Need some input...qift for my dad

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1

Thinking about getting my dad something smart home related.

Some background info:

He's very receptive to new tech.
He was at Berkeley in the 60s. If you know, it should tell you attitude towards things like Alexa. He has a Model S and specifically no Auto Pilot.

Anyway, my parents just had a massive solar panel installation done and he's a retired electrical engineer so he loves majorly geeking out over stats and so forth.

I was thinking about actually getting him a hub. How do those with solar/alternative energy integrate? Definitely not at all going to be full smart home but I'm sure he would love automation of Tesla charging, automation of pool pump, energy monitoring, and configuration of some lights and things like that when they are out of the country (retired life).

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Very thoughtful of you :clap:

I suggest you get him an

And set him up with
https://nodered.org

and

with

The IoTaWatt can write directly to InfluxDB and Grafana will read from Influx to produce whatever charts he wants.

Influx and Grafana are free for personal use so don't be dissuaded by their commercial tiers.

All of the above will run nicely on any box from a Pi3 on up.

EDIT: On 2nd thought Node-red isn't necessary for this.

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I was thinking about something like this but was leaning more towards the HE hub because of the vast array of integrations that honestly most people don't know they need till they have. It would also be an opportunity for a father son project of sorts.

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Think of the bonding that will happen as both of you try to include devices and end up with ghost devices.

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My Dad was an engineer. Worked on Voyager 1 and the Mars Lander. Bought him a C5 years ago. It's still in the box. :rofl:

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Yeah sadly many of the things I've gotten him have missed the mark like that.

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I've seen lots of posts on the Sense forums about folks that automate their car charger only when solar production exceeds base electric use (ie. they are generating a surplus). However, I don't think I would recommend the sense energy monitor. Probably stick with something that has a local integration.

8

Thats funny! :}

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