4 ms·

It appears we're doing "smart home" again, so its time for my regular plea to stop calling shitty light switches automation. Automation is when you don't have t

It appears we're doing "smart home" again, so its time for my regular plea to stop calling shitty light switches automation. Automation is when you don't have to think about what state devices are in, and while it takes some tinkering can be achieved using something like Home Assistant to bridge various different devices together. Each room in my house has Hue bulbs in all the light sockets, and sensors which can detect ambient light levels and motion. If I walk into a room and it's dark, the lights turn on, because I probably want to be able to see what I'm doing. When they stop detecting motion they turn off. There's some additional complexity in rooms where its normal to occupy them for an extended period without moving about much. The bathroom has a button I can press which disable motion detection for an hour so I can have a bath without being plunged into darkness ten minutes after getting in. Some day I'll get round to replacing that with a leak sensor that picks up there being water in the bath. The living room will ignore the motion sensor and assume it's occupied when the TV is playing media, or has it's input set to a games console, and the bedroom knows when I typically go to bed and once it detects motion around that time it doesn't turn off the lights until I tell Siri I'm going to sleep, at which point the motion sensor turns off until my alarm goes off in the morning. Finally, the Home Assistant app is tracking when I enter and leave a geofence around my home. When I leave, everything turns off. When I get back, it turns back on again. The end result of all this is that I don't ever really think about lighting, and because its all automated I can also use it for subconscious prompts about time of day - for the lighting in my work area shifts from a quite stark daylight tone to a much softer one at the end of the work day, while all the lighting dims itself as bedtime approaches.

