and say "hey snips, i'm home" which turns on the tv and sets kodi to a plugin that i tend to use. - i have a snips.ai command (hey snips, let's party) which turns on my lifx bulbs and makes them change colors - also whenever Eric Prydz comes on my living room kodi, those party lights come on - i have an announcement go out over snips.ai tts when my 3d print starts (so i can go ensure the first few layers are good) and when the 3d print is done. I also have snips commands to tell me how much time is left on my 3d print job, and if the temperature of the nozzle spikes too high.
- roel_v 8y ago
  "i built a bed occupancy sensor so hass knows if we're in bed or not," Do you use a pressure sensor or PIR for that?
  - cmsimike 8y ago
    2x of these https://www.adafruit.com/product/1071 https://www.adafruit.com/product/1071 between the mattress and box spring, ultimately hooked up to a raspi zero w
    - roel_v 8y ago
      Aha those are exactly what I was looking for a few years ago when I tried to do the same, I only found tiny ones with difficult to use interfaces. Thanks!
- borisian 8y ago
  i made an account because i noticed you mentioned snips. I own a 3d printer and just began toying with it, setting tts is bloody genius. is it hard to pick it up?
matharmin 8y ago
The most useful one I've done is opening the garage door from my phone or Google Home (yes, anyone can stand outside my windows and open the door on voice command, but noone would know to do that), and notifying me when I left it open for 5 minutes. I used a Sonoff relay switch for this, coupled with custom firmware based on homie. A LOT of hours went into this, but it was also a lot of fun and learning. I've also made temperature and other sensors using esp8266 boards, but that wasn't quite worth the time spent.
robbiet480 8y ago
For more ideas with actual code, the "home-assistant-config" tag on GitHub [0] is very popular to find those who have put their configuration into version control. Here's mine [1]. [0]: https://github.com/topics/home-assistant-config https://github.com/topics/home-assistant-config [1]: https://github.com/robbiet480/Home-Assistant-Config https://github.com/robbiet480/Home-Assistant-Config

ohitsdom 8y ago

I'm using it with z-wave door sensors to play a simple chime sound (helps keep track of curious toddlers). Also have a few IP cameras connected to it, may be adding presence sensors too. Planning on adding an "armed" mode where I can get alerts if motion is detected when we're not home.

kop316 8y ago

My favorite things for it is a lot of the "scripting" you can do for it: - I have my outdoor lights turn on when the sun goes down and turn off 4 hours after sunset - If it is after sunset, if it detects mine or my significant other connecting to the wifi, it automatically turns my Nest from away mode and turns on lights inside. - It will automatically turn off all my lights and my nest to away mode if it detects that no one is home. There is a lot more flexibility to it (i.e. it can send you an email if someone gets home and you are not home, things like that). You can do a lot of those, I do not know how much work you have to do in it, but you can make your own "sensors" and it will integrate into home assistant.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
For those who don't want to go all in on home automation, you can buy solar timers for your lights that have an on off button, but also accept your lat long as a parameter and contain a solar calendar internally; they will turn your lights on and off automatically around dawn and dusk (and variations of).
- adanto6840 8y ago
  There are now even LED lightbulbs (~$7-10 each) that have light sensors in them that will run dusk-to-dawn. Is a lot better than trying to remember to switch the porch lights on/off every day! :)

Klathmon 8y ago

some of the stuff i've wired up around my house: * zwave motion sensors that can turn on the stairs lights at night when I start to walk down * door/window sensors that will automatically turn the AC off if they are open for more than a minute. * several methods of presence detection for anyone in the house, and ensuring the doors are locked, lights out, and garage doors down if nobody is home (after an announcement on the google homes just in case anyone somehow is still home) * automatic notifications to my wife's phone when i'm on my way home after work so she would know when to start dinner (we don't use this one any more as I work from home, but it beat getting phone calls and me guessing how long I was from home every day!) * notifications that show an image of who is at the front door when there is motion there * an alert if a door in the house is left open for more than 1 minute * a vibration sensor combined with a tiny hall sensor on the door of the washer/dryer to notify me when laundry is done (trying to measure power usage on 220v wiring was looking to be more annoyance than it was worth, so i went a different route!) And one of my favorites that i'm working on right now: * a system to measure rainfall amount and only turn on the reclaimed water sprinklers when it's not enough, but adjust the runtime accordingly.

