4 ms·

I keep trying to talk myself out of wanting to do this. I live in a very small studio-style home with a total of four lightbulbs in it. It takes fewer than 20 s

by smeej 3y ago

I keep trying to talk myself out of wanting to do this. I live in a very small studio-style home with a total of four lightbulbs in it. It takes fewer than 20 steps to get from any one corner of the house to any other. But every time I read an article like this, I can't help but think how cool I would feel if my house could tell I was coming and turned my lights on and my heat up, or dimmed and then turned everything off once I got in bed.

interroboink 3y ago
A good one to keep in mind: https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/ ("Is It Worth The Time") Though of course the fun/cool factor is a separate thing (:
- shermantanktop 3y ago
  The tooltip on that comic captures how i feel about nickel-and-diming my own attention. But maybe that just means I think doing HA stuff is fun.
abnry 3y ago
Next thing you know, you're learning how to flash ESP firmware and how Zigbee protocols work. The cool factor is maybe 25% of it for me. It's mainly an obsessive hobby.
- tharne 3y ago
  I'm not a fan of Smart Homes, but I can appreciate this take on it. Making it all work is the cool part - everything else is just a side effect.
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
  It's such a fun hobby, and easy to jump into with just knowledge of nodejs or web-dev based Python. It was my first serious foray into working with any kind of hardware at all. And you're entirely right it's an unstoppable gateway to learning how to code arduino's and then esp32's, and then eventually hardware projects that aren't even smart home related.
jayd16 3y ago
Automation isn't as smooth as it sounds but it's nice to be able to control things from your phone.
shermantanktop 3y ago
We've got an offline setup, using HA, HomeKit and zwave. Some of the best features for us: - ability to turn on house heat when we're headed home from a trip, or turn on the AC for the pets if there's a heat wave when we are traveling. - ability to turn on the tea kettle when driving back home from an errand. Needs prior setup of course, and a switched outlet that can handle high current. - ability to align porch light schedules with sunset/sunrise. I never have to think about it. The "don't want to get up, i'll just do it from my phone" thing is nice, though, especially if you are stuck under a cat.
enoch2090 3y ago
Sometimes it's not the time saved, but a change to your mindset, that you don't need to even think of walking across the room to reach the switch before sleep. Such change accumulates and at a point I felt the difference, hopefully that works for you as well.
- wkjagt 3y ago
  I actually like the act and the ritual of turning all the lights off before sleep. It marks the end of the day and the start of sleepy time.
  - Larrikin 3y ago
    This line of reasoning could be applied to the switch from candles to electric switches. Putting out the candles at night puts you into sleep mode, why would you want bright lights after the sun is down. At the time the fire risk was similar. Not everyone wanted to electrify their homes. I still use switches in some places in my apartment, but haven't had a need to touch my bathroom and kitchen light switches in a year. Once you start getting used to your automations, it really does feel like a level up to your home.
XorNot 3y ago
Motorised blinds has been the game changer for me. I never want to adjust blinds, but natural light is nice. Now my blinds automatically go up at 8.30, and close at sundown and I don't have to think about it - but my rooms are pleasantly exactly how o want them at all times.
- throwawaydhshs 3y ago
  So you mind me asking how you set that up, or what you bought? Have they been reliable?
  - XorNot 3y ago
    I mean in my case I wouldn't broadly recommend my approach: I bought these https://www.zemismart.com/products/zm25tq-2-25 https://www.zemismart.com/products/zm25tq-2-25 and then chip-swapped them with ESP8266s. That's definitely not a casual thing but... What I'm most happy about is how I got them hardwired - I notched my cornice and slid an archetrave (narrow) light switch up into the cornice on a mounting block, caulked around it, and then ran a thin bit of surface conduit down to another slim junction box next to the blind. You can "see" that the power is there, but it blends nicely and means the blinds are powered off my lighting circuit - no batteries to worry about, and a shutoff in the room if I ever change out the motors. Motor-wise I'm happy so far - the limits work, and it's been set and forget with Home Assistant driving them through ESPHome. Unfortunately the motor is a Realtak-based chip, not Beken, so no Tuya-cloudcutter exploit exists to get ESPHome on their wirelessly. If I was doing it again from scratch I'd try and find something easier to de-cloud. As it is since I know the motors fit and know how to open them up, we've got a bunch more we're planning to do since we have some really big windows we'd need multiple blinds to cover, and we just never considered it practical till we did this. EDIT: Basically it's a home automation upgrade I've been incredibly happy with the outcome for, but man if Tuya would let go of the lock-in aspirations then it would become dead-easy to recommend to people.
    - averageRoyalty 3y ago
      I've also been looking at hard wired blind motors I can control with an ESP8266. Did you write/record anything online about the chip swapping, or can you recommend any resources? Did you end up deciding on something easier to decloud for your future ones? Thanks!
j45 3y ago
It's worth looking into. I also had only a few switches and the trade off was I could now dim them, at different times and different ways. Tied it in with a Logitech Harmony Hub at the time for instant movie mode. I got a lot of use out of that little hub to not have to go full home automation. Home Assistant is great though, it's much easier now, it will know you're coming via app and turn off everything. You can do the good night thing too.
wkjagt 3y ago
I don’t see the added value of much of the smart home things. I’m used to turning the lights on with a light switch and never thought “this is too much effort, I wish there was a way to not have to press this switch”. The only smart thing I have in my house is one of those light switches with a built in timer, for the lights outside the house, because I want to make sure I don’t forget to turn them off at night, which could disturb my neighbours. I have quite a few switches for all the other lights in the house, and I feel that turning the lights off before bed is like a ritual that puts me (and the family) in sleep mode.

