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    What makes your home automation excited

    I know there are lot of systems there that they pretend to be home automation, now without HS you can turn your light on from your phone or use Alex to turn light on. I guess that is home automation of some kind but not a smart home. What kind of project makes you proud which made your home more automated!

    Sent from my SM-G973U1 using Tapatalk


    #2
    The ones that impress our guests are:
    Living room and dining room automated shades that open and close around sunrise and sunset events.
    The ability to open and close my garage door - I have a garage cam to verify it closed.
    One simple one that is so effective - away mode which turns off all the lights and locks the door when we leave. (I have a night mode that is similar)
    Automated thermostats depending on occupancy.
    Dan-O
    HomeSeer contributor since summer 1999, yes 1999!

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      #3
      My HS Touch tablets with the fancy graphics showing the status of my home, among other things.

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        #4
        Only certain lights come on when I come home and turn off the alarm...based on time of day...and Sonos tells me the temp in the house and sets my thermostat to "home".

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          #5
          My HS system does a lot of boring, but useful stuff:

          1) Homeseer reads alerts from blue-iris about the security cameras motion sensors. Since we live at the very end of a street that gets very little traffic, if the cameras see anyone walking or a car driving in front of the house past midnight but before sunrise, it flips the exterior lights on in a sequence that makes it look like someone was up and noticed a car was there.

          2) Because of homeseer integration with the sensors in the security system, If someone opens a window in a bedroom or the door from the family room to the patio, it shuts the HVAC system down for that zone. No point in running HVAC if the windows in the area are open!

          3) Homeseer can control the gas valve to the outdoor BBQ. I used to have a problem with leaving the burners on, and having them run all night or even a few days if I didn't catch it, once with damage resulting to the grill. Now HS turns the valve off every night at 9 PM. No having to worry about leaving the gas on. A double tap on the zwave switch near the grill that controls the lights in that area, and I can turn the valve on, without having to access the app or voice control.

          4) We have a whole house water filter, and I have a flow meter attached, so it can tell me when to replace the filter based on how many gallons have flowed through the meter instead just after X months.

          5) I am integrating the harmony remotes, so when the remote switches the TV on the lighting can switch to the proper mode for viewing based on time of day and what else is going on in the house.

          6) I use these old Crestron 16x60 Amps that are available for cheap as the core of a whole house sound system, but since I don't have a Crestron system, they act as dumb amps. . They are built by ATI and just awesome with plenty of power and awesome sound. They are fed by chomecast audios (also cheap), but the amp doesn't have auto power on when they detect audio signal. HS reads the status of my chomecast audios, and when it detects playback starting, it kicks on the multizone amp for that zone. After it goes idle for 10 mins, it switches power off again.

          If I can get my aqara sensors to be reliable (zigbee issues), I will program the bathroom fans in the kids rooms to turn on automatically when the humidity reaches a certain level. My kids can't seem to get that they NEED to have the fan on when they are taking a shower.


          In short, a lot of boring things that aren't flashy, but solve real problems and help keep the house running efficiently and well.

          mike

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            #6
            fresnoboy I like your approach. I don't think home automation needs to be fleshy. It should be reliable and useful. Activities should make sense with minimum intervention needed. You call it boring, I call it right approach. Fleshy can be always added on the top of solid home automation.

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              #7
              it really is the little things you get used to that you miss when they don't work. I have a harmony hub, if I'm watching tv and it's almost dusk the living room lights come on. I've gotten so used to this that it was a bit jarring when I temporarily disabled the harmony plug-in and realized I was watching tv in the dark.

              My house occupancy is based on the presence/absence of our phones. When I have guests I disable my occupancy events so my guests are left sitting in the dark. Otherwise when the house changes to away mode the lights all go off and the heating/cooling set points change. Not really an automation issue but I also set up a multi tap scene to just turn off zones of lights for when I have guests since we usually use an all off scene when going to bed. Would hate to have a guest reading in bed when we decide to turn all the lights off.

              When I do activate the all off scene an announcement is made if the doors/windows are not secured. During the day when all the alarm zones change to secure, an announcement is made to that effect. If I forget to close the garage or gate I get a push notification when the home changes to away mode. If I forget to close the garage door, I get an announcement at sunset that the garage door is still open.

              As an amusing note, the dogs have learned that the announcement of 'motion front door' = run to the door and bark. 'motion back porch' means the dogs are at the back door ready to come back inside.

              Took me a while to train my wife not to use the switch to turn the pantry light on/off since there is an alarm contact that does it for her when she opens/closes the door.

              My wife had a lot of fun picking out the exterior led accent light colors for each month of the year, currently red/blue for July.
              HS4 Pro on Shuttle NC10U, Win10; Z-NET
              Number of Devices: 1005
              Number of Events: 293

              Plug-Ins: BLLock, DirecTv, EasyTrigger, Honeywell WiFi Thermostat, Marquis monoprice Amp, MeiHarmonyHub, PHLocation2, Pushover 3P, UltraM1G3, rnbWeather, Worx Landroid, Z-Wave

              External applications: Homebridge-homeseer, Geofency, EgiGeoZone.

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                #8
                I agree that the simplest things provide the best HA experience.

