Is it possible to make person-aware or context-aware automations?

Without going into too much detail, my SO finds the (motion activated & illuminance based) lighting automation I've set up in the kitchen (which is the only automation I have right now) extremely jarring. While I find the automation to be useful, she would rather not have it at all; she feels that having manual control over everything is vastly better as there's no way for any automation system to be perfect and react exactly as it should in every context every time short of the system being able to reading your mind.

In some ways, I understand this - if one of us is pacing around when on the phone and wander into the kitchen, there's no reason for the lights to turn on at all. We don't need the lights if we're hopping in to put a glass on the table or top some water up, or some such. We also have very different thresholds for what we consider "dim" and when we would turn the lights on.

I know this is probably a very long shot, but Is there any way to make automations "person specific" or context aware in any way? Or is my best option to concede and not bother automating anything?

For now, this seems like the best option. Your choice of options might increase were you to change SOs.

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Unlikely to happen. Guess the automation has to go, then.

I wish I could make these automations smarter! In its present state, it honestly feels very underwhelming.

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Well, you could do things like:

  1. Different dim levels depending on who is at home .... (one level for you, one for whenever your SO is home)
  2. Different dim levels based on time of day

I don't know about that. But my needs are different than yours.

I thought about this, but it still doesn't seem possible to automate perfectly. For instance, if we are both at home and I go in to the kitchen, I want the lights to be bright, but if she goes in, she'd rather not have the lights turn on at all. This is what has me stumped right now. Ideally, I'd love the system to behave one way for me and a different way for her. But I have no idea if it's even possible to tell the system who's entering which room without making significant behavioural changes like carrying around NFC tags all the time or some such.

I've set it up based on how bright it actually is. Time of day can't account for things like a grey sky making everything dim.

I haven't tried this because my wife leaves her phone wherever is convenient when home so it would not work for her. But it supposedly works with Hubitat, if you both carry your phones with you at all times, it may be able to allow the automations to be tailored to who is in the room. https://www.intellithings.net/roomme

you could use a presence sensor to detect who is home and set the values accordingly, but if you're on the couch and your SO enters the kitchen, it will see you're home and set it to your values.

it might just be easier to concede and use your phone and you walk in (or a voice assistant)

I have a house automated that has 5 people, a cat and a dog in it. Not an easy task!

Initially, I set my automations to turn off lights when there was no motion detected for a specific period of time. This can sometimes require more than one sensor per room depending on where people are and what they do. In our TV room where people will often be very still for a long time, the lights will not change if the TV is on. I have some rooms dim the lights and/or issue a warning via Alexa to remind the occupent to move a bit to trigger the motion sensor.

After a while, I tried adding some automation for lights in some rooms. I now have some room that turn on automatically, and some that don’t - all this to ensure we have automations that work for everyone.

Agree, consider this for starters (but be cautious re: placement of sensors and how to define motion timeouts). Lights turning off when motion has stopped is less likely to be jarring than the lights coming on (my wife is the same way).

You will probably not win if your SO doesn’t like certain types of automations. You could restrict some automations to occur when she’s not home by using her phone as presence sensor, or a key fob.

But find out what kind of automations are either neutral in her opinion, or even better, something she would find very useful (that is the point, after all).

If you get her used to the idea of automating, she may drop some objections that are currently non-starters.

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You may also want to start with a more closed-off room, as they are usually easier to align with your existing behaviors. My wife was also not convinced that all this automation was worth it at first. I started with the garage, with a very simple automation: if the interior door is opened, turn on the light. Simple and virtually always the right thing to do. Then I started to build on that:

  • Included the overhead door too.
  • Added a motion sensor.
  • Added a timeout to turn the light off.
  • Added a condition to turn off the light only if motion wasn’t detected since a door was last closed.
  • Added logic to handle cases where the light was turned on or off manually.
  • Added logic to use an exterior light sensor for illuminance if the overhead door is open.

I spent a lot of time playing with it, since the basic logic is simple (door open = light on), but there’s a lot of ability to customize it based on your specific behavior. My wife doesn’t notice all the nuance; she just notices that it works. And little by little, it works better and better. It’s now become one of my biggest, most customized, and most fun automations.

I thought about something like this, but it won't work for either of us. When we're home, we hardly use our phones. In fact, we often "lose" our phones at home and need to ring them to figure out where they are haha! I left my phone in the wardrobe once and didn't know it was there till later next morning when I got a message :stuck_out_tongue:

This is how I was planning to go about it, and this is exactly what stumped me. I couldn't think of any way to have the system recognize people without the people carrying around some or the other device (which, even if we were okay with, we would probably not remember to do anyway - it's just a layer of annoyance and we might as well just use a switch).