shellfishgene 4y ago
Have you tried any of the 24 Ghz/mmWave presence sensors which supposedly don't have the lack of movement problem?
- jon-wood 4y ago
  Somewhere deep on my todo list is building a grid of ESP32s around the place reporting BLE signal strengths to a central node which can then do triangulation to work out where people are based on devices they typically carry with them (I for example am almost always wearing an Apple Watch, and carrying my phone).
cheeko1234 4y ago
I have home assistant running with quite a few esp32's running esphome with random sensors/bulbs scattered around the house. My question is, what do you use the manage the automations? Do you use the native home assistant automation, or node-red, etc? I've even looked a bit into Room assistant[0] [0] https://www.room-assistant.io/guide/#how-it-works https://www.room-assistant.io/guide/#how-it-works
- jon-wood 4y ago
  Its all the built in automation UI in Home Assistant, but with fairly heavy use of scripts and scenes to encapsulate behaviour. Most automations are just a series of conditionals that then call out to a script for the smart bits.
eamonnsullivan 4y ago
I have a very similar set up -- also using Home Assistant (and Node Red -- I don't like programming in YAML). I have Hue bulbs and motion detectors everywhere. (I much prefer the quality of the light and the ability to control that light based on time of day or whatever, rather than smart switches and dumb bulbs.) I have a small number buttons around the house that I can click, double-click, press-and-hold, for overriding default behaviour. My "good night" routine does something similar to yours, but waits for movement to stop outside of the bedroom for longer than 10 minutes before shutting off all of the lights. I even have some routines for things like meditation -- the lights in the room dim, three gongs ring to start, a gong once in a while, until three gongs at the end of the duration you've asked for. It's all great. My wife and I almost never have to pick up my phone (app) or whatever and things just happen the way we want, just by walking around the house and going through our normal activities. Until... We're about to get a guest for a few months. Now, suddenly, everyone in the house won't be going to bed at the same time, or coming and going at the same time... I've had to make sure at least one room is "dumb" and I'll need to add a button or two. I'd heard of big "guest mode" switches, and now I'm going to need to develop one.
rootusrootus 4y ago
Are you getting anything out of the Hue dependency other than the color?
- Spivak 4y ago
  Being able to turn off everything in the house while lying in bed is pretty great honestly and once you have bulbs that go from white to yellow depending on the time you can’t go back.
- jon-wood 4y ago
  In some cases I'm not even getting colour, quite a few of my bulbs are cheaper ones that only allow colour temperature to be controlled. Mostly I'm using Hue because its where I started, so I'm fairly bought into that ecosystem - I do like that the Hue hubs will still work even without an internet connection though. At some point I'll bite the bullet and migrate all my bulbs over to pairing with the Zigbee dongle attached to my Home Assistant server.
silversmith 4y ago
This sounds good in theory, and props to you for making it work. But I tried, and gave up. I still have some basic light automations, like turning everything off when everyone is away, but most of the lights are back to manual control. For example, I find myself not wanting the lights on quite often. I have passable low light vision, and often there's enough light through the windows to see whatever I wanted to grab, and even on the dimmest setting the bulbs could blind me. Other times tho, I'm there to do something / look for a misplaced item, and want the light. Reading books is also a good problem for presence detection based light controls - at least my paperbacks don't come with open/closed sensors. The new generation of presence sensors supposedly handles that, but I'm yet to use one that does it well. For me, "smart home" is more about controls being convinient, with a dash of very basic automations, rather than teaching a computer what you want to happen, getting increasing annoyed, then giving up and conforming to what the computer can handle.
js2 4y ago
When I leave my home's geofence and my iPhone is in CarPlay mode, my garage door automatically closes. When I enter my home's geofence and my iPhone is in CarPlay mode, my garage door automatically opens. I have the geofence setup very tight so the door opens/closes about when I'd do it manually. I setup this automation using HomeKit, Homebridge, and iOS shortcuts/automations. The iOS shortcut is what informs a Homebridge dummy switch named "iPhone CarPlay Status" whether my phone is in CarPlay mode or not. From there it was simply to setup a HomeKit automation based on geofencing and the status of the dummy switch. Because a garage door is considered a secure accessory and would normally require me to unlock my iPhone, the work-around is to have Homebridge first trigger a dummy switch called "Garage Door" and then have that dummy switch trigger the garage door to open/close. Yes, I could just press the button on my rear-view mirror to open/close my garage door. But having the door automatically open just as I drive up is really cool. I usually close the door manually, but knowing it will close automatically if I forgot is also nice.
tcrenshaw 4y ago
It sounds like OP already has this implemented, but Adaptive Lighting is one of the best parts of my Home Assistant setup. Adaptive Lighting automatically changes your lights brightness and color temp (for capable bulbs), from full brightness and daylight colors during the day, down to a relaxing dim and warm colors at night. It does this so smoothly you don't notice it's happening. That, combined with motion sensors, means I walk into a room and the lights automatically turn on to a comfortable level, then turn off when I leave the room. Adaptive Lighting also has a night mode that dims your bulbs to just bright enough to walk around at night without killing your night vision. It's taken an investment in time to get everything set up in a way that works for both me and my fiance, but now we hate traveling and spending the night anywhere without self dimming lights, motion sensors, and a button beside my bed that can kill all the lights in the house with a single press.

shellfishgene 4y ago

Have you tried any of the 24 Ghz/mmWave presence sensors which supposedly don't have the lack of movement problem?

jon-wood 4y ago
Somewhere deep on my todo list is building a grid of ESP32s around the place reporting BLE signal strengths to a central node which can then do triangulation to work out where people are based on devices they typically carry with them (I for example am almost always wearing an Apple Watch, and carrying my phone).

cheeko1234 4y ago

I have home assistant running with quite a few esp32's running esphome with random sensors/bulbs scattered around the house. My question is, what do you use the manage the automations? Do you use the native home assistant automation, or node-red, etc? I've even looked a bit into Room assistant[0] [0] https://www.room-assistant.io/guide/#how-it-works https://www.room-assistant.io/guide/#how-it-works

jon-wood 4y ago
Its all the built in automation UI in Home Assistant, but with fairly heavy use of scripts and scenes to encapsulate behaviour. Most automations are just a series of conditionals that then call out to a script for the smart bits.

