- Power outage notification -saved already some €€ when my main circuit breaker was down.
- Freezer and cooler long opened door notifications including temperature monitoring - my kids often keeps doors slightly open from time 2 time.
- Home security - monitoring of surrounding house area helped to catch us burglers 2 years ago!
- Home security - monitoring of all sensors when noone is at home.
- Presence detector od all family members (esp. kids home from school info).
- Garden watering based on weather conditions
- Group blinds positioning
- Energy mointoring (including solar pannels) and adjustments of other equipment based on that. Also its providing peace of mind when we are out of home -easy to check if everything is off (e.g. iron or stove).
- Grouping lights to be controlled from one place - no need to change wiring.
- Home heating based on presence - cost saving.
- and of course lights automation in areas where it is not causing more troubles then benefits.
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Humidity sensors for controlling bathroom fans because no one uses them.
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A virtual switch that I use to activate "News Time". If it is between 6pm and 7pm I turn on the TV to a channel for local news, then transition to our national broadcaster for a further half hour news report. Equally, between 7pm and 7:30 I turn on the national news. If it is any other time of day turn on the national broadcasters 24-hour news channel.
By using a virtual switch I can activate this by voice using my GH speaker, as well as when I arrive home between specified times of the day. And via a dashboard tile.
Interesting, is it Individual or just if any ones in bed and how?
I have an EnvisaLink 4 connected to my hardwired alarm panel and an app running on a raspberry pi that feeds everything to/from Hubitat. An app in hubitat that connects to the PI for the data transfer. And then HSM to control the automations along with rules.
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Motion sensor in my bathroom triggers SwitchBot Bot on my Coffee maker in the morning. Ready to go by the time I'm downstairs. 2 mins a day that belong to me again.
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As much as having a Smart Home allows you to do cool things (and we ALL love that!) its real joy is that it's able to make life SO much easier. Some of the most appreciated things are also the simplest.
I struggle to reach over, bend down or move quickly (arthritis & other general decrepitness), so:
Smart plugs in hard-to-reach outlets are a godsend.
Just having roller blind motors makes life so much easier, instead of having to lean over furniture to reach the window.
Video doorbell with intercom. My first, and still most-valued. It's actually what got me started on my smart home journey!
If someone rings the doorbell I used to struggle to get there in time. For some weird reason some people don't ring any bell but just knock the door - and YES the bell is in a blindingly effing obvious place!! Also, the dogs will regularly bark if there's a passer-by.
The smart video bell with intercom and movement sensor solves ALL of those problems. No more stumbling from my upstairs office, down the stairs (with lots of swearing) to the front door - especially when it's for no good reason 'cos the dogs chose to bark at nothing!
There are more that are both helpful and a bit cool too...
Smart smoke, CO and gas alarms. I could have dumb ones - my home isn't THAT big & I can hear a siren from one end of the house to the other. I have two dogs who aren't ever left home alone for long, but when I'm out shopping or running errands I'm never too far away. The peace of mind of receiving a notification & being able to dash home is too valuable to describe.
Having a "Good Night" routine. It checks all the downstairs (plus bathroom) windows & doors. If they're all closed I have couple of coloured bulbs turn green for a few seconds. If anything's been left open the bulbs turn red & Google/Alexa tells me what's open. All downstairs lights & AV equipment turns off. Some upstairs lights turn on.
Blind motors automatically close the blinds just after sunset, but only if the windows where each blind is located are closed. I don't have to go around the house each evening.
Extractor fan in the bathroom switches on/off depending on humidity in the room. If the bathroom window is open the fan doesn't switch on. I don't have to struggle up the stairs to remember to turn it off some time after having a shower. The good night routine tells me if I've left that window open.
There are tons of others that are both nice and useful, (like automated lights, a power monitor for the freezer in an out-building with an alert for power failure, an alarm if anyone breaks in to the out-building, HSM running as a burglar alarm when we're away) but all of the others above give me the most peace-of-mind or save me having to do things that are painful.
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Similar health issues to what Chris noted above.
Smart plugs out of the way that can be activated by voice or phone.
The lights for my aquariums are also controlled by smart plugs.
I have several light automations set up in many rooms to come on, go off, change light levels throughout the day.
For example, I continue to work from home so I have my office lighting set so that it comes on at 50% 10 minutes before I'm supposed to start working, goes to 100% 40 minutes later. When my day is finished, the light drops to 50% as a reminder to log off, and a half hour later the light turns off.
I also have another light in the room that is triggered by an Ikea Tradfri motion sensor.
This one only turns the light on IF the main office light is not already on, and only between 6:30 AM and 12:00 AM (cats can trigger it, so I disable it when we're sleeping).
The smarts of this is done with Home Assistant, since Hubitat doesn't support the Tradfri motion sensors. I'll also be trying this out with Edge drivers via my new Aeotec Hub that's on it's way.
