What Smart "home automation" features have you made?

[waynehead99]

Nice system! But how do you know when the shower is on?

I wanted to know the same thing. I can set it up based on the fan since I have to automated too, but the water is a whole nother thing.

It is an amazing system and I just got a few more ideas.

[AshaiRey]

Nice system! But how do you know when the shower is on?

I use 2 sensors for that.
First a humidity sensor and an event that trigger the fan when levels get to high.

The second sensor is custom made. I used a old thermostate knob that you can put on a CV radiator. When it gets warmer a pin will be push out and the valve on the radiator will be closed. I attached a micro switch to this and the thermostate element will close the contacts at 40 degree C. The switch is connected to a DS10/90 which signal HS.

I have access to the hot waterpipe that runs to the shower and i attach the thermostate with claps to the pipe.

I hope you get to idea.

[AshaiRey]

Some more things

Each PC in the house and that attached to my home network at startup will have a backup script running at startup. We keep our personal files and things we want to keep in our own folder location. The personalized script make a backup to the server and the files will be stored in the daily backup i make of the server on harddrives that rotate monthly.

Music in a room will be turned off when the TV is turned on (based on power consumption) and visa versa

The door of the chicken coop opens and close following changing dusk and dawn times.

I got a solar system and i keep track of the production numbers. Motivational announcements are given at certain thresholds like 'Another $50,- saved this week'

I have recorded the IR codes of all appliances that use IR and added that to my VR system so it can be controlled by voice. But i have to say we hardly make any use of that. It's more handy for controlling the house when it's armed and we away.

My wife have migraine from time to time so with one device she can control all audio. If that status device is on then no audio is used. No doorbell, no music, no announcements and no phone bell. If some friend of ours call then the phone will be answered with a personal greeting based on the caller. For the rest the phone isn't answered.

This last one is a bit obscure.
Over here the police, fire brigade and healthcare workers use a communication system called P2000. Someone with a scanner decodes these messages and stream those to a website including condition codes and location in lon/lat. I scrap these message to find out if something happens nearby me at max 5 km distance.
To take this a step further. My mother needs care but as most elder do they refuse that and just live on their own. If something happens then i am 80Km away. And then i am luck that i hear about it. I made a script to read the lon/lat coordinates and determine if they are within 75m radius of where my mother lives. So if an Emergency call is made or some care organization is dispatched to that location a trigger fires here at home and in get a notification that something is wrong. Mom happy, I happy