Home Assistant Automations discussion

[ArcReactorKC]

I recently set up a fresh install of Home Assistant on the unused rackmount server. I'm quickly finding more and more automations to run on it.
First order of the day was to set the bathroom fans to shut themselves off 30 minutes after being turned on. I find that the family tends to leave them on and forget to return and shut them off. I hate the noise a fan so this is really helpful.

The next order was to set the whole house fan to turn on when the laundry/server/3d printing room had high humidity or the temperature in the room rises above 80f. That was easy enough as well using a TUYA temp/humidity sensor.

I then realized I could automate the bathroom fans the same way for showers. The kids often forget to turn on the fan and the walls are covered in condensation from the humidity rise. So when the humidity in the respective bathroom is 10% more than the thermostat for the house it turns on the fan and it runs until the humidity is within 2% of the rest of the house.

I'm using facebox to learn facial recognition from my ring doorbell, once I get it to a satisfactory recognition level I will integrate that with the thumbprint door lock so if a family face is recognized and that family members phone is connected to the wifi the door will unlock.

For those who aren't familiar with home assistant, it is a localized home automation software, it doesn't rely on outside servers for information and the automations and scripts are all run locally on your server.

Home Assistant

Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server.

www.home-assistant.io

What automations are you guys running? I'm looking for ways to make this work for me daily.

One of the next projects is using nfc tags to turn my home office on and control my sit/stand desk.

 

[MadeByMiller]

I highly recommend checking out @nicholam77 and @Denwood 's Garage Gallery threads where they often talk about their home automation setups.

 

[duneslider]

What switches/outlets are you using with Home Assistant? I recently installed a few Kasa switches which work great but the ability to fine tune what I want them to do isn't extremely robust and does appear to rely on their server. I have thought of looking into a home server/raspberry pi type setup to do these controls but haven't looked to deep into it.

 

[Denwood]

Nick and I have both settled in on Hubitat as it ticks the local control, support and community supported integrations box. Home Assistant is often mentioned in the same breath and it seems like a pretty awesome ecosystem too...although I have not used it yet. Hubitat has Rule Machine, and now integrates WebCore (as well as Apple HomeKit) so you have access to two very powerful logic based programming environments..outside of the built in lighting apps which work well too. We both moved from SmartThings to Hubitat in the last few months.

I'd take up too much space on automation, but I'm using it everywhere including full house lighting, locks, most switches, home theatre, leak detection/water cutoff, full garage, pool and solar heating, and recently full HRV / ventilation managment including inline heaters with dynamic power control, variable CFM rates base on Co2 decection...blah, blah.

I can certainly give you a lot of tips on what works and does not. For lighting, I'd 100% swallow the cost and go HUE for everything. It's the only lighting system that has been 100% flawless since installation. Their system is rock, rock solid.

 

[nicholam77]

I just happened to post yesterday an overview of my automations with Hubitat in my thread. Most of them have to do with lighting. It's just automation ideas, it would all apply to Home Assistant, too.

Question — what hardware are you running Home Assistant on and what install method? I dipped my toes in for awhile running a VM on my Mac Mini, but eventually messed things up by accident. I've been thinking about doing another Home Assistant install to link with Hubitat, but not sure what hardware to go with (don't really want to do the VM again) and would prefer it's on the cheap side.

Because I loved the Home Assistant dashboards and iOS mobile app. Plus some neat and unusual integrations I could tie in.

You might be better off browsing smart home forums like Hubitat, Home Assistant, yes even SmartThings community forums, but definitely check out @Denwood 's thread, and I know @slodat had a post about his Homeseer and Blue Iris setup as well.

I see you mention 3D printing — if you use Octoprint there's a Home Assistant integration for that.

Also this Youtube channel has a ton of general automation ideas videos, and he uses Home Assistant as the main platform.

-Nick

 

[slodat]

I went down the automation path five or so years ago. I went with Homeseer because at the time they had plugins to connect the things I cared about - alarm system, Blue Iris camera system, ecobee thermostats, Sonos speakers, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. It's PC based and runs locally, nothing in the cloud. And, the rules engine works well. All that said, it looks like it was made in 1990 from a UI perspective. It has been 100% rock solid and I've literally never had an issue with other than rebooting a windows machine once a month for good measure.

Cross posting this as it might help the conversation.

This thread is about how I control electric shop heaters with Ecobee smart thermostats.

This thread is the automation thread I mentioned. Didn't get a lot of interest when I posted about it, or in my shop thread.

I have Ubiquiti point to point link between my two properties, with the automation running there as well. I have iBeacons to detect where I am physically located, and it switches things up in Homeseer and my camera system (Blue Iris). It's completely automated and I rarely use any HMI type of thing.

