Coolest home automation use case

Yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath. The Mycroft Mark II is close to 2 years overdue and at this point I'd consider it vapor(hard)ware. Even if it does materialize I fully expect it to follow the same route Snips AI did: "Try it--it's FREE! Um, wait; we cashed out by selling it to some evil company. So, sorry--it's no longer available but thanks for helping us make millions under the guise of open source/freeware"

Maybe something like this shower touch controller?

:rofl:

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I live in Quebec and when a very cold day is upon us, I receive an email from Hydro Quebec to tell me that in the next 24 hours there will be a period of high demand where the kWH price will be hicked up from the lower winter price I regularly pay on this program (this is a test program is not available to all).

So when I get that email, I go to my dashboard and turn on a virtual switch, one for morning and one for the afternoon, telling the system that there will be high demand periods coming in the next 24 hours. So the rule will check these at the start of those periods and if they are on, turns off all high demand appliances (water heater, freezer, garage heater, etc.) and also brings thermostats in ECO mode. Then at the end of the period they are pit back to there normal operating state. At midnight, it fires off again to set global variables to know what to do the next day and resets the "program switches" from the dashboard.

This automation saved me $120,00 last winter alone and it was a mild winter, so hoping to see what I can save when we get a more harsh winter.

Take note that we do also have a wood stove that we fire up when this happens to stay cozy and we are also mind set to save, so those days we rarely use the oven and try to keep what "we" control to a minimum.

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Woah...those look waaaay too high-tech for me. :wink:

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I just finished setting up our bed presence sensor using this post as well and it's my favorite sensor so far. I can understand why no one sells bed presence sensors in a kit since it takes some tweaking to get it setup correctly depending on the bed mattress as they all weigh different amounts but the advantages of knowing everything is set as expected when you go to bed and when you get up and being able to change certain automations from timed to sync with you getting up is worth it.

The minute or 5 in the following are to prevent false positives if one or both of us get up in the middle of the night for a few minutes.

A minute after my wife gets in bed between 7pm and 6am, her reading light comes on and the bedroom lamps turn off if they were on. Then in 5 minutes if I'm traveling or after I come to bed the security system is armed, the bedroom shades are closed if they were open, the security cameras are put into night mode for alerts, the garage door gets closed if it was forgotten open, the locks are all checked and locked if the doors are closed or if one is open our Sonos in the room will alert us, and all of the lights in the house are turned off.

5 minutes after one of us gets up between 6am and 7pm the kitchen and family room lights are turned on, and the security system is disarmed. Then if the other is traveling or 5 minutes after we're both up the bedroom shades are opened, and using a virtual motion device with an Alexa routine, Alexa announces today's forecast.

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Coolest is subjective, but here are some ideas

Dishwasher rule

Washer and Dryer monitoring
See Dishwasher rule thread for links to driver for using an Aeon v1 HEM to monitor washer and dryer

Laundry Status

Could you share details on how you did this? I want to do the same thing.

These Apps:

image

This is the main one:

This kills the routine if it's running when I wakeup and disarm the system:

Then, I have 4 of these (replace vsWakeup1 with vsWakeup2..3..4), etc:

In the Rule Manager, I created the global variables:

Then, I created a dashboard with the various virtual switches and tiles to let me set the global time variables.

On that dashboard, I had a css:

.tile-primary { vertical-align: top }

And changed some template settings:

image

There are also a couple community apps that do this...

I thought there was another, can't find it right now.

Nice work getting the bed presence setup. My wife and I are still loving it. Just in case you didn't see a post of mine, I automated my evening and morning routines via Google Calendar integration. Things happen differently if kids have a school holiday, parent is sick or traveling, etc. For example, I create a calendar entry "parent traveling" that will flip a virtual switch so my bedtime rule dynamically adjusts:

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I have a Zooz Muti-Relay to control my gas fireplace and blower in my living room. Using a button controller, I can turn the fireplace on with a click. After 1 minutes, the fireplace blower turns on. The 2nd floor stairs are open to the living room, so when the fireplace is on, it gets about 85 degrees upstairs really fast. So using a Bond Hub my stairway fan goes on high to blow the heat back downstairs as soon as the blower kicks on.

When I turn off the fireplace using the same button, the blower continues to run for 3 minutes, then shuts off and the stairway fan slows to its normal slow speed.

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I assume there is 1 two many 0 in there? otherwise do you have a mansion!? that's the cost of a small car! Our gas and electric is like £1200 a year.

Thanks, for my wife and I traveling I'm using our combined presence devices that are also used for arming/disarming away rather than updating a calendar. For company I'm using a calendar entry to not turn off certain lights when we go to bed and to not arm the internal cameras at night all of which does happen if it's just my wife and I at home. I'm currently using iFTTT integration to set a virtual switch based on a gmail calendar entry, however I may look at switching to the app your using instead although then I'd have to add another calendar to our calendars and get my wife used to putting certain info on that calendar instead of her normal one by the looks of it.

$120.00 CAD savings for all winter (Dec 1st to Mar 31th) . Don't forget that here in Quebec, most people heat there houses 100% electricity because it's more affordable than gas, oil or other sources of heat. unless you have a wood burning system and have your own forest to get the wood.

My usual monthly billed spanned across the year is around $200. With house heating, 3 car heated garage 5C in the winter, hot tub, electric car, etc. It all adds up, but that is the only source of energy coming in the house.

That's only 2400? You said 12000 :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: looks like it was a typo of 120,00 rather than 120.00 :+1:

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I would be willing to bet @nclark is French Canadian. It's not a typo.

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Actually, I wanted to put a period but for some reason the computer I was at when I typed was on French and it replaced automatically the period with a coma. Sorry for the confusion :slight_smile:

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My electric company here in Missouri now offers a "time sensitive" plan. The cost for electricity from 4-8pm (weekdays) is notably higher than under the "normal" plan. The cost from like 6am to 4pm and 8pm to midnight is a bit less than the normal average. The cost from midnight to 6am is insanely cheap.

I could probably do more. But, I def programmed my Ecobee thermostat for those time periods. The AC kicks on before the 4pm and cools things down a bit--then lets the house get pretty warm up until 8pm--when it goes back to more normal. From midnight to 6am, I chill it down nicely.

I'm usually running the clothes dryer on the weekend, so not a big deal. But, I supposed, I could go nuts with the house lights and such if I wanted to. lol

My annual bill for my house (I'm in Quebec too). Bungalow (2200 SF - 200 SM) with a geothermal unit (heat/cool) and 1 electrical car (about 4800 kWh in 2019, 3743 kWh this year, 11 months). The prices are CAD, for USD, 2019 was about 1250USD and 2020 is for now 1050 USD, including the car (no gas bill :smiley:).
Was interested by Hilo (HQ), but can't apply because of my geothermal unit...
So, globally, 14000 kWh a year for my house.

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You have 2 giant water heaters. How long is your shower?