My husband made it clear that he was not going to do anything special to get a light to turn on, so I try to make the house interact with us. I made homemade qi chargers fitted with contact sensors that engaged when a phone was set on top of them. So most of my rules are built on that foundation. It's worked really well as they are tied to modes, Quiet (1phone docked) night (2 phones docked), home (0 phones docked) and away. No phones present. I've based all of my rules to run around these modes. Keeps the bedroom lights or the bathroom from blaring into the bedroom when one is sleeping.
All the time. Sometimes I wait for inspiration to use something. Sometimes I think I will use it in the future.
E.g., I installed several GE/Jasco Z-wave dimmers. Most got hooked to a motion sensor based automation. But one just never got used. It was my first device I moved from ST to Hubitat, and I paired it with a motion sensor as my first Motion Lighting rule.
Worse yet I buy devices and never pair them.
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I tell my wife those are "spares".
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Yup, me too. I've got a doorbell sensor thats connected, but has no automations, and a metric buttload of zigbee and zwave+ outlets whose only purpose is to be nice looking Decora style Zigbee or Zwave + repeaters! So no real rules!
S
Only one? I recently setup a 2nd one even though I’ve barely gotten any use out of the first one I setup 
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Yes, but some of them are just smart plugs I want as repeaters, so I don't particularly care if I use them or not. Is that cheating in terms of answering this question? 
For the particular device you mentioned, it sounds like something I have set up on my living room couch. If the reason you haven't set it up yet is because you don't want to make a rule to take a contact sensor into account, may I suggest Hubitat's (unofficial) Contact-Motion app? Then you can use it in standard apps like Motion Lighting or other stock or custom apps/rules you may have that work most easily with motion sensors. That's how I'm using mine!
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I have the same thing with Qi charger and now I use my bed sensor to know if I’m shutting it down for the night, works very nice
Never saw this before, thanks Robert!
i have switches in basically every room of my house and only a handful have automations with contact sensors. i just enjoy being able to turn everything off with one command and not have to worry if i left a light on in another room and have to walk all the way to that room just to turn it off
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Oh man, please do NOT tell my wife I was here, but....yes, a bit. 
Mostly motion sensors, I put them everywhere and then if I need an automation about motion in that area, I already have the gear in place to do so. Plug/repeaters that really are there mostly to repeat.
The worst example is I have box of smart gear somewhere in my house or garage that I have just not been able to find. Been about a year or so since I last remember seeing it in an inside closet. Family swears they never touched it, but I cannot find it anywhere to save my life. Bulbs, outlets, switches, and such.
I should put an offer on Craig's List that whoever can come over and find it gets half the gear...
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I did steal this and it's been perfect since, before I was hacking around solutions and although they worked it created many edge cases. Now it just works so thanks @april.brandt for the idea. It even says good night messages depending on if it's just me or just the wife home of both 
. Only difference is I use tasker of when phone is in bedroom plugged in and faced down or unplugged and moved to trigger the maths equation.
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My only automations at the moment are to sound some sirens when the window or motion sensors trigger between certain hours. But I make a lot of use of direct control to turn lights on and off without having to get up off my backside, and to turn a heater on in a room I am planning to go into later etc. I have buttons linked to rules so I can use the button to turn on a room's lights in passing instead of getting my phone out, and to enable visitors to have some sort of control
Every room in my home has smart wall switches. The family just uses them as normal light switches. I would say only 4 rooms really have any automations with those switches except for sleep mode where everything gets turned off or alarm tripped/panic mode where the house lights up.
My philosophy is that if it doesn't make you interact naturally with the room /house or there are unintended actions it doesn't need an automation. We are all taught to turn lights off and on and a switch at a young age and I guess that isn't going to change in my lifetime.
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I too stole @april.brandt quiet time idea but use tasker also to detect when 1 or both phones are plugged in. Has been working great so far!
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Where do I order these, can't find them anywhere on Amazon.
Seriously, did you document the process to turn Qi charger into Qi charger+contact sensor?
Wow...that is above and beyond in many ways. Excellent!
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Awh .. shucks .. thanks
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Every Hampton Bay ceiling fan controller in my home has an accompanying ZigBee outlet (Centralite) in the same room (the controllers work best with a repeater because their signal is weak) and I have never used them for an automation.
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