                1. Fireplace has a larger fan that is controlled by thermocouple measuring the firebox temperature. When it goes on, it is sensed and two IR pulses are delivered to raise the volume of the AV receiver. When it goes off, then two down volume pulses. When watching TV this keeps the effective volume relatively constant.
                2.Firewood is staged in the garage. The house-to-garage doorway has a pair of laser beams so direction of motion can be sensed. The garage light turns on/off based upon going into or out of garage. Very handy when hands are full with a load of firewood.
                3. A notification sign with 16 RGB LEDs (WS2812B) has a LED for each of a number of things that may need attention. Garbage pickup is every Wednesday and every other Wednesday for recycling. The Garbage LED goes amber on Garbage-only days and red on Recycle days. When mouse in the mousetrap the Mouse LED goes red. When laundry load finishes the Laundry LED goes red. There are a number of other monitor functions that have LEDs such as water detection, irrigation leak, etc. While they have not yet gone read, it is reassuring to know that the notification is available should it be needed. The simplicity of the LED located in an often viewed location is the discriminator.
                4. A sign with scrolling capability is located under the television. Normally it functions as a clock. When the phone rings the CID information replaces the time so we know who is calling without needed to get up to look at the phone.
                5. Bedroom phone is enabled (relay control) during the day and disabled during the night. At night CID information is checked against immediate family white-list of phone numbers. If an incoming call is from the white-list at night the phone will ring otherwise he caller does not disturb us when in bed.
                6. Hot water is recirculated so available at the shower. It starts the recirc an hour before normal wake-up as well in the evenings for the days when sporting activities normally occur.

                We have found Alexa to be great for getting help with activities that do not follow a pattern. Most rooms have one form or another of the Echo. Playing music, controlling lights, and asking questions are the most frequent uses for Alexa.

                Everything is accomplished without the integration provided by HS except for providing some input to the notification sign for things it is monitoring.

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                  #9
                  My favorite things are the the wall mounted touchscreens I use ot automate the A/V system. I restore vintage electronics and it is very useful to be able to switch the components on and off remotely using Zwave modules.

                  The thing that generates the most "oohs & aahs" is only peripherally related to automation (it is tied into a relay board that is integrated with HS). That would be the hidden door to my workshop with an electromagnetic latch controlled by a capacitance switch.

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                    #10
                    that's a cool bookcase!
                    HS4 Pro on Shuttle NC10U, Win10; Z-NET
                    Number of Devices: 1005
                    Number of Events: 293

                    Plug-Ins: BLLock, DirecTv, EasyTrigger, Honeywell WiFi Thermostat, Marquis monoprice Amp, MeiHarmonyHub, PHLocation2, Pushover 3P, UltraM1G3, rnbWeather, Worx Landroid, Z-Wave

                    External applications: Homebridge-homeseer, Geofency, EgiGeoZone.

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                      #11
                      When we bought our home, I turned what was the laundry room into a cinema room. Rigged up a scene so when we watch movies we can trigger the main light to go off, low ambient strip lighting to come on and the black out blinds to close. Probably the most impressive automation for when friends are over!

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by jmaddox View Post
                        that's a cool bookcase!
                        Thanks. The case itself was a lot of work because it had to be strong enough to tolerate being moved several times a day. It is heavy when loaded with books, but it rolls on three sets of ball-bearing triple casters. It is surprisingly easy to operate. There is just enough tension in the hinges to cause it to pop open about an inch when the latch is deactivated. It rolls easily and center shelf is secured to the carcass and has a finger grip routed into the underside to facilitate closing the unit. Truth be told, I enjoy the woodworking more that the electronics.

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                          #13
                          Michael McSharry you had me at laser

                          Alex_W Damn boy!!!

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by fresnoboy View Post
                            My HS system does a lot of boring, but useful stuff:

                            My kids can't seem to get that they NEED to have the fan on when they are taking a shower.




                            mike
                            When the light in the shower is turned ON, I turn on the ceiling exhaust fan for 20 minutes.
                            tenholde

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                              #15
                              I have a similar configuration but with mine, I have a temperature sensor attached to the hot water tube, when it sense that is around 80 F, it turns the ceiling exhaust on for 15 minutes.
                              One of the reason of the initial post is that you can not explain most of these stuff to others that are not in the home automation hobby. Most people get confuse right away or not interested. This forum is perfect for us, we understand what other automate and hopefully we get examples from others. The major issue that I go thru is the WAF, she is not in tech and is hard to explain what I do. Last not fun automation that I did, was to have an outside hue light generating a different color if I was approaching the house. Since I was testing it, I decide to temporarily use the light green for the alert. Unfortunately it did not go well with her :-(
                              We in HS have installed many sensors, switches and etc. Taking a full advantage of those can be challenging. I think is cool to have the sprinkler system on automatically, or as easy to turn it on when needed. To open and close the garage automatically , to sense for any humidity and alarm people to turn on the humidifier. Open the door when I arrive, turn the vent on in the Tesla when it is too hot but is not raining. Say good night to Alexa and turn the lights off. The latest feature that I like (Giving a credit to a user here that helped me over the weekend) was to speak tru the event an alert. HSTouch is very cool and impressive, unfortunately I lack of design skills. The next thing would be some of AI :-)

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