The Ecobee thermostats will not let room temperature go below 45F by design. At my other property, it's just storage in the winter. I use Homeseer to enable that Ecobee thermostat when room temperature gets down to 38F. It then turns the system off at 40F. That unneeded additional heat in that space is saving me quite a bit alone.

I have ZWave light switches in that shop for the main lighting. Each row on it's own switch. By each door - two man doors and three roll up doors, is another ZWave switch. It doesn't switch power to any lights. It's just a trigger into Homeseer. Currently configured to turn all four rows on and off. This saved a TON of unneeded wire and complexity in the lighting circuits. These rows are 60' long of double fluorescent tube lights.

I have a scene in my shop for when I arrive and depart that sets temperatures, tells security and camera systems what to do, turns on/off ceiling fans, adjusts thermostat settings, etc. Additionally, I have a daily that turns certain things off for security purposes (like the power to garage door openers).

 

[ArcReactorKC]

I have home assistant OS (the linux distro) running as a VM on a rackmount server. This also enables me to use the server's docker containers to integrate with HA as well.

I have a bunch of Tuya switches, they are cheap but integrate extremely well in my experience. Almost everything else is being done with ESP32's and relays in 3d printed boxes. I like this avenue because there is zero cloud interchange, I can turn things on and off without anything going to an external server.

I am actually using the octoprint integration, when any of the printers are running the LED strips over them are blue, and when prints are finished the lights turn white for 1 hour, after that they turn off. I wouldn't say it's a practical use but it is a fun one.

 

[ArcReactorKC]

What switches/outlets are you using with Home Assistant? I recently installed a few Kasa switches which work great but the ability to fine tune what I want them to do isn't extremely robust and does appear to rely on their server. I have thought of looking into a home server/raspberry pi type setup to do these controls but haven't looked to deep into it.

If you have the patience and like to tinker the esp32 integration has been working very well for me. Because it's all local it works even when the internet is down.

 

[Denwood]

Ecobee is an excellent product. I had nine in my commercial building and used them extensively along with a DSC alarm integration (using an EVL-3 add on board) in Vera. Vera was clunky, but like Hubitat, is 100% local control/processing.

Ecobee has some great data monitoring options, and saved me from some costly repairs (in-floor heat) by alerting when temps got too low. One case due to a door that was prop'd open by a tenant with -25 C outside temps, and the other when our loading bay door seals needed replacing and the system could not keep up at -30 C with high winds. It does not however have a local API so you're stuck with some cloud traffic if you're using them...regardless of the automation system in use.

Having Vera integrated with nine Ecobee stats/external sensors, the DSC alarm system and automated clerestory windows let me do a lot with building automation including auto arming the security system, managing active night cooling (opening windows and running building fans) and doing things like shutting down zoned AC if a window was opened. In favourable conditions during business days, the system would also open windows and shut off any of the five air handlers in favour of convective cooling. The building HRVs were also managed by automation and were managed based on Co2 levels and occupancy. It was more or less inexpensive BACnet

These are three recent very practical automation projects:

Automate Kitchen Exhaust Hood Fan using inline ECM fan - Turbocharge yer exhaust!

One of my goals for my ongoing kitchen install (more in my garage thread on this) was to figure out a more effective exhaust. The typical hood exhaust fan does not do well with resistance (static pressure) and the new fan was not moving a lot of air by the time it got to my high efficiency 4"...

www.garagejournal.com

Super Efficient HRV retrofit with smoke filter for $300?

I’m conducting a bit of a science experiment. Can you take an older HRV, (in this case with a known fire hazard motor), and retrofit it as an ECM miser? Model is a Venmar AVS Solo 2…apparently was quite a popular unit. The unit was slated for disposal. In the initial test (temp probes at all...

www.garagejournal.com

Solar Swimming Pool Heat DIY with Hubitat / Webcore Automation

I know many of you were waiting on the edge of your seats to see how the six panels and new pump performed. Ha. Thanks to the cool data logging at hundredgraphs.com (being fed the SmarThings sensor temps), I can report that things worked almost exactly as predicted. The ambient temperature...

www.garagejournal.com

Finding a zwave 0-10 volt dimmer to control EC fan speed (that works in North America) was something I sorted recently, making active ventilation control that can dynamically vary CFM levels doable. Again, with Hubitat, it's all 100% local control. I've started using simple equations to dynamically generate variables that in turn manage inline electric duct heating and "active" ventilation where fresh air is exchanged based on Co2 monitoring. This let's you use some relatively inexpensive automation bits to replicate the function and efficiency of products that cost a lot more.

 

[couch67]

Like @slodat , I went with Homeseer a few years back. I use it to integrate my cameras running on BlueIris, and a few Zwave switches in the house. I have a few automations, like controlling the front driveway lights to turn on at dusk and off at 11. And if the driveway camera senses motion after dark, and the driveway lights are off, then turn them on for 5 minutes. Handy if someone is coming home after 11 (or if someone turned the lights off). I'd like to do a lot more with the zwave switches, I just need to prioritize my list and start on it.

