Most annoying automation?

Can anyone think of the most annoying automations that can be implemented on the Hubitat?

My idea:

(1) if the front door lock is locked, the rear door lock is unlocked.
(2) turning off a light in one room turns a light on in another

Bonus points in using a random variable for it to happen once every 200 activations.

3 Likes

On System start event, initiate shutdown?

6 Likes

Or base the systems shutdown on the weather....

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Oh wow!
Three Stooges Face GIF

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For anyone with Life360 or something similar I'm sure we could come up with a speed related automation.... I.e. you have to stay above 50mph...

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Blasting weather updates on every speaker in the house on the hour. Don't ask how I know how annoying that is :innocent:

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Refrigerator open for more than 30 seconds followed by kitchen Echo saying, "A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips."

I didn't find it annoying but someone else did. :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

6 Likes

Variant:

Entering a room turns off all the lights in that room, and turns on all the lights in other rooms.

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How about just simply use motion activated lights, but with a short turn off delay. This way it constantly turns off while you are in there. Better yet it catches you when you enter the room, but then doesn't see the entire room space so you have to actively move to a part of the room to reactivate it constantly.

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You could emulate the bad old days of Smarthings by putting a 2-3 second delay between pushing a button and turning on the lights. That certainly annoyed the hell out of me.

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Or they could land at the Denver airport…

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I saw this movie once, where this bus had to SPEED around town, and keep it's SPEED above 50, and if its SPEED dropped, the bus would blow up. I think the name of the movie was, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."

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During a triple digit summer day, turn the heat to its highest setting after everyone has left the house for the day. Same for the winter, crank the A/C to its lowest setting.

Receive a notification there's a water leak multiple sensors have detected while you're out of the country. Right when you've finished taking action to have it looked at, Pushover sends a notification of "Relax, I was just kidding...hehe"

@nbrew - Great topic idea btw.

I created it years ago and eliminated it because it annoyed me so much.

My wife usually forgets whatever she microwaves, so I created an automation that would say "The microwave has finished" after it ran, repeating every minute until the door was opened. She just ignored it the same way she ignores timers, but I heard it every single time. I later limited it to just two reminders per run, but because since she always ignored the reminders and I heard them, I decided that automation should be permanently retired.

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Ah, yes - my parting gift when I left my job developing automated test equipment for a certain electronics company. A specific type of failure would compare random numbers to determine whether or not to display an embarrassing picture of my boss for a couple seconds. It was perhaps a 5% to 10% chance. Someone would alert the test team, but then be unable to duplicate the issue.

Years later, I learned that they used that computer to re-image machines in other factories. He was getting calls from around the globe asking why he was on their computer. A gift that kept on giving.

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Back in another millennium :grinning: I was on the creative staff of an online environment "game". I set up an unlabelled button in one room ("SoAndSo has pressed the button.") that randomly changed the color of the lights on the fountain in the next room ("The fountain lights are now chartreuse.").

Not sure if anyone ever actually figured it out...

Announce in the whole house every time someone goes into the bathroom (via motion or contact sensor).
Then you could provide updates for how long they have been in there.

5 Likes

I still have that fun delay with my Sengled bulbs. I can press the button and literally be in bed before the lamp goes off. Having that delay is not a bad "feature" until the cat is making hurling noises and I have to wait for the lamp to go on.

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Get woken up in the morning to a Pushover message that one of my hubs wants an update. Every 15 seconds I got 3 of them. Finally guessed what was causing them (I think) and got it turned off. I'm looking at you, Hub Monitor.

So that is the sound it makes as you hurl it out the door, huh?

2 Likes