It's always interesting to create topics like this and see where they end up by the morning..... By that I expect looking at my phone in about 4 hours at 2am....
Some of you may have guessed that I lean more towards monitoring and manual control, with my foray into developing my dashboarding skills and charting within Grafana. I like the options I have with a system like HE where I can explore both aspects of setting up a smart home, dealing with situations where there is, in my eyes, a logical solution to managing a situation, like controlling my dehumidifier in my garage using a humidity sensor and smart plug, whereas I can also manually control things like mode changes using physical buttons or dashboard tiles or my phone or a rule if I want.
Anyway, enough about me, what do other people think? Do you see HE and other systems as a way for you and your household to take control when and how you want, or do you try to "program" your house?
I'm not sure they are mutually exclusive things? After all you could be into monitoring and automation but not necessarily remote control. Given the capabilities we have I think it's a little bit of everything.. you start going in one direction but discover new possibilities that lead you elsewhere.
Being of the more lazy sort I started as an "automation" person - the idea was to not have to worry about lights being left on etc. Gradually as my system became more sophisticated started to add things like water/leaks, locks reporting even some energy stuff etc.
I think I do a lot of both. As my wife frequently points out, I am never satisfied with a working system. I am constantly updating, manipulating or adjusting things. That drives her crazy. I am always looking for newer, better ways to do things.
Edit : And yes, I frequently break a perfectly operational system.
I agree, but that is part of the point (and the fun) of the topic.... I feel like there are people that are (probably) more tied to the automation angle than anything else.... But it still remains an interesting point of conversation why you may favour one over the other. You are right, it's not always black and white, I was being playful there with my proposition in an attempt to prompt discussion, but that doesn't mean I think it is one or the other... I've certainly got splinters I am still extracting....
How else would we have the fun we do without something to fix or rescue.... And it's not us, it's those pesky multi-nationals messing with our perfect local setup with their firmware or cloud updates....
@sburke781
I'm of the automation group. I really don't want to interact with anything. Prefer notifications if something is wrong. As long as the rule I create works, I'm blissfully ignorant of what is actually going on because it just happens. Now as an enthusiast I do have a couple of dashboards. One for my wife, a general one and a test one. The general is for monitoring. My wife's is for some control, my test is to show people who are interested in it how it works. Other than that, I don't open the dashboard much or even the hubitat app.
Ha sorry it's the morning here and clearly I'm a little to foggy!
I want ALL the things though I find I don't really need to remote control my devices all that much - beyond getting alerts for things / messing with the family etc.
In order of importance for me would be:
Critical Home Alerts and control like leaks, doors left open, inappropriate motion ()
Basic Automation - outdoor lighting based on lux, motion lighting, fan control etc..
Indeed. I think it's funny. My wife thinks that all of this automation nonsense is a big waste of time. BUT, she is happy when it works and complains when it does not.
As much as I don't like "boxes", I would put you in the automation camp mostly. The odd notification or need to access a dashboard is still, in my eyes, someone who targets a mostly hands-off approach.
I'm probably getting too involved in a conversation I should just let grow organically...
You should chart that for like 6 months.... Purposely break something so she complains, point out what she said and pull out the chart.... A night or two on the couch might be worth it...
Your assessment is probably correct.. I am definitely in the Home Automation camp for the most part. I think our systems evolve - you start one way but as things get settled you start incorporating other stuff.
The only thing I rarely use though is remote control. No real reason to unless some sort of critical issue.. but it's definitely nice to have.
My wife loves the automation and gets annoyed when something doesn't work or I put in something and she has a vision of how she thinks it should work and when it doesn't work that way she becomes annoyed and disappointed lol. Yesterday she noticed that the nest protects disappeared from the app (she wanted to turn off the motion light in my son's room) and asked me why it wasn't there... I was like, F if I know.... and she kept asking why not.... All I could do was shrug...lol... (nest app sucks arse, so does the google home app)
Mostly automation. My wife is not a big fan, but she does like it when she walks into a room and the lights just work. Alexa is big plus and I often find myself asking her to turn on/off a light switch that I'm only feet away from.
When Alexa Beta integration was first released for the Vera I was excited to show her how it worked. As a software engineer I have an ingrained preciseness. I asked her to say, "Alexa, turn on the island lights." She said, "Alexa, turn the lights over the island on." I was surprised when it actually worked and told her so. She replied, "Women understand each other."
That probably symbolises much of what this topic is about, even without me thinking it would when I set it up. The ability for others to use an automated home depends on how they expect to interact with that home, regardless of our expectations of how automations should be triggered.
Mostly automation with natural manual control thrown in for good measure. Lighting scenes around time of day and brightness are automatic. Manually changed scenes via light switches are reset when there is no occupancy. Basement lights turn on when the stair light is turned on by switch.
The only time we really use the dashboards is to force sleep or awake when our schedules are different or when we want our echo speakers to play music. Both the wife and I hate yelling out commands.
That's another good point for me.... While I like the convenience of telling "Google" to pause or play what I am currently watching on a Chromecast, when I need to "go to another room", sometimes a button press or physical control is preferable to voice control.
A night or two on the couch might be worth it... 