beagle3 8y ago
Where do you buy your sensors, and which ones do you use? Sounds like they are all over the place so they need power and wireless (or a lot of cabling....)
- Klathmon 8y ago
  the motion sensors and door/window sensors are zwave. They are battery powered, but i've had the oldest ones for almost 2 years now and haven't had to replace the batteries yet, and when I do I can get a pack of like 10 for $15 so it's not bad. All of the light switches are zwave as well, and they go in the wall behind the toggle switches, so from the outside you can't see any difference. I get most of them from amazon, and i've used a bunch of vendors over the years. Aeotec, ecolink, linear, and a few no-name brands.
  - lostapathy 8y ago

roel_v 8y ago

In addition to most of the things other people have reported above, I have: - Scripts that open/close curtains depending on sunset/sundown and whether we're on holiday (presence simulation) - My seedling box - it's an Ikea rack with styrofoam in which I have LED grow lights, a heating element and a fan to control temperature and which simulates different lighting conditions, to start seedlings and to do first fermentation of wines - Monitoring/reporting of solar power generated - Automatically switch off devices that use a lot of standby power but are only used occasionally - printer/copier, that sort of thing. I made the money the switches cost back within a year.

landcoctos 8y ago
Hi. Can you provide details on the hardware and interfaces for the curtain setup?
- roel_v 8y ago
  I use Forest drapery rails (https://www.forestgroup.com/ https://www.forestgroup.com/). They're awesome, they have a zwave interface build in (the ones I use - they have multiple systems) and they have been 100% rock solid for 4+ years for me. They behave like light dimmers, so you just send them a '50%' message to close them half way etc. Also, you can still open them by hand; if you give them a slight tug, they will open or close the rest by themselves depending on the current positions. Many electric curtain rails, you can't open and close by hand. So if, say, the babysitter tries to close them and she doesn't know that they're electrical, and she starts yanking them, it'll damage the motor. The ones from Forest don't have that. Furthermore, the company had great service. I wanted these rails when they were just on the market, and I told my installer what I wanted, but he didn't know about the zwave type yet. So I called my local Forest office (in the Netherlands) and they immediately put me through to an engineer who gave me the SKU for the installer to order, and he also gave me excellent advice on how to configure things (in a technical way, not in a 'this is what the manual says' way) and on the different options. They have different types, with different motors, depending on the curtain length. He said 'try the light one first, I think they'll work fine for your length. If they don't work as you want, you can just swap out the motors, it's all compatible. Just tell your installer to return it to <address>, label it <this guys name> and have your installer call me on <guys' cell phone nr> if he has any questions.' That was such a breath of fresh air, being used to companies that jerk you around from one call center lackey to another, reading you prepared scripts with snippets of the manual that you've already read half a dozen times.

cmsimike 8y ago

My current favorite ones: - My GF is a bit forgetful and sometimes leaves her purse behind when leaving somewhere. I had an automation setup with an ibeacon in her purse and owntracks on her phone to detect when the purse is far away from her, and send me and her a notification - i built a bed occupancy sensor so hass knows if we're in bed or not, and disables automations that would otherwise be annoying (mainly the motion-detected lights in the bedroom) - i come home and say "hey snips, i'm home" which turns on the tv and sets kodi to a plugin that i tend to use. - i have a snips.ai command (hey snips, let's party) which turns on my lifx bulbs and makes them change colors - also whenever Eric Prydz comes on my living room kodi, those party lights come on - i have an announcement go out over snips.ai tts when my 3d print starts (so i can go ensure the first few layers are good) and when the 3d print is done. I also have snips commands to tell me how much time is left on my 3d print job, and if the temperature of the nozzle spikes too high.

roel_v 8y ago
"i built a bed occupancy sensor so hass knows if we're in bed or not," Do you use a pressure sensor or PIR for that?
- cmsimike 8y ago
  2x of these https://www.adafruit.com/product/1071 https://www.adafruit.com/product/1071 between the mattress and box spring, ultimately hooked up to a raspi zero w
  - roel_v 8y ago
    Aha those are exactly what I was looking for a few years ago when I tried to do the same, I only found tiny ones with difficult to use interfaces. Thanks!
borisian 8y ago
i made an account because i noticed you mentioned snips. I own a 3d printer and just began toying with it, setting tts is bloody genius. is it hard to pick it up?

matharmin 8y ago

The most useful one I've done is opening the garage door from my phone or Google Home (yes, anyone can stand outside my windows and open the door on voice command, but noone would know to do that), and notifying me when I left it open for 5 minutes. I used a Sonoff relay switch for this, coupled with custom firmware based on homie. A LOT of hours went into this, but it was also a lot of fun and learning. I've also made temperature and other sensors using esp8266 boards, but that wasn't quite worth the time spent.

robbiet480 8y ago

For more ideas with actual code, the "home-assistant-config" tag on GitHub [0] is very popular to find those who have put their configuration into version control. Here's mine [1]. [0]: https://github.com/topics/home-assistant-config https://github.com/topics/home-assistant-config [1]: https://github.com/robbiet480/Home-Assistant-Config https://github.com/robbiet480/Home-Assistant-Config