First Device Working! Soon brought back down to earth by other half. How did you win yours over?

We have a fan in the living room for when she gets a hot flash. Remote outlet and button controller lets her turn it on and off at her whim. Although this was ok, it was when I made the TV volume change in conjunction with the fan turning on and off, that got my first real "What else can we do?"

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This feels relatable. :slight_smile:

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Hubitat talks to my grill. When the food temperature is within 10 degrees of the food temperature my house starts talking to me every minute if the temperature changes. She loves this because she often smokes chicken thighs and breasts and it means she doesn't have to be near the smoker. The house tells her when she needs to start getting ready to take the meat off. I love it because: bacon-wrapped smoked meatloaf.

Otherwise, she still hasn't bought into any of it and she never will. The rest is just for me.

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I just want to try that bacon-wrapped smoked meatloaf!

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My Wife, uses these battery powered lights all over the house. I went to all rechargeable batteries to quit paying for batteries all the time. You may have to change them more but, it may cost less in the ling run. So, I bought her a couple of the LED light strips to accent top of furniture and she can use the little remote or ask Alex to turn them on. She loves it, so maybe you can talk yours into something she would have a use for and win her over that way.

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Like many others, automated lighting really was the winner in my WAF quotient.

Specifically, motion lighting on the stairs. Our laundry is in the basement, and the wardrobe resides on the 2nd floor. So carrying a full load of laundry can make it difficult to hit the light switches...automatic lighting that "just works" scored lots of points.

Beyond that, most WAF points seem to accrue around "invisible" automation, where the house just does things that are needed without any input. By that I mean lighting, and other simple automations. Anything that's too complex gets short shrift, and frankly anything more complex than a samsung button just gets ignored.

I don't do any voice control, as I think it's gimmicky and pointless, not to mention a security risk, but as is clear by this thread, not everyone agrees! Which is good! But in terms of WAF, that and TTS are non-starters anyway. Sort of like @april.brandt's husband, my wife wants to neither listen to, nor talk to the house.

A lot of the stuff I like to automate, the Mrs could care less about, so I do things like automate air cleaners and watch power use on my Radon fan, set up alerts for the garage door being open, etc. Power monitoring is a big one for me, as I'm puzzled why my house's base load is so high...but, I digress.

Lighting Automation. Big Winner in the WAF.

S.

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There is only one thing that my husband likes about talking to the house. This is his brag piece. Although the concept, parts, and programming was done by me, I let him have all of the credit to brag this up. He actually helped with this project and I think it's probably one of his favorites. Helped with the HAF. Also, find something that she likes decoratively and make it a showpiece just for her to brag up. Might help.

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I read that when you originally posted it! I was crazy impressed with the whole project! You guys did great with that!

My recent project that scored points was to add Ubiquiti cameras to the outside of the house, she really gets a kick out of watching all the critters pass over our property at night. Cats and Foxes being the two most common, but I expect she'll see the deer, skunks, trash pandas and the like too!

SCORE! WAF + 1000!!! LOL

I'm in a good place with WAF. Just keeping things low key now. Hiding my addiction in plain sight as it were....

S.

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Me too ... the hubs still calls my rules "spark plugs" and as long as I don't inconvenience him too much, he's neutral for the most part.

awh ... thanks BTW

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There are several automations my wife now depends upon, and one WAF tends to bump another down the line.
Driveway Announcer
Mail Announcer
Laundry Announcer
Garage Door opener from phone
Entertainment Center & TV Room control...

But the latest one was one of the simplest; a SmartThings button set to shut down the tv room and kitchen when its bedtime.

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Hall way lighting, motion sensor at the top and bottom, night light comes on after sunset in the hall and goes to full brightness on motion, after 11pm it brightens slightly but dimmer than full brightness. We haven't touched the switches in the hall for a year at least now :slight_smile: Same with the lights for our porch and front stairs. She doesn't even notice it happens anymore, unless the power is out and it doesn't :wink: That's when you know you have it right :slight_smile: Oh and voice control of our cinema setup, not sure any one else in the family would know what to do without this (remotes, switch inputs etc etc) although it is more Alexa than HE.

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I was into it before she moved in. But I said "I'm not rebuilding this when we move..." and she always has said the only thing I want is the "Night Night" button. Which then means I have to wire up the whole house. I think she likes it more than she lets on.

Recently just started doing motion lighting and has has been asking for different lights to be controlled and have times adjusted.

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My wife doesn't really like home automation, but tolerates it, because I tell her it's my hobby and I really enjoy it.

The only automation she likes is that a light goes on behind the TV when our garage door is open. That way we don't go to sleep with the garage door accidentally left open, which has happened in the past.

So maybe safety and security automations may help to improve the WAF.

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I have been slowly adding new things over the past 6 years. My wife told me that if she had to remember to do something she wouldn't use it. So the first thing I did was automate everything she did when she arrives home. When she approaches the house the lights on the outside all ramp up to full brightness and bright white color. When she opens the garage door, the lights from the garage to the kitchen all turn on. We enter through the basement, into a hall then up stairs to the main floor. So basically if it is within a certain time and certain time of year the lights turn on to the level needed. In the fall when it is dark by 4 lights are brighter, in the summer only the stair lights turn on as the other areas have enough sunlight.

After I worked this to perfection, she now asks me to automate other things in the house. It's a win win for me. She gets to choose what she wants to automate and I get to play.

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I use HideTheCandy and RollOutTheRedCarpet rules. I also use rules like this:

My wife just like it better if I do the laundry :wink:

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Drawers in the lower cabinets with full extension slides are the way to go. Not an HA project, but much more practical.

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As others have said, make things simple and useful. In general I've found that if I have to explain something then it probably won't get used.

Thankfully my partner is very understanding of my obsession with "tinkering", as she calls it. Her two favourite things are both bedtime related, the ability to say goodnight to a Google mini which sets the lighting, starts music for the pets, kills the TV/music in the rest of the house and checks the doors and windows, announcing if any are open and then activating cameras and a security profile. While it's relatively complex in the background she sees none of that, it just works. Her other main usage is a Xiaomi button that lives on her bedside cabinet, she can turn the electric blanket off (it comes on automatically on cold nights) or turn the fan on and off, she can control the main bedroom light and a lamp that she likes, toggling lux levels of she wants to read.

The main thing to learn as you decide what you actually want from a tool like hubitat is how you live. Once you know how you use your space then home automation becomes a much more fun project, it stops being so daunting when you have a goal and each step you take might involve some trial and error but when you get it right there's a noticeable (however small) improvement to the quality of life in the household. I think that's the main component I've found in spousal approval levels, they're not invested in the "how", or even the "why" of what you're doing but they feel the results and benefits. Once you can demonstrate that this isn't just another thing to go wrong - and it must certainly will on occasion - you'll find they get a lot more accepting.

TL;DR? You can't tell them how awesome it'll be and persuade them. Just let them know you're learning and interested then let them enjoy the benefits as you figure out what you're doing. Good luck! :slight_smile:

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You'll know you have it right when you check into a hotel and and she says "Light switches? This place needs a Hubitat."

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many thanks for all the feedback which is both amusing and insightful. I have one item in mind, and that is to display the weather on a dashboard tile.

I have some basic python skills, and have managed to scrape the most reliable weather site for my area. I have this output to a txt file.

Is there anyway that I can post and refresh this data, which I hold(and refresh) on my local pc?

Thanks again