Another thing I've integrated is my homebrew network of sensors. These 'nodes' are Arduino based, battery powered (some are powered with usb chargers), and send sensor data via RF to a gateway that is connected to my network. The gateway communicates with Homeseer via a MQTT plugin.

The sensors measure various things around the house and property like Fridge/Freezer temperature, Propane level of the 1000 gal tank in the yard, main water flow and 'leak' sensors, and sump pump level. The sump pump node has some added intelligence - it calculates the pump cycles per hour, so it gives me an idea how often its working. The cycles per hour is very consistent and only changes gradually. Because of this, the node 'anticipates' when the next cycle should be, and if it is missed, then it sets a flag and Homeseer alerts me via email. This allows me to check if there is a problem with the pump, well before the sump is full of water.

The email alerts are great (fridge / freezer too warm, water flow >0.01 lpm for more than an hour, garage too cold, etc), but I'd like to integrate a user interface or something to alert and display messages so anyone at home can see them.

 

[ArcReactorKC]

Like @slodat , I went with Homeseer a few years back. I use it to integrate my cameras running on BlueIris, and a few Zwave switches in the house. I have a few automations, like controlling the front driveway lights to turn on at dusk and off at 11. And if the driveway camera senses motion after dark, and the driveway lights are off, then turn them on for 5 minutes. Handy if someone is coming home after 11 (or if someone turned the lights off). I'd like to do a lot more with the zwave switches, I just need to prioritize my list and start on it.

Another thing I've integrated is my homebrew network of sensors. These 'nodes' are Arduino based, battery powered (some are powered with usb chargers), and send sensor data via RF to a gateway that is connected to my network. The gateway communicates with Homeseer via a MQTT plugin.

The sensors measure various things around the house and property like Fridge/Freezer temperature, Propane level of the 1000 gal tank in the yard, main water flow and 'leak' sensors, and sump pump level. The sump pump node has some added intelligence - it calculates the pump cycles per hour, so it gives me an idea how often its working. The cycles per hour is very consistent and only changes gradually. Because of this, the node 'anticipates' when the next cycle should be, and if it is missed, then it sets a flag and Homeseer alerts me via email. This allows me to check if there is a problem with the pump, well before the sump is full of water.

The email alerts are great (fridge / freezer too warm, water flow >0.01 lpm for more than an hour, garage too cold, etc), but I'd like to integrate a user interface or something to alert and display messages so anyone at home can see them.

What batteries are you using? I'd like to move some of my esp devices to battery power but haven't bought the parts yet.

 

[couch67]

What batteries are you using? I'd like to move some of my esp devices to battery power but haven't bought the parts yet.

It was a while back, I ordered these on Amazon. Of course they are no longer available but there a lot of suitable alternatives.
With one of these, I'll get 6 to 9 months of runtime before it needs a recharge.

The Arduino will go through its measurements, send data, then go to sleep until the next cycle. It consumes < 100 uA when in sleep mode.

 

[mike93lx]

I have a couple z wave locks and picked up a hubitat in the fall with the hopes of doing some automation...never got very far.

Following along as I do want to do this and add some other control around the house

 

[nicholam77]

Not sure if anyone uses Sonos, but I just found a really cool Github project for controlling Sonos speakers over your local network.

Just did a little write up in my thread if anyone's interested. Home Assistant has pretty good Sonos integration already, but it could be used with that or any other platform that can send HTTP requests.

 

[Poolshark314]

What hardware is on your server that you are using to search and pair to your IoT devices? Like in lieu of a SmartThings hub that has built in Z-wave/zigbee/etc. I understand the VM part running the Home Assistant image

 

[ArcReactorKC]

What hardware is on your server that you are using to search and pair to your IoT devices? Like in lieu of a SmartThings hub that has built in Z-wave/zigbee/etc. I understand the VM part running the Home Assistant image

I only have ip addressable devices on my network at the moment, no zigbee or zwave.
Oh I do have a couple of bluetooth devices that are managed through a bluetooth USB adapter in the servers physical usb port that is forwarded to the VM image.

 

[nicholam77]

@Poolshark314 if you want to run Zwave/Zigbee devices on Home Assistant, most people just use a USB Zwave stick, there are a handful of options from Aeotec, Zooz, GoControl, etc. They usually run about $50. Same with Zigbee. Home Assistant even sells their own Zigbee stick called "Sky Connect" which has also promised future support for Matter over Thread.

Another option is to connect a hub that has these radios built-in already, like Hubitat. In my brief trial of Home Assistant I had my SmartThings hub connected in this manner, and it worked great until it didn't.