Both of us really despise using voice assistants. For whatever reason, they are extremely reliably wrong. I don't know if it's my accent or what, but it just does. not. work.

I have several sensors that I can deploy. As of now, I've deployed just one sensor in the kitchen and one in the living room (we have a small apartment - a bedroom, a living room, & a kitchen). I am still trying to figure out how to program all the logic and that is what has me stumped. I have no idea how to tell the system which person is going where.

For me, this is very context dependent as well. For the most part, I don't find lights turning on or off jarring at all. IfI'm at the table eating or if I'm at the counter making sandwiches and the lights go off, it's totally fine. However, if I am chopping vegetables or some such and the lights go off suddenly, that could actually end up being dangerous.

I need to convince her to log in to the hubitat app that it took me several weeks to get her to install. She really despises this "smart" home stuff. And to a certain extent, I totally get it - now that I've started off on my journey here, I have started gaining a whole new perspective on the simplicity of a non-automated light switch. I can't even begin to imagine what it would take to set up something that I would consider perfect, let alone something that she would consider perfect.

Honestly, my lack of knowledge & inspiration is the bigger bottleneck here. I can't even begin to imagine what all I can do with what I have. The tricky thing is that I can only work with lighting for the moment as the old-â– â– â–  apartment we live in doesn't allow us to change switches, radiator knobs, or several other things.

We've spoken about the usefulness of automation quite a bit, though. The problem always boils down to "how many exceptions can we program"? At what point is the rule I write just an ever-growing list of exceptions? I guess things are infinitely harder if your behaviour isn't extremely routine & mechanical :confused:

We have three rooms - the living room, the kitchen, and the bedroom. The kitchen is the most closed off room there is. I'm not even going to bother with the bedroom since we rarely even use the lightbulb that there is in there.

I'm beginning to question it myself :sweat_smile:

I wonder if adding a mesh of beam sensors would make it any easer. I might be able to tell hub to not bother with the lights unless someone is in this specific part of the kitchen or some such, haha!

I think it's safe to say this is a no-go.

If two different people who live in the same house, and are present at the same time, want things to work differently, I'm positive that you're not going to find a way to sort that out.

Sorry.

Perhaps you could just get used to turning lights on manually (as your wife wants anyway), and perhaps add in a few rules to switch the lights off. Forget about the 'on'.

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A good approach in your situation would probably be to start small. Keep thinking about it and make a small change here and there. Some things that could eventually be useful include:

  1. Turn on light in a dark area (cabinet, etc) automatically when you always want a light anyway…
  2. Have HE turn off all lights if everyone has left
  3. Have HE turn on a specific light (entry way) when it senses an arrival - requires that presence is in good working order!
  4. Have Alexa/Google Home/Hubitat notify you that the temperature outside is cooler than inside and that a window should be opened (Assuming you would rather not use AC)

You know, I was thinking of this recently - I have never seen a Z-Wave or Zigbee beam sensor… Haven’t looked for one min you… but there are situations where those would be very useful! (IE in an entrance where there is no door, and where you don’t want a pet to trigger a sensor).

You could go down this rabbit hole

It’s not something I’d be interested in deploying in MY home !

I suppose you could hang a RFID tag around her neck. If you do, let me know how that works. I have the same issue with my SO.

When I introduced Alexa she refused to "talk to her house."
After a couple of years, Alexa seems to have worn her down somewhat.

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@Akshay You may be on to something here, but thinking in a less complex way, what about this compromise?
Set up a sensor with a very limited range, like maybe placing it under a kitchen cabinet so it will only detect motion under that cabinet. When she walks through nothing happens. When you walk through, wave your hand under the cabinet ---> lights on. Sort of a gesture type of action.

It isn't what you asked for, but we must compromise with our SO's and still be able to tinker with automation.

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That's a clever idea.

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Have you considered NFC implants? Then you wouldn’t have to remember to carry them around. Changing batteries wouldn’t be fun, though.

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I have been struggling with automating the bathroom for over a year. So that:
The lights come on dimmed between certain hours, or in a certain mode (Night).
Ramp up slowly so you don't get blinded.
Can be switched off manually.
Don't get a false activation by the dog looking for her water dish at night.
Come on bright during daylight.
Turn off after a specific time of no activity.

Doesn't annoy the SO.
Haven't found the right combination yet.

It was Akshay's comment about a mesh that gave me the idea of a limited scope. A simple approach.

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