So what automations are getting thumbs up from the fam?

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I see posts about WAF come up occasionally and it got me thinking. I'm lucky enough to have a wife that let's me do whatever odd hobby my little brain dreams up, but she doesn't necessarily share the same passion for them as I do. But with hubitat she does loves some of it. Mainly the variable light in the bathroom when it's super dim in the middle of the night. She also likes the follow me lights when shes walking a cross the house early in the morning to find that first desperately needed cup of coffee. My daughter loves the little button stuck to her bed that gives her a lazy kids light switch lol. I have more complex automations, but these are the ones getting appreciated.

So what do the non techies in your house love the most?

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  1. The ability to get mobile notifications when the kids leave for school or arrive home (lock/unlock from front door, open/close from garage door, Life360 geofencing)

  2. Smart outdoor lighting. One motion sensor can turn on three separate outdoor lights and light up the whole backyard.

  3. Automatic control of our whole-home humidifier (Smart plug). Adjusting the target humidity based on outdoor temperature prevents condensation on the windows.

  4. Starting the white nose (thunderstorm sounds on Alexa) when she gets into bed (SleepNumber).

  5. Limiting kids TV Time to 30 minutes after school (Roku integration)

  6. Automatically turning off the kids' bedroom lamps each night.

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Here's the ones that are liked the most by family:

  • bedtime button - turns off all lights, fireplace, tvs, closes blinds, puts hub in night mode, arms alarm for night, turns on bedside lights in the master bedroom dimly to find our way to bed, reminds us through the google home to run the dishwasher
  • lock all doors, turn off all lights, arm home alarm when everyone has left the house
  • Pico remotes stuck to our kids beds that turn on their bedside light dimly during the night if they need to get up
  • door sensors on both our kids doors that if a door is opened during sleeping hours, our google home in the master bedroom will say 'Kid A's door has opened. It is X o'clock'. In our half asleep state, we know who got out of bed and what time it is so we can cut them off at the pass and take them back to bed.
  • different lighting scenes - vacuum scene turns on all lights in areas we regularly vacuum and disables motions sensors so lights stay on while vacuuming. Dishes scene turns on lights in the kitchen and dining room bright to do dishes and wipe down cabinets and dining table. Dinner scene dims lights in the dining room and kitchen to a nice dim light. Relax scene turn on living room lights dimly and turns off kitchen lights. Clean House scene turns on all the lights in the house and disables motion sensors.
  • turn on kid's ceiling fans when temp in their room goes above a certain level, turns off when temp drops below a certain level
  • ecolink contact sensor tied into smoke detectors through relay so get notification when smoke alarm goes off if away from home. If home, all lights would come on, furnace turns off, blinds open, door locks unlock, text the neighbors that our smoke alarm is going off, flash outside lights to draw attention
  • fireplace turned on/off with button on tv remote
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Lots of the ones mentioned above, but there are some amazing gems in there, please keep sharing.
The ones I have not mentioned that have high Family satisfaction are;

  • Night light mode for my kids. Their room dims at 7:30, off at 8:30 if we don't turn off before (usually do). And my kids are in bunk beds, so the lower bunk bed has an LED strip that lags the turning off of the main light by 2min to give my kid extra time to settle down as it's darker there.

  • Shut off power to the garage - If we are geofenced away, sleep mode or vacation mode. I cut the power with a smartplug to our garage door so no-one would be able to open it or drive-by signal clone.

  • Auto-lock doors, after specific sets of time once the door has been closed (front door only)

  • Water leak sensors over Sonos telling us where the leak is

  • Garage door open more than X minutes alert and Sonos (Alexa) alert.

  • Dim lights when TV is on in our living room

  • Closet lights turn on, at different dimmed values depending on the time of day when the door is opened, and shut off after 6 min if a closet door is left open.

  • When we are away, if there is motion on specific Ring cameras, we start playing music on Sonos

  • Lutron Picos - I have on in my car that triggers our alarm on/off. Also mounted one next to a real switch to control a lamp that has a smart plug.

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Most HE has become routine and expected but the one that consistently tops the kudos list is the "vehicle in driveway" announcement over Sonos.

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Is this just using a motion sensor?