So much to do with lighting.
- Outdoor lights in front of house come on at sunset and turn off at sunrise
- Master bedroom lamps turn on with activity in the room and off when no activity. This is also controlled with home mode which some Zooz remote switches set to either Sleeping our awake.
- The aforementioned Zooz switch that controls mode also helps the HVAC know when to keep the house cool for my wife as she sleeps.
- A routine that looks for the garage door to open and then the kitchen door to the garage. Automatically turns on the Kitchen lights so we never enter a dark house.
- Garage light turns on if either the Garage door, or kitchen door opens if it is after sunset and before sunrise.
- HVAC rules with Ecobee suite to disable HVAC when any windows or doors are open for 3 min. Turn it back on when they close for 1 min.
- HVAC also adjusts circulation fan depending how the difference of the temp sensors in the house.
- HVAC gets turned off when the Fireplace is active.
- Humidifier and Dehumidifier control with Smartapp to control when they run based on humidity in the house and external temp.
- Burgular Alarm
- Voice Announcements with Google Home Chromecast integration.
- Bather fan management to help control humidity.
- Wifi Smartbulb control with a Zooz Smartswitch.
- Virtual Motion sensor to initiate Robot Vacuum through Alexa.
- Under cabinet light control to activate on motion. This is so much better then putting a night light in there.
- Automatic activation of ambient light strips behind tv when tv is activated.
- Good night routine that turns off all the lights/TV's/anything not needed, Sets the Alarm and turns on Bedtime lights in a few spots.
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AI cameras that detect only humans or cars within defined areas of my property triggering alerts that send me via pushover snapshots of the intrusion triggering specific floodlights to come on (if dark) and announce the intrusion via alexa.
Many of the above.
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I'm curious as to how you trigger the ambient TV lighting. I have a Govee WiFi/Bluetooth unit on my Roku TV and would love to have the ambient lighting come on with the TV when activated.
Have you integrated the Switchbot into HE? I just got a Switchbot just to turn my Keurig on. I have see that there are two different User Drivers for HE for the Switchbot and some other SB items. I have the SB Temperature & Humidity sensor and would like to integrate that into HE as well for alerts (placed in garage) to know when its too hot or too cold in there for man or beast (cats).
I have this in both bathrooms and love it. My oldest son is notorious for forgetting to turn on the fan and then taking a sweltering hot shower. The walls would be dripping with moisture to where the floor would be deadly for anyone walking in there. Now they come on at 60%+ humidity and go off at less than 50%. Works great. Using Zooz dual switch for light & fan and the Aeotec 7-in-1 using USB power.
What are you doing to use the Lux for lighting? I ask because my living room gets really dark in the winter of there is a lot of cloud cover. I tried using a Zooz light/motion sensor and have a rule to turn on the living room lighting when it got too dark and off when it got light enough (during certain hours only) but that failed. Not sure if it was the sensor or my rule. Probably both but if I have something running and it affects the family, that WAF is highly important. Things just have to work. Even the things that I have working still fail now and then for whatever reason and comeback to life on their own. I figure the unicorn magic in these things needed time to recharge, lol.
Best automation is when someone is in the tiny laundry room that is the passage into the garage doing laundry tasks that out in the garage Alexa sounds an alert and says "Laundry Room Active" and turns on a smart bulb to red for 1 minute after there is no motion in the laundry room. This is all to alert me when I'm in the garage working that there is someone on the other side of the door and I don't just go barging in there slamming right into them. I have banged the garage door into the dryer door slamming it shut while my wife has been doing laundry and she nearly killed me.
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I have an outdoor Hue motion mounted under the eve of my patio. It faces east so it provides a good value of Lux that my simple automation uses to decide when to turn in several lamps around my house. I also have a time restriction too where the lights won’t turn in earlier than 3PM and only if Lux is below a certain value.
Batteries last a long time in the Hue sensors and they pair directly to HE.
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Like @ritchierich, I was averaging the lux from two Hue outdoor motion sensors for lux - one facing east and the other facing west. I'm now using my weather station (Tempest) for lux.
But I agree with him - the Hues work really well with Hubitat.
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It makes me laugh thinking about this. I have around 50 rm rules, several simple automations, I use HSM, 8 dashboards and well over 100 devices. My HE does a lot. But I simply purchased it since I wanted the ability to hit one button in my bedroom when I go to sleep, and this button would shut off all the lights in the house. With HE I have this capability and if that is all it did I would be happy.
To this day it is still the best thing about my HE.
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That’s what got me into HA years ago on ST. I had a bedside minimote back then but this has become a Pico. however I don’t even need to press anything anymore, wife or I get in bed and automation happens via FSR strips under mattress.
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How do you bring these into Hubitat? Hubduino?
