unusual homeseer uses

[collegeboyslive]

ok I am sure we are all useing homeseer to turn lights on and off, play music though the house and maybe control the tv and the sprinklers. but is anyone doing anything out of the ordenary ? something the isnt run of the mill?

would love to hear about more homeseer uses

[Bill Brower]

I think some people are using Heather and Kate's voices to come up with random flattering sayings to prop up their egos. I don't condone these actions but I guess whatever works for them is important...

[johnwpb]

Very unusual HS uses......

Bill Brower:
I don't condone these actions but I guess whatever works for them is important...

Bill, you may not "Condone these actions" but it something you are readily and easily able to imply. Here is a post that I made that you quoted, that I now quote back to you relating to the different sounding HS voices available.... OK now I am confused

quote: By Bill Brower of a post originally by me.....
<hr>Originally posted by JohnWPB:
The inflection in the voice, almost displays emotion... (Re: the Brightspeech voice Heather)
<hr>

TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH (Bill's intrepetation of my comment):

"Oh, John, you are so handsome. Have you been working out?

Oh, baby, nobody codes script for me like you do!"

JohnWPB Replied in response to Bills comment:
Bill.... Your starting to frighten my computer!


<!-- / message --> <!-- sig --> __________________

Bill Brower

Bill, I think we are even now


As for unusual uses for HS, well I have set up a few And I MUST say these are totally unusual to say the least, so before reading any further, you have been warned!

I have Motion sensors in just about all rooms, that detect occupancy as well as triggering other things. Well, this includes the bathrooms. If motion is detected in my roomates bathroom, that ajoins the main living area, for an "extended period of time", if the light and fan are turned off when exiting, a voice reminder states that for the safety of others that the fan should be left on for a few minutes, or you should at least make sure you have closed the door. This was originally set up just for fun, but has been left in place because it has been determined, unfortunately, to be true in most cases

I speak German pretty well from being stationed in Germany in the Army for 4 years, but a lot of good that does anyone in south Florida. I have been trying to learn Spanish. When I issue my "Goodnight macro" I have the computer randomly say a phrase in English, and then the Spanish translation. This has actually worked, as I have learned just about all of the phrases in Spanish that I set HS to speak thus far.

I purchased one of those "radar motion detectors" from Smart home that detects motion through walls. As I live in an appartment, I have it facing the wall of the neighbors next door. I use the information set to a HS device to determine if someone is home next door, and know if I can crank the surround sound system in the living room. In the middle of a movie, and the neighbor comes home, a small light flashes and lets me know that I should probably turn down the vollume. The flashing light is much better that hearing them pound on the wall!!!

Well, you asked for unusual things that HS does for us, well this stuff is about as unusual as you can get, but it does inform and help to control my surroundings. Isnt't that what HA is all about in the first place, no matter how obscure?

[MichaelD]

There is a thread recently posted that shows the quality of the images from a cctv camera - nothing unusual there, and I suppose that we all looked at the pictures and assessed the quality. But about ten minutes later it struck me that the pictures were of the two guest bedrooms and the guest bathroom.


I'd like to think that was a bit unusual!

[collegeboyslive]

QUOTE: Well, you asked for unusual things that HS does for us, well this stuff is about as unusual as you can get, but it does inform and help to control my surroundings. Isnt't that what HA is all about in the first place, no matter how obscure? END QUOTE

lol true the more unusual the better.

One thing i have is a chore list. the system assignes daily chores to everyone in the house and displays them next to the persons picture on the touchpads. HOWEVER at around 9pm at night the system reminds that person vocally, both in the living room and in theire bedroom, every 20 mins till they do the chore and log it as done by clicking done on the touchpad. This act means they cant use the excuse "Oh i forgot" and the reminder in theire bedroom speaker stops them going to bed without doing it evil but it works. If you have kids or lazy roommates this is a great way to take the burdum of being "the bitch" off you and more onot the system

[Hunter Green]

I think the most unusual thing I did with HomeSeer is use it to write a Secret Santa script that assigned people in a group to secret Santas and send out emails with gift ideas, just so that no one, not even me, would know who got assigned to whom. Just happened that it was easier to do this in HomeSeer than in some other scripting environment at the time. I even posted it to the script library; it's probably still floating around in there somewhere.

[Rupp]

Hunter Green,
Looooong time no hear. Welcome back.

[Kyham]

I have a couple

I have my system sound the Star Trek battle stations sound, then "DANGER" by Robie the Robot when I announce that John and Cody (my grandsons) are here for a visit.

I have had a few weekend visitors that were from Korea, Spain, and Germany. When I announced to my system that they were here, I had a welcome message for them in their native language.

Since I am WAY out in the country, sometimes my well will not keep the tanks filled when I get a large group visiting. When the tank gets down too low, I have the system automatically call the delivery company to bring in some extra so we don't run out. Has come in handy once in a while.

[johnwpb]

Great to see you Hunter!

Hunter??!?! WoW! great to see you back! I havent seen you on the board in a LONG time. Alex Kurtz also recently re-surfaced, and I made a comment something along the lines, that Now all we need is Hunter back and well... here you are!

As for the secret santa, yes, I actually used that script at work 2 years ago. We have 60 people in the building and it was the easiest and most impartial way to do it. Worked great!

[goddard99]

Robotic Vacuum Cleaner

Now this could be the height of laziness. I just purchased a robotic vacuum cleaner. It has a remote control that will take the unit from room to room and then it will do its own thing. If I can learn the remote I should be able to schedule room cleaning via HS.
Anyone done this or is it going to be a nightmare?
Now if I can just get some food to the stove!
Mike

[jay]

I tried that. The cleaning lady was not amused.

[Hunter Green]

I saw that, John, I replied on that thread (named "Hello" I think) and talked about why I've been gone, and why I'll be back. (More so if I can figure out how to get this board to do what every newsreader since 1970 has done but virtually no webboards can do, show me new posts in the boards I care about only...)

[sbessel]

I have a couple of 'different' uses.

My first is listed here: http://board.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=80938

I currently track my son's nap times. When he falls asleep we hit a button on one of the Audrey's or use a VR command. This turns off the speakers in his side of the house and turns the rest to 75% of their normal volume. It also turns on a small blue light in the garage window so if my wife are I are arriving home we know to be quiet on the way in. Then when his nap is complete the system announces overhead his naptime in hours/minutes. I also log this to a MCSTemp database entry so we can graph it out later.

I am sure I have quite a few others.

[Bill Brower]

...I currently track my son's nap times...I also log this to a MCSTemp database entry so we can graph it out later...

Do you track in two different colors? One color for regular naps and one color for Dimetapp induced ones?

[electron]

I use HS to announce certain motion patterns the mice in my walls create, and to monitor when they are caught:
1.0 (codename: another one bites the dust): http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=160
2.0: http://www.cocoontech.com/index.php?showtopic=978

I also used to use HS to monitor the cat litterbox (to make sure he went to the litterbox when he was being trained, but I also strongly recommend using this setup to notify you when there hasn't been any activity in a day or so, in case of kidney failure), besides that, starting the car is the only other unusual thing it does.