What are your best automations / ideas?

Hmm. I currently issue two commands (1 to turn on the alarm, 1 to turn off all the lights). Good idea....

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It is not rated to be setup outiside in the elements. I have it under my porch, so it doesn’t see any rain. It did survive a cold Canadian winter though.

I would rather write a purpose driven app for this, unless there is one already written. Dew point is a calculation that requires more than one humidity and temp sensor.

That's fair enough, I was thinking more if you had the dew point already.... Still wasn't an ideal setup though, a dedicated app would be good.

I feel like an app / driver to calculate the dew point and a separate app to make use of it makes sense to me, opens it up to different use cases....

I'd love to see your automation on this as well as what equipment you are using.

Sure.

It's one rule. It is based on the following equation for approximating dew point:

The Equation

DewPoint(c) = Temp(c) - (100 - Rh)/5

/* Since HE reports temp in F, the equation is based on */
DewPoint(F) = ((((Temp(F)-32)/1.8) - (100 - Rh)/5) * 1.8) + 32

/* Simplified is */
DewPoint(f) = Temp(F) + 0.36Rh - 36

Local Variables

Rule
And the rule is as follows

Equipment
I use my Local Weather device, which is a DarkSky device, since I do not have an outdoor sensor that reports humidity. Therefore it is an approximated humidity based on the norm in the general area, and an approximated temperature too. I do have a couple outdoor sensors I could use to get the min(outdoor temp) from to use as outdoor ambient temperature. Unfortunately, none are always in the shade, but at least one is at any point in time, that is why I would use the minimum of the all -- outdoor temperature should be measured in the shade to get ambient temp -- so for now, the local weather is fine for my system.

Hue Outdoor Motion sensor (3 of them), two in front yard facing south west and west, & one in back yard facing south-east. These will be used for temperature reading eventually based on above comment.

Aeotec MultiSensor 6 in bathroom for humidity, and temperature. These are poorly calibrated from the shop, so I also use nearby sensors. Additionally, as shower times grows, heat goes up, so I use the hallway sensor nearby too. The idea is to prevent the mirror from fogging, and the mirror gets its surface temp from a combination of the wall (ambient house temp) and the air. Using the hallway temp sensors help improve accuracy.

Hue indoor motions sensor (2 of them), one is pointed at my stairwell (and the western stairwell window, and the other is near the bathroom door, looking down the length of the hallway, so it is closest to ambient indoor temp.

Inovelli LZW30 switch for bathroom fan controller.

If I convert this to an app, it would most certainly perform faster, and I could add other logic to enhance the system, but for now, this work for me.

The Aeotec multisense is battery powered, and generally is unreliable. When I know that we don't have guests coming over, I generally leave the rule disabled, because none of my battery powered devices report battery level, and low battery alerts have never once worked for me. So, to avoid the headaches, I just leave it disabled until I think I will need it, then I test the sensor out to see if I need to swap the battery. I keep a supply of CR2 and various watch style batteries around so I always have what I need for my battery operated devices.

When I eventually get around to running power for the sensor, and mounting it in the ceiling, it will be much more effective.

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This is great. Thank you.
I have three iris motion sensors in the bathroom that also report temperature. I have a Netatmo Weather station as well as the indoor sensors. They are very accurate. I'm going to put one of the in the master bath and use it for temp and humidity as well. My outdoor weather along with the indoor weather should make it work pretty good. Not sure I'd actually need the outdoor humidity and temp. I can also add in the barometric pressure if it's needed for greater accuracy? I have no idea about this... lol

My best rule is a leak rule. I have leak detectors under every sink and behind every toilet, under the dishwasher, behind the refrigerator and washing machine. In short, if it is connected to water there is a detector on it. My rule, if a leak is detected, turns off the power to our well, and opens a zone on the Rachio sprinkler system to drain the 80 gallon pressure tank to keep it from flooding the house.

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I don’t know how biometric pressure relates to humidity. Dew point is the temperature at which the Air condensates. To compute this, you use humidity and temperature of the ambient air, and the humidity of the room to compute the temp at which condensation occurs. Then using the room temp sensor, if it exceeds the cutoff, the fan is turned on.

Since the mirror is what is fogging, it needs a bit of adjustment, and since most bathrooms have the door closed, the exhaust fan is not very effective without fresh air to cool down the space, but it is a start and it does work when tuned for you environment. Best thing is, it compensated for seasonal changes, since it uses dew point to avoid fogging.