by smeej 3y ago

interroboink 3y ago

A good one to keep in mind: https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/ ("Is It Worth The Time") Though of course the fun/cool factor is a separate thing (:

shermantanktop 3y ago
The tooltip on that comic captures how i feel about nickel-and-diming my own attention. But maybe that just means I think doing HA stuff is fun.

abnry 3y ago

Next thing you know, you're learning how to flash ESP firmware and how Zigbee protocols work. The cool factor is maybe 25% of it for me. It's mainly an obsessive hobby.

tharne 3y ago
I'm not a fan of Smart Homes, but I can appreciate this take on it. Making it all work is the cool part - everything else is just a side effect.
squeaky-clean 3y ago
It's such a fun hobby, and easy to jump into with just knowledge of nodejs or web-dev based Python. It was my first serious foray into working with any kind of hardware at all. And you're entirely right it's an unstoppable gateway to learning how to code arduino's and then esp32's, and then eventually hardware projects that aren't even smart home related.

jayd16 3y ago

Automation isn't as smooth as it sounds but it's nice to be able to control things from your phone.

shermantanktop 3y ago

We've got an offline setup, using HA, HomeKit and zwave. Some of the best features for us: - ability to turn on house heat when we're headed home from a trip, or turn on the AC for the pets if there's a heat wave when we are traveling. - ability to turn on the tea kettle when driving back home from an errand. Needs prior setup of course, and a switched outlet that can handle high current. - ability to align porch light schedules with sunset/sunrise. I never have to think about it. The "don't want to get up, i'll just do it from my phone" thing is nice, though, especially if you are stuck under a cat.

enoch2090 3y ago

Sometimes it's not the time saved, but a change to your mindset, that you don't need to even think of walking across the room to reach the switch before sleep. Such change accumulates and at a point I felt the difference, hopefully that works for you as well.

wkjagt 3y ago
I actually like the act and the ritual of turning all the lights off before sleep. It marks the end of the day and the start of sleepy time.
- Larrikin 3y ago
  This line of reasoning could be applied to the switch from candles to electric switches. Putting out the candles at night puts you into sleep mode, why would you want bright lights after the sun is down. At the time the fire risk was similar. Not everyone wanted to electrify their homes. I still use switches in some places in my apartment, but haven't had a need to touch my bathroom and kitchen light switches in a year. Once you start getting used to your automations, it really does feel like a level up to your home.

XorNot 3y ago

Motorised blinds has been the game changer for me. I never want to adjust blinds, but natural light is nice. Now my blinds automatically go up at 8.30, and close at sundown and I don't have to think about it - but my rooms are pleasantly exactly how o want them at all times.

throwawaydhshs 3y ago
So you mind me asking how you set that up, or what you bought? Have they been reliable?
- XorNot 3y ago
  I mean in my case I wouldn't broadly recommend my approach: I bought these https://www.zemismart.com/products/zm25tq-2-25 https://www.zemismart.com/products/zm25tq-2-25 and then chip-swapped them with ESP8266s. That's definitely not a casual thing but... What I'm most happy about is how I got them hardwired - I notched my cornice and slid an archetrave (narrow) light switch up into the cornice on a mounting block, caulked around it, and then ran a thin bit of surface conduit down to another slim junction box next to the blind. You can "see" that the power is there, but it blends nicely and means the blinds are powered off my lighting circuit - no batteries to worry about, and a shutoff in the room if I ever change out the motors. Motor-wise I'm happy so far - the limits work, and it's been set and forget with Home Assistant driving them through ESPHome. Unfortunately the motor is a Realtak-based chip, not Beken, so no Tuya-cloudcutter exploit exists to get ESPHome on their wirelessly. If I was doing it again from scratch I'd try and find something easier to de-cloud. As it is since I know the motors fit and know how to open them up, we've got a bunch more we're planning to do since we have some really big windows we'd need multiple blinds to cover, and we just never considered it practical till we did this. EDIT: Basically it's a home automation upgrade I've been incredibly happy with the outcome for, but man if Tuya would let go of the lock-in aspirations then it would become dead-easy to recommend to people.
  - averageRoyalty 3y ago
    I've also been looking at hard wired blind motors I can control with an ESP8266. Did you write/record anything online about the chip swapping, or can you recommend any resources? Did you end up deciding on something easier to decloud for your future ones? Thanks!

j45 3y ago

It's worth looking into. I also had only a few switches and the trade off was I could now dim them, at different times and different ways. Tied it in with a Logitech Harmony Hub at the time for instant movie mode. I got a lot of use out of that little hub to not have to go full home automation. Home Assistant is great though, it's much easier now, it will know you're coming via app and turn off everything. You can do the good night thing too.

wkjagt 3y ago

I don’t see the added value of much of the smart home things. I’m used to turning the lights on with a light switch and never thought “this is too much effort, I wish there was a way to not have to press this switch”. The only smart thing I have in my house is one of those light switches with a built in timer, for the lights outside the house, because I want to make sure I don’t forget to turn them off at night, which could disturb my neighbours. I have quite a few switches for all the other lights in the house, and I feel that turning the lights off before bed is like a ritual that puts me (and the family) in sleep mode.