What is the Single Coolest Thing You Do with HomeSeer?

[macromark]

This thread should have been pinned a long time ago but wasn't. Time for some new posts!

[Moskus]

Windows doesn't have support for Norwegian speech recognition?

Nope.
We are 5 million in Norway. I guess it's hard to prioritize, even if we are pretty tech savvy.


I've been playing with Cortana lately. English only, but still. Cortana is actually pretty good, and can even understand our scandinavian, broken english.

[S-F]

HS3, the Anglocentric disease of home automation!
Do you mean the Kinect? Windows doesn't have support for Norwegian speech recognition? I think SR is way over rated at this point in time any way. It's getting better but still is a nightmare. I've had better luck with the Kinect than any other SR tool, and I've been actively using SR for a decade now, but it's still not perfect. For instance, yesterday I was having a conversation in my kitchen with my daughter and the Kinect in the adjoining living room thought someone asked it to lock the door. The house courteously informed us that it would lock the door for us and then proceeded to do so.

[Moskus]

That's unfortunate! There are no Danish TTS voices? How about this one? http://www.ivona.com/us/news/latest-...-ivona-voices/ ? I find their English voices to be very good. Even if you can't use TTS you do have the perk of living in Denmark. I think I'd take that over TTS any day.

There are Norwegian (and Danish) voices, but that doesn't mean I can get HomeSeer to understand norwegian.

It feels rather awkward to speak english to a computer, which in turn answers me in Norwegian.

[S-F]

Really a lot of TTS - here in Denmark where english is not our native language - my family finds the TTS to difficult to understand.

That's unfortunate! There are no Danish TTS voices? How about this one? http://www.ivona.com/us/news/latest-...-ivona-voices/ ? I find their English voices to be very good. Even if you can't use TTS you do have the perk of living in Denmark. I think I'd take that over TTS any day.

[Jakob.Sand]

Really a lot of TTS - here in Denmark where english is not our native language - my family finds the TTS to difficult to understand.

[seer351]

Mine are pretty basic, but effective. I use the SPEAK commands pretty extensively as well as email alerts. I have an event for my garage door sensor that looks at the time of day, and if sensor status=open, HS speaks "The garage door is still open, perhaps you wish to close it?" and I hear this pretty much anywhere in the house, because we have several of the mini touch screen units spread around the house. I also am kind of an old fart and have to take a lot of different medications at different times, so I have spoken reminders at different times of day and night. For example, I have to take Lipitor for the rest of my life, and take it later in the evening, so Homeseer kindly reminds me each evening at 10 PM "Greg it is time to take your Lipitor, please do not forget!". This is VERY effective! We have reminders that it is time to walk the dog, along with "be sure to bring a poop bag and clean up after her". I have one that checks if the lower level door is still open at 9 PM and if it is, a pleasant reminder to close it. I have yard lights that come on at specific times that adjust to the sunset, (As I am sure most HS users do) I have one that tells me I have worked hard enough and it's time to relax now.... The usual thermostat setback stuff and other typical events.

Like I said, nothing really cool like the dog treat machine, but HS is a very integral part of our home and it is outstanding.

[S-F]

[Eddiie]

Homeseer IR kicks off Roomba.
In essence, Homeseer can vacuum the house.

Using DBMZ's I've connect pet door open/close using pullies string and actuator
Using DBMZ's I've connected to our powered recliners, can graph the amount of relaxation (dim %), or un-recline wife.
Using DBMZ's and modified Add-a-Motor fully articulated vertical blind control
Made event triggered by X10 motion sensor to squirt air freshener when cat uses cat box (2 squirts).
Turn porch light on, unlock door when getting home using rfid tags
Events triggered based on power readings from Aeon labs power switches
Ir control of RGB LED Light strips from eBay.. installed in kitchen under cupboards to light counter top, they change color ever 15 minutes, motion triggers white leds and brightness then dims after no more motion - pita

Not really recommended, but my ceiling fans are replaced ceiling lights, ie one light switch for fan and light. I took lamp modules, modified to be in-line, took Leviton Fan Controller switch stuck them in the fan's canopy. It works... Then, Insteon comes out with their Fan Link. Grrr

1 DBMZ was blown up in the making, turns out they use ATTINY44 microcontrollers - which is what blew up. Attiny's run Arduino bootcode!
Given time I'd like to learn how to hack the Zwave radio on the DBMZ and integrate with Arduino. Or make my own Zwave fanlink type device.. I have made a diagram of the DBMZ circuit board and understand it, also have spec sheet on zwave radio. Seems real simple. Is there a topic somewhere about coming up with new Zwave devices, I have a list to add to.

[BraveSirRobbin]

Wow, that is a very clever idea! Naturally being a geek, I try the more complicated things such as RFID tags, Blutooth readers, or even the Wayne-Dalton Z-Wave garage door remote bridge thingy... This trumps all of those in simplicity and functionality!

Of course one complication for me is that my keychain consists of a plastic coated keyfob (RFID) for my main vehicle and a nylon bag with an emergency CPR mask in it, so there is not a whole lot of metal for me to reproduce this one - I would actually have to add keys - but I still like it very much.

FYI

Nice to know others are doing this as well now!

[DSteiNeuro]

Doorphone

I just finsihed working this one out.

I have a Channelplus doorphone that rings the phones when the button is pressed.
I connected the button to a digital input.

When the DI goes high, HS sets the CallerID to Doorphone.
HSPhone does a Caller ID match and the IVR script sends a custom message to the Doorphone instead of the usual answering machine message.

I can modify the message to time of day, home/away etc.

[nightwalker]

I did something like this years ago, except the keys hung on a sprung hook, sort of like an old telephone receiver did. It worked really well. I gave it up and went to RFID because the wife never hung up her keys and was complaining when the right things didn't happen when she came home. Now the house knows she's coming way before she gets here. Works out well for me too, I can get off the couch and look like i was doing something constructive instead of having a nap.

[Rick Tinker]

One contact defined zone of my DSC alarm are connected to a key holder in the front hall ... (snip)

Wow, that is a very clever idea! Naturally being a geek, I try the more complicated things such as RFID tags, Blutooth readers, or even the Wayne-Dalton Z-Wave garage door remote bridge thingy... This trumps all of those in simplicity and functionality!

Of course one complication for me is that my keychain consists of a plastic coated keyfob (RFID) for my main vehicle and a nylon bag with an emergency CPR mask in it, so there is not a whole lot of metal for me to reproduce this one - I would actually have to add keys - but I still like it very much.

[pepodoc]

Very simple presence detector.

One contact defined zone of my DSC alarm are connected to a key holder in the front hall and the keys of my car, contact both metals of the keys holder. So when I came home, I just put my car keys in the key holder and the "house" knows I am at home (Zone Closed). Currently, this is a condition to permit to turn On the master bedroom LG TV, and the LG Living TV, as well for the squeezebox multiroom audio change the music from my nanny's taste to my preferred music. Speech announcements are redirected to the master bedroom and not to the entirely house.

[mark_anderson_us]

Very cool