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Love it. Maybe next, put a ball valve on the pressure tank outlet that you can turn off instead and not waste the collected water. Ball valves are cheap and the actuators are not, but they are battery powered and work well.

I have a rule that in case someone enters the bathroom from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., the light in the bathroom turns on for 1 minute, another rule that I have that when I leave I tell Alexa "I leave the house" and he activates the alarm , with the 3 motion sensors that I have, 2 of the door, and I turn off the lights at home and they send me a telegram with a notification of "alarm connected", when I return home, I enter and I have 20 seconds to press a button that we have hidden to deactivate the alarm, but after 20 seconds they send me an alarm telegram, and a siren sounds, simple rules but I have just started, to see if I am getting ideas!

I do this 24/7 for the bathroom light timer. Based on time of day / ambient light, I set the delay time for auto off, and since I have Inovelli switches, I can use button controls to say that the light should stay on for 30 minutes if turned on via switch or 5 (variable by time) mins if by motion.

For arming, I use Life360 to detect when I leave and auto arm, and when I return to auto-disarm.

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I also have a rule that warns me if the power goes out, with the presence sensor to a shelly, it warns me if the power goes out

an easy way to know if the power has gone out at home

Ok, I have to tell you about this one. It's been rewritten and streamlined from all the way back when RM was still on the Stupid Trash hub. So, anyway....

This is a long read... enjoy.

My Master Bathroom Lights, Fans, and Shower Tunes
This is a multilayered automation that keeps my wife happy and my habit/hobby alive.

Equipment: 3 iris motion sensors,4 GE switches, 3 Hue bulbs, 1 Iris contact sensor, and an Amazon Alexa Dot ball thing.

Layer One - Basic Use
Someone walks into the room and the lights are turned on to a predetermined level based on the current mode. One motion sensor is in the shower. When motion stops the lights turn off after 30 seconds.

Layer Two - I'm using the room
When I shower I like the lights dim, the exhaust fans on, and the music blaring. When the shower motion is activated it waits 15 seconds, checks that the contact sensor is closed, waits another 15 seconds and then dims the lights. It also sets my Alexa to SiriusXM and starts blaring my music. Once I step out of the shower and the shower motion changes to inactive (about 20 seconds) the music turns down and lights begin increase slowly. I don't like to be blinded by the lights. Once I leave the room the lights turn off after 30 seconds and the fans turn off after 5 minutes.

Layer Three - Wife Time
My wife likes the lights bright, the music in the background and the exhaust fans off. I watched her habits in the room and decided that every time she is going to be in there for an extended amount of time she will open her cabinet door. That's where her lady stuff is. I put the contact sensor on that cabinet door and when it opens it sets the lights to 100%, turns off the fans, and adjust the volume and channel for her music. When she is done she closes the cabinet and the bathroom lights are reset depending on the current mode. The fans turn off after 10 minutes.

I've also just implemented the automation from above about using the Dewpoint to adjust the humidity/temp in the room to keep the mirror from fogging up.

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I got tired of leaving the house with one or more doors unlocked, so I replaced two of the deadbolts I had with Yale zigbee deadbolts. The back door, however, had an integral lock set. I thought "oh no problem, just cut a hole above the lock set and stick a deadbolt in!" Bad news... my fancy Marvin door has a three-point locking system, which means there's a steel bar that runs up and down the edge of the door. I searched for a while on a way to tell if the door was at least locked, even if I could not lock it. I finally came up with this arrangement using a Sengled contact sensor, a small magnet, and some superglue. I then wrote a rule to open and close a virtual lock based on the contact sensor. Works great!


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I have a lot of indoor plants at home, so it doesn't get very humid - deciduous plants absorb moisture from the air. We even have to additionally humidify the air in the rooms. At one time I used a spray bottle, it leaves traces of drops. Now I have TaoTronics cool mist humidifier installed in 2 rooms, where most of the plants that require moisture are installed. Moisture is sprayed very finely, does not settle on surfaces, and leaves do not dry out in plants.

The Velux KLF200 can be set up to control Velux rooflights, blinds etc - indeed any io-homecontrol (2 way comms) and velux RF devices (no status reporting/feedback). It exposes an API and there have been some integrations for HA and I think Smart Things.