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I generally agree with this, although I'm also a fan of home automation. I want all my switches to continue to work (they do), no internet connection between m

I generally agree with this, although I'm also a fan of home automation. I want all my switches to continue to work (they do), no internet connection between me and my automated devices, no complicated "scenes", and I don't want to mess around with some UI every day. Setup, sure, but that's it. So in the end I have lights that turn on in any room we're in and turn themselves off some time after we've left. My porch light adjusts itself according to time of day, and my laundry tells me when it's done, which is huge for us since it's in the basement. I keep it simple (one JS file controls the whole house), but it's still a life improvement. My toddler recently knocked over my poorly placed server which damaged the zwave dongle. Replacing it took a couple hours, but the week spent without the automations was noticable. There's something about every room lighting up as I walk through the house that makes it feel more welcoming. A bit warmer. Also, my son loves to turn off the dining room light and then try to run through the dining room as fast as he can without setting off the motion sensor. It turns on every time, but it's a joy to watch.

nouveaux 5y ago
How do you do motion detection and presence in your setup? How do you make sure the lights doesn't turn off if you're just sitting in the room?
- enobrev 5y ago
  Long timers. I'd love to have some sort of presence detection that will work with multiple people (including a child) without embedding a chip into our necks, but haven't found anything that seems reliable, yet. Room assistant sounds pretty cool, but I haven't had the time to play with it - and I'm not "installing" bluetooth on my toddler. Early on I had 5-15 minute timers in most rooms, but my wife and I have ended up sitting in a dark bathroom, or worse cooking in a dark kitchen - flailing our arms to get the lights back on far too many times. So, I made the timers in most rooms 30 minutes (20 in the bathroom, 5 in closets). That worked well everywhere but the kitchen; I added a second motion sensor there, and it pretty much always gets it right now. Once in a while the light will shut off in the living room when we're still and zoned out on our phones or a movie, but that's rare enough that it's not a big deal. Also we get to laugh at ourselves for being perfectly still for an entire half hour. --- Edit --- I imagine presence detection is significantly easier with one occupant, and I've daydreamed about setting up a "one-person-home" mode that just turns on the light in whatever room last detected someone and off everywhere else. But honestly everything works so well as-is, that I don't think it's really worth the effort.

nouveaux 5y ago

How do you do motion detection and presence in your setup? How do you make sure the lights doesn't turn off if you're just sitting in the room?

enobrev 5y ago
Long timers. I'd love to have some sort of presence detection that will work with multiple people (including a child) without embedding a chip into our necks, but haven't found anything that seems reliable, yet. Room assistant sounds pretty cool, but I haven't had the time to play with it - and I'm not "installing" bluetooth on my toddler. Early on I had 5-15 minute timers in most rooms, but my wife and I have ended up sitting in a dark bathroom, or worse cooking in a dark kitchen - flailing our arms to get the lights back on far too many times. So, I made the timers in most rooms 30 minutes (20 in the bathroom, 5 in closets). That worked well everywhere but the kitchen; I added a second motion sensor there, and it pretty much always gets it right now. Once in a while the light will shut off in the living room when we're still and zoned out on our phones or a movie, but that's rare enough that it's not a big deal. Also we get to laugh at ourselves for being perfectly still for an entire half hour. --- Edit --- I imagine presence detection is significantly easier with one occupant, and I've daydreamed about setting up a "one-person-home" mode that just turns on the light in whatever room last detected someone and off everywhere else. But honestly everything works so well as-is, that I don't think it's really worth the effort.