Crazy Things - crazy to one is normal to others (me)
Here is what I do that is not standard
Camera on driveway detects motion and if the TV is on it will open the PIP and display the image on the screen for a minute. A horn sound will also be played on teh kitchen touchscreen. If the alarm is armed I will get an SMS.
I had a rat trap connected to the M1 to let me know when it went off
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=9661&highlight=rat This would send me an SMS is the alarm was armed. I was at work having lunch playing cards and I got a message telling em I had caught a rat - everyone laughed at (with) me at how far I had gone.
When I go to bed at night I press a button on the remote to turn off all the lights over 12 seconds, close the garage doors, change the channel on the TV to the station I watch in the mornings and turn the volume down to an acceptible morning level. If the ceiling fans are on in the bedrooms they are left running and then turned off at 2am.
The A/C is intergated and when a zone (each room is a zone) is turned on, if there is a ceiling fan in that room it is also turned on. This allows the setpoint to be raised almost 1 degree when cooling and thus saving power.
I fill the horse water trough every morning automatically.
The electric fence voltage is monitored and I get an alert when the voltage drops. This alerts me to stock putting pressure on the fence or a branch etc. has fallen on the fence and it needs to be "fixed".
When the kids were younger, I would shut their doors at night. In the morning they would open their door and the TV would come on and change to the kids shows. This would only work after 6:30am.
9am the TV's turn off and lights turn off. THe kids know that they need to then get dressed and do something other than watch TV.
My water tank has an ultrasonic level transmitter on top and I use the M1 to monitor the level (the M1 was modified to handle 4-20mA signals).
The A/C has a roof duct that draws in fresh air from outside. If the outside temp drops below the colling setpoint the system switches from cool to vent automatically..
My power meters are "smart" meters (nothing smart about them, they are just digital) and they are connected to a PLC that reads the Wh pulses and every 15minutes an End Of Interval (EOI) pulse is received and i calculate my electricity bill and display it on the kitchen touchscreen.
My saptic tank is montiored by the HA system. Pump runtime, UV light, Blower and water level will all alert me to any problems.
Some of the boring common stuff.
Laundry door turns on the laundry light when opened. If not closed it turns off after 10 minutes, otherwise closing the door turns it off.
Kids going to toilet at night bring on lights at a very low level for 10 minutes.
Kids bedroom lights dont work through the day. They would turn the lights on rather than openening the curtains so I put a stop to that. The motion sensor outside also detects sunrise/sunset (light/dark) and enables them automatically at night.
There is probably a lot more thats I cant recal right now, but it should give you something to think about.
Mick
Arming the alarm turns off the TV's, A/C, lights and 10 minutes later checks that the garage doors are closed.