I’ve been using HA for a while; having my home just “do things” for me without asking is fantastic. My lights turn on to exactly the levels I want when I enter a room, my grass and my plants get watered automatically, heating and cooling happens only when it needs to. There are lots of benefits. Plus, it’s just a fun hobby.

One thing I didn’t expect, though, is all the interesting things you can learn when you have sensors monitoring different aspects of you home or the environment.

  • I can always tell when someone is playing games or streaming video (provided they’re transcoding the video) from one of my servers. There’s a very significant spike in temperature in my server room, not to mention the increased power draw.
  • I have mmWave sensors in an out-building that randomly trigger at night, even though there’s nobody there. Mice, maybe?
  • Outdoor temperatures always go up when it’s raining. It’s always felt this way, but now it’s confirmed.
  • My electrical system always drops in voltage around 8AM. Power usage in my house remains constant, so maybe more demand on the grid when people are getting ready for work?
  • I have a few different animals that like to visit my property. They set off my motion sensors, and my cameras catch them on video. Sometimes I give them names.
  • A single person is enough to raise the temperature in an enclosed room. Spikes in temperature and humidity correspond with motion sensors being triggered.
  • Watering a lawn takes a lot more water than you might expect. I didn’t realize just how much until I saw exactly how many gallons I was using. Fortunately, I irrigate with stored rain water, but it would make me think twice about wasting city water to maintain a lawn.
  • Traditional tank-style water heaters waste a lot of heat. My utility closet with my water heater is always several degrees hotter than the surrounding space.

What have you discovered as a result of your home automation? While the things I mentioned might not be particular useful, they’re definitely interesting, at least to me.

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍English
    16·
    2 days ago

    Most recently I discovered my house naturally has one of those “the sun will shine exactly here at one time of the year” things going on, like a treasure hunting movie trope. A reflective mosaic hung on my neighbor’s shed is in the right spot that, in late December, sun reflection causes a arc of sunshine to slowly sweep over and brighten up spots on my back porch for an hour or so.

    I recently made an ESPHome based weather station that includes a LUX sensor. I was updating a lighting automation so it would turn on sooner during dark mornings using the new sensor and I noticed a daily spike in light. The neighbor put up that mosaic several years ago and it took a HA histogram for me to notice.

    • yannic@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      8 hours ago

      Awesome. On a similar note, there is a time of the day at a certain part of the year when our TV seems to receive random remote control button pushes. I know it’s solar infrared but hadn’t considered it may be a reflection instead of direct radiation.

    • Lydia_K@startrek.websiteEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      Did you use any established project for your weather station or just make it up for yourself? I’ve been interested in building an esphome weather station as well.