What do you have your HA doing that makes your life easier or just adds some wow?

[ghurty]

While I know a lot of people focus on the GUI part of the HA and that makes things looks nice, I am more interested in the behind the scenes functionality.
 
What do you have set up on your HA system, either based off of time of day, events, weather, etc... that makes your life easier or is just adds a wow factor.
 
For example like a user said here "Motion in kitchen, turn on light for 5 minutes, but if the alarm is in the arming mode, and the door also opens and closes then turn off the kitchen light.... and if it is after 5pm then turn on my porch light when the door opens. once the alarm is set, toggle all my lights 2 times so I am sure it is set as I am backing out of my driveway....."
 
Thanks

 

[ChrisCicc]

I speak here as a user only...
 
Any event related benefit like you mention is great. But personally, having my smart home feed my cat has been my greatest benefit lol.
 
Before my cat would wake us up for breakfast, and nag us for lunches and dinner. Now, he's figured out the house controls the food, so when it gets near a meal time he just sits by the feeder and doesn't nag us.

 

[tmbrown97]

We've got some decent ones... many are pretty basic (not as cool as the automated chicken coops and the like):

• Closet lights automated with UPB light switch and security sensor in door (especially upstairs where I stole the switch to act as a scene switch)
• Entering the garage from anywhere including opening the big doors turns on the full garage lights
• Anyone entering the guest bathroom - turns the lights on and keeps them on until they've been out for a couple minutes.  Helps with the slightly confusing switches or when the kids couldn't reach the switch.
• Kids leave their rooms at night - it beeps in the master bedroom and turns on the hall and bathroom lights for them.
• Automated exterior lights of course - but added so that if they've turned off (because it's after 11:00PM) and you open the front door or ring the doorbell, they turn back on (need to replace doorbell with Video NVR motion trigger).
• Entering a dark house with the alarm armed - it automatically lights a path to the kitchen which is our "home base" upon entering.
• Keypads start beeping if any exterior door gets left open - kids and contractors tend to not close doors and we have indoor-only cats.
• I have an outside faucet by the kids' play area - dedicated to their water toys and hooked up through a sprinkler valve.  If they want to play in the water, I can hit a button on my phone to turn it on for 3 minutes.  For next summer, it'll be a red button on the wall that says "push here to play" and will let them turn it on for a few minutes just like at a public splash pad.
• When the exit timer expires, all lights in the house plus fireplace turn off.  
• Similarly, when you go upstairs, you can hit "Downstairs off" to turn off absolutely everything downstairs - this was the key selling point because prior to automation, heading up for the night could mean hitting up to 17 switches in 8 locations around the first floor (not counting the bedroom down there)... it was quite the ordeal; plus the lights were always too bright, so having dimming everywhere really helps and all lights only go to 80% by default then you can go brighter.

 
There's a lot more on the horizon as time and new technology permits:

• Just bought Hue bulbs for all the kids' rooms - these will be automated to fade from pretty bright as they go to bed to much dimmer and more red - then in the morning they'll fade to "stay in your room except for potty" colors to "get up and get dressed now" for a visual indication of what time it is for kids who don't understand time yet.
• Just added cameras and NVR - NVR has inputs and outputs so I can get a signal to the Elk that motion has been detected, or I can send a signal to the NVR that the front door was opened or doorbell was triggered, so grab a snapshot and email it to me.

 
I have a million more but it's too much to type...  nothing terribly ingenious; other members of this forum have done some pretty awesome things - like BSR's absolute garage door position, or Electron's remote start in his car integrated or Lou's (IIRC) automated chicken coop; then the ultimate mouse trap, etc... and one of our friends down under could do a full site of his own with the level he's taken things to - once you have a means for getting all the components of your house to talk the options are only limited by your imagination.  Any one component of the home can control any other component of the home.

 

[drvnbysound]

• Entering the garage from anywhere including opening the big doors turns on the full garage light
• Anyone entering the guest bathroom - turns the lights on and keeps them on until they've been out for a couple minutes.  Helps with the slightly confusing switches or when the kids couldn't reach the switch.
• Kids leave their rooms at night - it beeps in the master bedroom and turns on the hall and bathroom lights for them.

 
I've been wanting to do similar and have a couple of questions about your implementation:
 
1) For the garage, how complex are your rules?
 
If my OHD opens, I probably want the light to come on - easy enough, just have to figure out the duration that works best for us. However, I've got a door between my garage and kitchen; if I'm in the house and open the door, I'm heading into the garage and would want the garage light to turn on. If I'm in the garage and open the same door I'm likely exiting the garage; I suppose in this latter scenario the light would already be ON, so it would be OK to turn it OFF. However, if I'm working in the garage (light on), but my wife opens the door (going either direction) I don't want the light state to change. I do have a PIR in the garage as well, so I suppose I could add a counter for activity in the garage as well. This just seems to get complex with the various scenarios with multiple people, so I wouldn't want to write something that causes me to have to manually change the state often either.
 
2) How do you 'know' someone has entered the bathroom? Are you doing that via motion and/or contact? If motion, what brand/model are you using for this? I've been thinking of adding PIRs for this, but have read many threads about using PIRs for occupancy... and haven't tried it yet.
 
3) Same as #2 re: motion. Then, similar to the first, how are you specifying that they are 'leaving' the room? Let's suppose it's a Friday night and they stay up later that normal watching a movie with you guys. Assuming motion, and a time based rule, is this then turning these lights ON?
 
The room rules just seem to have a gray area of time. Generally my son (18-mo) is in bed by 9, but there are also nights when he's up past 10. We just converted his crib to the toddler bed yesterday. If he wakes up and is just crying in bed, I probably don't want any lights to come on even if my wife or I head in there to check on him [i.e. motion]. However, if it's 2am and he's heading out of his room (e.g. coming to our room as he did this morning around 6) I'd like to provide some light for him to navigate across the house. The problem is obviously distinguishing which case to automatically turn the light(s) ON...

 

[jwilleke]

Most of what is WOW are the things we never think about until we go somewhere else.
 
Using two drive sensors, we know when a car is approaching or leaving the home, all monitored with cameras of course and voice announcements.
 
When we enter the drive and open the garage door (any of the three) lighting is activated so we never need to turn on a light. (no auto un-lock for the doors yet.)
 
Occupancy sensors are utilized for bathrooms, closets and some other rooms so there is never a light left on, and ability to monitor motion activities in areas where motion is not expected for the specified time-of-day.
-jim

 

[LarrylLix]

All bedrooms have motion sensors that trigger night lights for middle of the night bathroom runs. HA makes these lamps into larger power bulbs for the evenings and 0 watts during day bright times.

When the dryer is done our back doorbell rings (we have no back door). If she does not respond she gets a text message the dryer has completed.

While away we get notified that somebody rang the doorbell.

One switch in my great room controls all 8 light fixtures and floor lamps. One switch shuts them all down or sets 6 different scenes of mood lighting. XBMC play/pause sets movie mood lighting if the time and existing scene lighting is right.

Notifications are sent out if we are not home and motion is detected.

Freeze alerts are sent out if house or detached workshop is too cold.

Weather station data is sent out via email each day if we are not home. Power is cycled if heartbeat is missed from weather data computer or modem.

We hardly ever touch a light switch in the house main passageways. (staircase excepted)

If we are away ISY creates simulated walking through house and back to bed patterns of lighting at random times. (In my previous home I caused a neighbourhood meeting as some knew we were away. Police decided to ignore it instead of breaking in door)

 

[NeverDie]

 then the ultimate mouse trap, etc...

Which mouse trap was ultimate?