What crazy things are you doing with HA?

[Basildane]

Here's an easy one. I get up before dawn for work. To make waking up easier, 45 minutes before my wake up time, the master bedroom lights ramp up from 0% to 100% over a 45 minute timespan.
By the time my alarms wakes me up, it is light in my room, and my eyes are well adjusted.

It REALLY helps!

 

[Basildane]

Security and Fire alarm events turn on all lights in the house, instantly. In addition, the room where the alarm occurred flashes for 2 minutes. This makes it easy to know where the problem is - if you were just fast asleep when the alarm sounded. Also, after 15 seconds of sirens, the sirens mute and the speakers announce the alarm and location. Then the sirens resume. All smoke detectors are tied into a controller that causes them to squawk synchronously, in a temporal pattern - as per the fire code.

The outdoor motion detectors announce on the speakers, ie. "Upper Yard North Motion!". We have a trained Russian Doberman who understands the voice alerts and is fully capable of opening the door by himself and will "let himself out" to handle the intruder. Of course, the intruder is always a deer, but he enjoys himself immensly.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

It is amazing how well a dog can adapt to voice announcements! Our Collie will go to a door/gate depending on its announcement.

You may want to consider dimming the lights during a fire alarm instead of turning on full bright.

 

[ecborgoyn]

It is amazing how well a dog can adapt to voice announcements! Our Collie will go to a door/gate depending on its announcement.

You may want to consider dimming the lights during a fire alarm instead of turning on full bright.

And all along I thought that our dogs were 'extra smart' as they learned the system voice messages..... I'll break the news to them this evening that they are only 'typical'.

In my system upgrade from Westec 5K -> M1G there are few words missing from the M1G grammar. Neither 'Dinette' nor 'Man' exist as far as I can tell. The dogs will need to learn new some new words.

I'm curious about you logic with dimming lights in response to a fire alarm. Please elaborate.

 

[hobbes487]

One of the things I do that gets the most 'oohs and aahs' from guests is having the lights dim automatically when a video starts playing on my media center. My HA system is hooked up to XBMC so it is alerted of when a video starts or stops so it can dim or brighten the lights. Not crazy in terms of complexity, but people seem to like it.

 

[damage]

It is amazing how well a dog can adapt to voice announcements! Our Collie will go to a door/gate depending on its announcement.

our system announces when a car comes home and Cody runs to the door to greet us when we get home. of course, our kids have used this for their amusement. they'll use the speech interface to announce: "the <car name> is home" just to watch him run to the door. then they'll replace the car name with random stuff ("my dirty socks are home") and Cody will still run to the door. all he really hears is "<blah blah blah> is home" - it's funny to see him running to the door to greet himself when he hears the announcement "Cody is home"

 

[kwilcox]

Media center related automation is cool. I have a keypad button labeled Theater lighting. Press it and our 60" panel raises out of its cabinet. The curtains close and lighting dims just as it reaches the fully deployed position. Its a real crowd pleaser..

 

[Basildane]

We all think it is cool when returning to the house at night, and everything is dark, as I pull onto my street, the whole house starts to brighten...
Transmitter from the car tells the HAI we are arriving home, sets all the appropriate lighting, opens garage, etc.
By the time I hit the driveway, the whole place is lit and inviting.

After the garage is closed, a timer starts. If no additional motion is detected in the driveway for 45 more seconds after the door closes, then the outside lighting is faded back off.
If there is motion, lights stay on for timed intervals for security.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

I have a side garage door and side gate leading out to the street. On garbage nights I set a flag in the evening and will announce every half hour from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM that it is garbage night. The announcement will stop when the side gate is opened (indicator sent to the HA system).

Haven't had to run out in my underwear to catch the garbage man yet since I did this (was this just to much info just now? ).

I also have the side yard lights dimmed in the evening. They will automatically brighten when the side door is opened and then return to dim when closed and it's night time.

As for dimming the lighting during a fire, it can help with a 'white out' from the smoke, if present.

 

[tmbrown97]

For lighting, I have a couple conditions... If I'm away, the lights flash - hopefully to disorient the intruder and attract a lot of attention. If I'm home, it lights up the first floor so I can see if anything is lurking in the shadows (makes aiming easier).

We normally park the cars inside, but once in awhile something is going on and we're having to leave one outside. The lights follow sunset and stay on until a set time Sunday through Thursday; longer on Friday and Saturday. Under some circumstances we'll come home after the lights turn off (maybe we didn't drive or we had to park outside) - so a quick press of the doorbell button turns the porch lights on (tract home so no driveway sensors). Also if the front door opens after the lights have turned off, it turns the lights on (parting guests).

My RCS thermostats flash a red light on them to let me know when I should turn on the whole house fan rather than use the A/C...This is based on a feed from Weather Underground - just so happens someone directly on my block is a contributor! I also display the outside temperature on my thermostats from this feed. Elve gets the wunderground temperature, sets a counter in the Elk, then the Elk feed that to the tstat to display, and runs rules on it to see when we should run the fan instead of the A/C.

 

[KenN]

I have a side garage door and side gate leading out to the street. On garbage nights I set a flag in the evening and will announce every half hour from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM that it is garbage night. The announcement will stop when the side gate is opened (indicator sent to the HA system).

Dat's a good'n ... I might just take a shot at programming something into my system. Now, my problem here is that our garbage day changes throughout the year as the schedule shifts by a day every time there is a stat holiday. I figure that'll mean programming all the stat holidays in, then increment a counter every non-stat weekday. Hmmm ... gears are grinding.

 

[tmbrown97]

Dat's a good'n ... I might just take a shot at programming something into my system. Now, my problem here is that our garbage day changes throughout the year as the schedule shifts by a day every time there is a stat holiday. I figure that'll mean programming all the stat holidays in, then increment a counter every non-stat weekday. Hmmm ... gears are grinding.

That's gotta be annoying - our garbage day never changes - doesn't matter if it falls on Christmas - it's always the same (and I often have to argue with my wife about it!).

 

[Basildane]

It is amazing how well a dog can adapt to voice announcements! Our Collie will go to a door/gate depending on its announcement.

You may want to consider dimming the lights during a fire alarm instead of turning on full bright.

Yes, great idea. Will be done tonight.
I'll probably create a new UPB Link called upbFireAlarm

 

[Penman]

I recently [topic='21655']posted [/topic] what I thought were complicated goals for a new HA system I'm looking to build. The goals included a sprinkler system that would look to today's weather forecast and yesterday's rain fall levels to determine how much it should water today ... and an HVAC system that would use occupancy monitors to determine when to use the "Away", "Night" and "Morning" settings. [member='roussell'] came in and assessed my goals as fairly basic. That actually got me super excited ... so ...

What crazy, unusual things have you built with HA? I'm hoping to become inspired by other people's "way out there" ideas ... so, let 'em rip!

I used current sensors to sense when my washer and dryer finish. Sends an SMS to my wife's phone, since she may be at the other end of the house.

 

[tmbrown97]

I do need to add that one - since moving to these stupid front-loading washers, if we don't move our clothes within about 8 hours, they get a mildew smell... These are the electrolux ones, and we do the sanitize cycles regularly, use those washer cleaners, etc... it never fails.