What is the Single Coolest Thing You Do with HomeSeer?

[mark_anderson_us]

not cool.. but email on alarm settings and sump pump stats

Ditto

[mark_anderson_us]

My wife is very appreciative of the text messages she gets when the washer and dryer are complete. She gets one when they are complete, and then reminders if she doesn't open the door.

The alerts from the family cape house for flooding, temperature, and humidity are liked as well. Also, using location based settings is great. I track 4 phones, if any are within 10 miles, the temperature controls will start working.

would you mind sharing how you do the washer/dryer stuff?

[mark_anderson_us]

My favorites are:

Buttons on my Logitech IR remote for "cocktail break". Pauses what's playing, raises lights, turns on kitchen (liquor storage), stairway and bathroom lights.

Living room lights increase/dim when movie/TV is paused/stopped or played respectively. Still impressed every time I do that

Monitor sump pump (3 water levels) with text message ans hourly and daily usage of main and backup pump

Bedtime button: sets alarm, turns on hallway, bathroom and bedsie lamp. kill all lights after 2 mins (except bedside)

Change thermostat and lights when alarm is set (just adding bluetooth prox for this)

Wall mounted Kindle Fires

[wpiman]

would you mind sharing how you do the washer/dryer stuff?

I used an optocoupler from Avago as a voltage detector and a Flyport Wifi.

http://www.avagotech.com/pages/en/op...tor/hcpl-3760/


HCPL-3760

http://www.flyportamerica.com/

If you download the app note (1004) from Avago, I built the circuit that is shown
in figure 10. I think there is some calculation needed for the
resistors. I think they were somewhere around 35k, but don't quote
me. Need a cap, 10uF, across the DC inputs. This was for 110VAC.
Change the numbers for 210 and maybe 50Hz as needed.

The VCC and ground come from the flyport. I configured the inputs to
be pulled up.

You then need to probe around your washer/dryer to find a voltage that
indicates the state. If you have an LED or something on it, that
would be the most practical. You might even be able to get a light
detector to see that as well. BE CAREFUL when probing around.
Ideally, if there is an on/off led, you might not even need to open
it. You could sort of do what the guy in the Ardunio video did and
just detect the light. The Wifi Flyport has a analog input that could support this.

If your flyport is configured, you should be able to see the inputs on
the default webserver screen. I have a script post that will read the
XML into Homeseer.

[mark_anderson_us]

Thanks!

[wpiman]

Some pictures.....

This was the board I built. This one looks quite bad as I used a Radio Shack soldering iron. The other ones I made look a little better. I put these in a plastic container, drilled holes in in for the wires, and ran some to the hot points in the washer and dryer. I solders those on. The container resides inside the washing machine and dryer, and the TTL leads come out to the Flyport.

[TomTom]

@Wpiman - Brilliant! Really Nice. Great solution, thanks so much.

[Raptor]

+1 on the thermostat from work or mobile. in this heat it has proved very useful.

[stevea]

I haven't been really following this thread, but there certainly are some cool things everyone is doing.

The things in my system that I consider the coolest are (somewhat selfishly) all built around my own script packages posted in the library forum:

1. Using SnevlLatitude, an anouncement is made over the house speakers when my wife or I arrive at work, leave work, or are at the grocery store.
2. Using Snevl CID to manage blocked names, blocked numbers, and customize announcements.
3. Integrated Snevl CID and Snevl Latitude to announce where my wife or I are at when we call home. E.g., instead of just "Steve is calling" the announcement is "Steve is calling while at the mall".
4. Snevl_bb displays all sorts of useful stuff on our two LED signs in the house, including weather warnings (from Snevl Weather Warnings, or course ), Caller ID, breaking news, news headlines, etc.

Although I don't know that it is reallly cool, I also do multiple layers of backups using robocopy and HS scripts, backing up all our personal data each day, keeping about 30 days of backups in multiple places on my network (two FreeNAS machines, as well as external drives on our two Media Center boxes that stay up all the time). HS makes that kind of thing very easy to do.

Steve

[rmasonjr]

Although I don't know that it is reallly cool, I also do multiple layers of backups using robocopy and HS scripts, backing up all our personal data each day, keeping about 30 days of backups in multiple places on my network (two FreeNAS machines, as well as external drives on our two Media Center boxes that stay up all the time). HS makes that kind of thing very easy to do.

Steve

+1 on robocopy... It's one of the best kept secrets in win7...

[Rotech]

+1 on robocopy... It's one of the best kept secrets in win7...

Is this in XP?

[mark_anderson_us]

IAlthough I don't know that it is reallly cool, I also do multiple layers of backups using robocopy and HS scripts, backing up all our personal data each day, keeping about 30 days of backups in multiple places on my network (two FreeNAS machines, as well as external drives on our two Media Center boxes that stay up all the time). HS makes that kind of thing very easy to do.


Steve

Not sure what HS adds to this. Can't you do all that with regular Windows scheduler, or is there a whoel piece of HS functionality I know nothing about :-)

[rmasonjr]

Is this in XP?

No.

[rmasonjr]

Not sure what HS adds to this. Can't you do all that with regular Windows scheduler, or is there a whoel piece of HS functionality I know nothing about :-)

Not sure about steve, but I use robocopy to archive my IP camera videos (from BlueIris), then I update HomeSeer with the number of videos for the day and a total. I also maintain a virtual device for each camera that tracks the most recent video. Any camera that hasnt updated in 4 hours shows as yellow on my touchscreen. Any camera that hasnt update in 8 hours shows as red.

[stevea]

Is this in XP?

Actually, Robocopy is available for download from Microsoft for XP. I was using it in my backups on my XP-based HS machine before Win7 even came out. I think it is already built-in for Win7, so you don't have to download it.

Not sure what HS adds to this. Can't you do all that with regular Windows scheduler, or is there a whoel piece of HS functionality I know nothing about :-)

My guess is that I could do most of what I do without HS, but I think it is easier with HS. I use some HS scripts and INI files, and allow the INI files to be checked and updated as to what needs to be saved and where to save it each run. It's probably a sign of how long I've been using HS, but such a thing for me is simply way easier to do with HS.

Steve