What Weird and Wonderful Automations Have Improved Your Home?

The weirder and more obscure the better... Ok, not that weird :wink: And I know, not a new topic for me....

There's plenty of posts about lighting, temperature/humidity, general power-related automations out there... What are some of the lesser known or discussed automations that people find useful?

It can also be combination automations... Personally I have an old-school Samsung button in my "study" (second bedroom) that on a single-press turns on the monitor (TV), opens the blind (depending on the conditions), turns on lighting and disables motion lighting. A double-tap of the same button turns everything off... in simple terms.

I'm sure others have more advanced and useful automations that don't fit neatly into the common topics of conversation.

As some may have noticed, I am also interested in peoples use of their mobile devices, as much as I may be able to spend time on my projects in this space.

Discuss.... :slight_smile:

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Using drivetime by @JustinL the hub will monitor traffic conditions in the morning and change bulb colors and make announcements if the traffic conditions are outside of normal parameters.

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I'll get blown outta the water by the next posts but this is the weirdest and most pointless thing I have to share.

I found a web site with a voice model trained to sound like the Star Trek TNG computer, and you can create and download your own sounds. I resolved to make every spoken alert at home sound like Star Trek... A thing I have wanted since I was a kid, and it is now possible. (Yes, I AM a giant dork, thank you very much.)

While I was trying to get a handle on using Google Nest Mini speakers for alerts I had to make a test sound. So now I have a button that just plays this sound.

I am chipping away at other alerts like "positive beep Attention. Bay one doors open." for the garage, "warning beep Warning. Auxiliary refrigeration unit offline" if the garage fridge outlet pops its old flaky GFCI, etc.

My wife is very patient.

Some kind of helper app to manage sound cues would be cool. Like, you define assets for reused sounds like like "attention chime," "caution chime," "warning chime," all the numbers across an Earthly temperature range, etc... Maybe even define cues by sticking together parts in some kind of GUI or text editor... And refer to them as some kind of action as a shortcut to playTrack(). This could include support for repeating sounds and cancellation events, and simplify our Rule Machine life.

Obviously that's all much easier to do with TTS but TTS don't sound like Star Trek. :slight_smile:

Pointless... Probably. Fun... Definitely!

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Just created a notification this weekend that is pretty useful… It recommends when I should open and close my basement windows.

Some context… I have a heat pump water heater that keeps the basement nice and cool. Great in the summer, but less so in the spring. So now if the temperature goes up above the basement temperature by a few degrees, it suggests that the windows open. Reverse at night where it will suggest that they be closed.

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As of today basically everything is near 100% automated (but yes, everything has manual control).
My wife like all my automations and basically hands free environment so, describing everything what was done will be a very long list. Very recent automation (after I finally got a local control for my smart beds) is a Automatic Good Night routine. The trigger event is a tablet screen goes off. Than Curtains are closing, Ceiling Fan and Lights goes off, beds adjusted for best sleeping position, plus few more things which I even forgot what they are.

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LOVE IT! Tried it. WAF crashed!

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I get up before my wife and do stuff in other parts of the house. I programmed the center button on her bedside Lutron Pico to let me know she is up and ready for her coffee.

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We have plain coffee maker which needs to be manually prepared (add water and coffee) for the next brewing. Once this is done there is a button to tell HE that coffee maker is ready. There are few buttons scattered around in a few strategic places including night stands for actually starting a coffee maker. Once coffee is ready there is an announcement plus wife's bed shakes 3 times (this was her request).

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What bed shaking apparatus are you using?

I am using the bed shaker from this clock. I have it powered through a Sengled zigbee plug-in then a wall wart and then a little dc-dc regulator.

https://a.co/d/5pXxTgZ

My favourite automation is my reminder to wind my grandfather clock that I got running last year.

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No, really?!

:wink::rofl:

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Reverie Smart Beds with built-in legs and back massage.

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Hi All,

Talkin about weird automations.

I don’t like having the wireless active during night time. So I have an automation switching off the wifi access points @11pm and a second on starting the AP in the morning when the first of us is reaching the he ground floor. For this second automation I am using a motion sensor used to trigger the hallway lights. It saves electricity too.

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That is the biggest, dorkiest thing that I have ever read. Now, where is the Star Wars version???????? :grin:

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When my daughter was younger, she was afraid to go down to the dark (finished) basement by herself. So I set up an Alexa routine so when she asks “Are there monsters in the basement”, Alexa says “let me turn on the lights and check”, turns on a bunch of the lights down there, then a few seconds later says “There are no monsters in the basement.” We set up multiple triggers for “bad guys”, “villains” and “supervillains”.

For me, I wanted a simple way to know what to wear for the day without pulling out my phone and checking the weather, since I leave well before the girls wake up. So, a simple hold on the lower paddle of the HS-300 by my bed will illuminate the top three indicator leds until 5 seconds after release - top represents today’s high, below that is current temp, and below that is today’s low. The led colors represent 10 degree F intervals:

100+ degrees - flashing red
90-99 - red
80-89 - yellow
70-79 - green
60-69 - cyan
50-59 - blue
40-49 - white
Below 40 - flashing white

When DST is over in November, the temp ranges above drop 30 degrees, and then back to the above when DST starts again in March.

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When my kids were younger, I had a hallway motion sensor trigger if they got out of bed in the middle of the night. A demon voice would play "Unless you a going to the bathroom, get back to bed".

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My wife and I host family parties often.....birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas. I had motion sensors/door sensors that would welcome guests with various hilarious messages over my whole-home audio system........"Happy birthday"....."Happy Thanksgiving"..."Merry Christmas"....all random funny mp3 files. I would also play those at random times during the gatherings, usually around 30 minutes apart. The WAF was pretty low. It was fun while it lasted.

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Sorry - I have one more unique one - Meat-Based Notifications. One of the first things I did when I got my HE was write a child device for the existing community SmartHQ driver - for our GE Profile Indoor Smoker. My wife struggled the first couple times with that thing, so I set up text notifications to her phone when user intervention is required - but only when pork ribs are cooking. I cook wings and brisket - she cooks ribs (not my favorite). So if “pork ribs” is the selected meat on the smoker, notifications get sent.

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I use an Amazon (Alexa) Auto device in my truck OFTEN. My wife hates it and refuses to use one. When I leave work, I say "Alexa, on my way." That routine triggers an announcement on my Echo devices at home that I'll be home in 15 minutes. That allows my wife to have dinner on the table just as I arrive home. I have a wonderful wife :smile:

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I monitor the power use of my CNC machine and use that to control my dust collection system, and also notify me that the CNC operation has finished, is that weird?

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