What Have You Automated Recently....?

💬 Lounge
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Doesn't even have to be HE-related.... I'll take conversation about any improvement to life's mundane tasks...

Happy to discuss ventures into a new type of device, a new technology, protocol, platform, etc. If you have started to look at Matter, setup a fresh HA or NodeRED instance to supplement your HE setup, ventured into weather sensors ( :metal: ), or you have started using tools like Maker API, InfluxDB/Grafana or WebCore, all are welcome.

The main thing is to offer up something new for you, your experience and any learnings.... Without sounding like you are at work.... like me :slight_smile:

To be honest, I can't offer anything particularly new myself....

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I've put in a lot of Z-Wave LR (Zooz) devices, just because, LR, you know?

I'm already likely going to have to replace the weak garage door LR's with the old, and awesome, Ecolinks.

edit: The toggles, plugs, leak, dc (smoke), motion, and contact sensors are great.

Conclusion: If things are working fine the way they are, don't bother, just because. :slight_smile:

edit2: While this should be in a "fixit" thread, since this is the Lounge:

It was cold-ish in the house this morning, so I thought I'd fire up the standalone electric heater while the wood stove warmed up. It didn't work. I bought it earlier in the year, probably no warranty. So now, I'll be looking at YouTube videos, taking the damn thing apart, yada, yada, yada.

On an automation/heater note, when I was still doing Zigbee, I managed to control a similar (working, lol) heater, with a Zigbee (Tuya?) IR device, but never really implemented, because, you know, safety. :slight_smile:

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Ordered a Guition 480x480 touchscreen and working on setting up an openhasp control for the camper. It has a built in relay which I removed because I want to surface mount it, and I implanted a tiny 12v to 5v converter behind the screen to power it. Of course, after removing the relay portion, I need a new flat backplate with screw holes to mount it on the camper wall… so, I finally decided to buy a 3D printer, and reinstall Blender after not having used it in about 15 years.

Sooo… relearning blender, and learning openhasp and 3D printing. As I bounce between the three, I haven’t made much progress on any one of them in the last 3 weeks.

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As of today virtually everything is automated and I am running out of ideas what to automate next. Latest added automation is automatic vinegar dispenser for keeping AC drain line from clogging.

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I just got back from a cruise today, and I have been fixing all the things that the dog sitter managed to mess up. She apparently decided to double press a button that she should not have pressed, and I got no warning that it happened. That button turns the house from Winter to Summer. Winter has arrived here. The heat was set for 62℉. She probably froze. Did she let us know? Nope. Other weirdness not her doing (but will blame her anyway) like a Pi 2 W deciding to quit talking to the Nut app on HE, or the RM that started a flood of telnet messages to a Lutron hub causing the lights it was controlling to go berserk. Oh, she didn't mention that one, either. She did comment that the TV wouldn't work right (she has trouble pushing buttons, apparently.) Anyway, she is no longer the dog sitter. /rant

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Is the dog ok?

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Dog yes. Carpet, not so much. WAF was actually higher than mine was. This sitter has been doing this for several years for us (and needs the money), and the dog loves her, but I thought that last time should have been the last time. Unfortunately, she is failing very quickly (not the dog) and there won't be another incident.

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How are the lights? :wink:

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So @velvetfoot, I'll put your projects in the "in progress" category"? :wink:

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This sounds very useful! I'd like to know what components you used.

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The heater is dead, as usually the case in the aftermath of my opening an electronic device and poking around.

The new heater doesn't have a fan...very quiet. Low tech as well...could be turned on and off with a smart plug only. Love the quiet.

I just re-installed the Ecolink tilt sensors.

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Here is a link to thread:

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Our Hoshizaki pellet ice maker in the kitchen makes too much noise. Runs too often likely because of the poor oem temp control circuit. So, I decided to control the 120V circuit using a smart outlet. Given the inrush current on the compressor, the relay contacts in a normal zigbee outlet or pluglet would burn up quickly. So, I added a contactor relay and set a schedule so the excessive compressor noise only happens at night. And, we still have plenty of ice on the reduced duty cycle.

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Pet drinking fountain, was on X-10 with RF motion sensor but now has been updated.

Now controlled by HE with Zen16 relay controlling water valve solenoid which is triggered by Third Reality motion sensor. Added to existing DC-UPS 200 Ah system so they get water during a power failure too...

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UIn-berzerked, thank you very much.

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Radon detection with AirThings

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We got a Litter Robot 4 recently. It's actually a step backward for us because I toilet trained our cats many years ago and created an automatic flusher from an Arduino, infrared sensor, and servo to pull the flapper in the tank. BUT the cats got mad at us and had "accidents" when we would go out of town. We figured out that litter kept them happy, but we don't want to scoop, so enter Litter Robot. Wonderful device.

Automation: I see there's a Hubitat integration for Litter Robot, but I can't figure out what I'd need it for. Currently, I use a vibration/tilt sensor stuck on the drum, which flips a virtual switch via webCoRE. Google Home uses the switch as a trigger to start the robot vacuum to suck up all the rogue litter on the floor. A little hacky, but it works!

Matter: I'm abandoning my single Matter shade and just ordered a Zigbee motor for it. It worked really well and followed my hub rules perfectly for a long time. But at some point I think Google updated the firmware on my Google Wifi router (which it now lists as not Matter compatible) and it stopped working. I can no longer connect the shade to the Matter network, even though our phones pop up asking to add it when we open or close the shade. Matter is only working enough to detect the device and tease me.

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Utilization of HE to control and coordinate my morning alarm with heating, lighting, etc. HE maintains the schedule (with easy override functionality) and communicates the wake-up time to my alarm clock (set time/music on Amazon Spot via Echo Speaks), to my bed (elevate head 10 minutes after alarm), to thermostats (increase temp 1 hour before alarm), to the kitchen kettle (start heating), etc.

For my office, I wrote a WPF remote control to allow an easy desktop interface with my office home theater and HE. Just a fun a little project for bundled automations without a browser. (The upper-left "exit" button turns off all home theater components and puts my PC into idle mode <turns off monitors, etc.> after 45 seconds. The line-in and group buttons combine for Sonos/house audio control. And so on.)

Remote.20240928

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