eamonnsullivan 4y ago

I have a very similar set up -- also using Home Assistant (and Node Red -- I don't like programming in YAML). I have Hue bulbs and motion detectors everywhere. (I much prefer the quality of the light and the ability to control that light based on time of day or whatever, rather than smart switches and dumb bulbs.) I have a small number buttons around the house that I can click, double-click, press-and-hold, for overriding default behaviour. My "good night" routine does something similar to yours, but waits for movement to stop outside of the bedroom for longer than 10 minutes before shutting off all of the lights. I even have some routines for things like meditation -- the lights in the room dim, three gongs ring to start, a gong once in a while, until three gongs at the end of the duration you've asked for. It's all great. My wife and I almost never have to pick up my phone (app) or whatever and things just happen the way we want, just by walking around the house and going through our normal activities. Until... We're about to get a guest for a few months. Now, suddenly, everyone in the house won't be going to bed at the same time, or coming and going at the same time... I've had to make sure at least one room is "dumb" and I'll need to add a button or two. I'd heard of big "guest mode" switches, and now I'm going to need to develop one.

rootusrootus 4y ago

Are you getting anything out of the Hue dependency other than the color?

Spivak 4y ago
Being able to turn off everything in the house while lying in bed is pretty great honestly and once you have bulbs that go from white to yellow depending on the time you can’t go back.
jon-wood 4y ago
In some cases I'm not even getting colour, quite a few of my bulbs are cheaper ones that only allow colour temperature to be controlled. Mostly I'm using Hue because its where I started, so I'm fairly bought into that ecosystem - I do like that the Hue hubs will still work even without an internet connection though. At some point I'll bite the bullet and migrate all my bulbs over to pairing with the Zigbee dongle attached to my Home Assistant server.

silversmith 4y ago

This sounds good in theory, and props to you for making it work. But I tried, and gave up. I still have some basic light automations, like turning everything off when everyone is away, but most of the lights are back to manual control. For example, I find myself not wanting the lights on quite often. I have passable low light vision, and often there's enough light through the windows to see whatever I wanted to grab, and even on the dimmest setting the bulbs could blind me. Other times tho, I'm there to do something / look for a misplaced item, and want the light. Reading books is also a good problem for presence detection based light controls - at least my paperbacks don't come with open/closed sensors. The new generation of presence sensors supposedly handles that, but I'm yet to use one that does it well. For me, "smart home" is more about controls being convinient, with a dash of very basic automations, rather than teaching a computer what you want to happen, getting increasing annoyed, then giving up and conforming to what the computer can handle.

js2 4y ago

When I leave my home's geofence and my iPhone is in CarPlay mode, my garage door automatically closes. When I enter my home's geofence and my iPhone is in CarPlay mode, my garage door automatically opens. I have the geofence setup very tight so the door opens/closes about when I'd do it manually. I setup this automation using HomeKit, Homebridge, and iOS shortcuts/automations. The iOS shortcut is what informs a Homebridge dummy switch named "iPhone CarPlay Status" whether my phone is in CarPlay mode or not. From there it was simply to setup a HomeKit automation based on geofencing and the status of the dummy switch. Because a garage door is considered a secure accessory and would normally require me to unlock my iPhone, the work-around is to have Homebridge first trigger a dummy switch called "Garage Door" and then have that dummy switch trigger the garage door to open/close. Yes, I could just press the button on my rear-view mirror to open/close my garage door. But having the door automatically open just as I drive up is really cool. I usually close the door manually, but knowing it will close automatically if I forgot is also nice.

tcrenshaw 4y ago

It sounds like OP already has this implemented, but Adaptive Lighting is one of the best parts of my Home Assistant setup. Adaptive Lighting automatically changes your lights brightness and color temp (for capable bulbs), from full brightness and daylight colors during the day, down to a relaxing dim and warm colors at night. It does this so smoothly you don't notice it's happening. That, combined with motion sensors, means I walk into a room and the lights automatically turn on to a comfortable level, then turn off when I leave the room. Adaptive Lighting also has a night mode that dims your bulbs to just bright enough to walk around at night without killing your night vision. It's taken an investment in time to get everything set up in a way that works for both me and my fiance, but now we hate traveling and spending the night anywhere without self dimming lights, motion sensors, and a button beside my bed that can kill all the lights in the house with a single press.