I figured we could all share some of the cooler things we’ve done to get the conversation moving in here.
Here are some of the automations I’m proud of and get the most use out of.
Blinds and Lighting
- Open and close the blinds (Ikea Fyrtur) according to the light levels outside
- If a window is open, the blind will only close to 50%, but it will close automatically after the window is closed
- Turn all lights off when the blinds are opened, and turn lights on in occupied rooms when the blinds are closed
- Automatically close the blinds in the bedroom and bathroom when the shower is on. Open them after we leave the master suite.
Websites
- (Selenium) Auto login to Amazon to check on the status of my Kindle daily reading streak and notify me if I forget to read. We must keep the streak intact!
- Auto categorize new transactions in YouNeedABudget and mark them as approved, as well as pull my net worth into Home Assistant
- Get my most-listened to tracks and artists from Last.FM and pull those into Home Assistant
- Notify me if there are documents in my Paperless-NGx server that need to be categorized and filed
Reminders
- When I walk in the door, announce any outstanding Todoist tasks marked with the @alert label so I know to do it before I sit down. Examples are to change the furnace filter or Venmo my friend for Youtube TV
- I run OCR on the camera feed from my garage camera to determine whether the bins are in the garage. The bins say Trash and Recycling on top, so I look for those words in the image. If they are in the garage in the evening before trash day, I receive an alert
Media and Torrenting
- Notify me and display a badge in Home Assistant when there is a pending request in Overseerr
- (Selenium) Log into my favorite private torrent tracker website from Node-RED to check whether I need to take any actions
HVAC
- Preheat or pre-cool the house prior to peak electricity pricing going into effect. During peak hours, auto adjust the thermostat to prevent it from running
- Turn the thermostat off if there are windows open. Automatically restore previous setting (cool or heat) when all windows are closed.
- Turn the bathroom fan on after the shower is turned off and no one is around. Turn it off after 80 minutes or the humidity in the bathroom is within 10% of the humidity in the bedroom, whichever comes first.
Misc
- Node-RED monitors the status of my UPSes for my servers. If the battery drops below 50% while the power is out, it initiates graceful shutdowns of my Synology and other servers
- Auto sort the Home Assistant grocery list upon adding a new item
I don’t have a lot of automations yet, but a really useful one has been using smart plugs to detect when the laundry machines are running so that Home Assistant can send alerts when they finish.
That’s a great one! We have an automation like that too, though we sometimes wish we could remain blissfully ignorant that the laundry is done.
Laundry notifications are absolutely critical for me, too. I live alone and my laundry room is in the basement, which I may not have a need to visit for many days. I was tired of forgetting to put wet clothes into the dryer and needing to re-wash.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to set up a reliable way to detect when the dryer cycle finishes. I ended up buying a cheap webcam and pointing it at the dryer so I can at least check the status remotely.
How would you detect that? If the load goes to zero was my initial thought but it can also be pausing during the program when that happens.
So I solved this by just having it trigger when load goes to zero and stays there for a couple minutes (might be some trial and error depending on washing machine). This means I don’t get alerts exactly when its done, but the alert is more likely to be correct that it is done.