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Just a very simple one for us:
WE have a Laundry Room with a switch that is nowhere close to the entrance of the room.
So, I put a motion sensor - presto - instant satisfaction for something very simple.

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Motion sensors didn't work in my driveway, too much wildlife and windy. I modified a Mighty Mule magnetic sensor by adding a contact sensor to the indoor receiver. Thread here:

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Laundry announcements from Google home (Washer\dryer is done...) that repeat until the washer or dryer door is opened. (I also get a text)

Motion lighting in utility room and when walking between bedrooms and family room

Anything using a Pico (wife loves buttons)

Warning light (red LED along baseboards in kitchen) when gas cooktop burners or toaster oven are on so we don't sit down to eat or leave the kitchen with a burner or oven accidentally left on on

Spoken door warnings when garage and other outer doors are opened, and additional warnings when left open more than five minutes for doors not usually left open for ventilation. Includes electrical panel, fence gates, and shed, as well as house doors and garage.

Auto front door locking 10m after it's closed

Whole house fan auto off after 20 minutes (we kept forgetting to turn it off after the house cooled down)

Door check rule runs from 9pm on, lights up red light in living room if any doors or windows are open that we should close before going to bed.

Google voice "what's open" command reads out list of any open windows or doors

Good night automation on HE initiated via Google voice command turns off all lights, TV, and fans outside bedroom, locks doors, turns on bedside lamps in bedroom. Motion lighting on way to bedroom provides necessary lighting to get there safely

Open window spoken and text warning when raining

A paritcular favorite of hers - Wife hits a switch in bedroom outside the shower and 1) light comes on in shower to confirm process started, and 2) Hot water pump at water heater runs for five minutes to pre-heat water for shower and then auto shuts off. This one got me a kiss on the cheek. :wink:

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How do you do this one? Smart plug on the TV that measures power?

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This for my house. When the Zooz 4-in-1 motion was messing things up, WAF went way down. Switched to Hue, been pretty stable.

Most of my other automatons get criticism from the family, so some of the ones mentioned here i need to look at a bit more.

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I do the same thing by using a Harmony control as the switch. If harmony turns on, dim the lights. In my theater I do the same thing with the receiver (Denon).

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Recently the wife was making lunch and commented that she wishes the motion-controlled under cabinet task lighting came on all the time and not just when it was dark. Two minutes in webCoRE and we now have task lighting that comes on after a minute of motion in the kitchen when it's light outside. :slight_smile:

Otherwise, we do like the hot water recirculator pump (plug) to warm up the shower, the automatic garage door opening and closing on presence, locking/unlocking the back door based on presence, and the green/yellow/red "traffic light" to indicate how much traffic there is on the way to work.

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We as a family have been doing this for some time anyway, sometimes you get a real winner.

In this case using the new "Lock Mirror" child add on to the Device Mirror app, I created this lock mirror:

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So the good Night routine locks the Group Lock device, and a TTS of the resulting status gets sent to the master bedroom sonos.

The wife loves hearing that all the doors are locked when she shuts the house down.

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Warning light (red LED along baseboards in kitchen) when gas cooktop burners or toaster oven are on so we don't sit down to eat or leave the kitchen with a burner or oven accidentally left on on

How are you doing this? Temp monitor?

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A somewhat simple, yet convoluted application of contact sensors...it is a bit if a maintenance headache as I have to remove the front plate of the stove to change batteries...details here.

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After 9pm but before 6am , door sensor trips on my 4 year old's door sending a message to all phones with specific sound. Text saying (Kid's name is escaping! Release the hounds!) and my GSD reacts to that particular alarm and runs out to track the kiddo and keep him pinned while we find him. (My other dog also has to follow to be where the action is at)

(Yes, I found a way to integrate my pets into my home automation. And in the spirit of Hubitat, it's still 100% local :stuck_out_tongue: )

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I use the Roku Connect community app. Rule Machine monitors the "transport status" attribute to tell when something is playing.

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I use @ogiewon's Logitech Harmony integration to control my TV... So my good night routine turns off lights at one end of the house and turns them on in the bedroom, and also turns off the TV in the family room if it's on. Very convenient.

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Having Roku’s on my TVs, will need to explore this. Thx!

One tv also uses a harmony, so decisions to be made….

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