Looking for a cheap dopamine hit ;)
Looking for a cheap dopamine hit ;)
I love playing with my HA and associated devices. I suspect that most of you reading this get a bit of a jolt every time you add and incorporate a new sensor, camera, integration and get to play with it.
I have all the door/window sensors and locks/covers, every angle of my exterior covered with cameras, alarm, network devices, appliances, sprinklers, household devices covered.
Any ideas for a new thing I can play with?
Can I recommend taking a look at espHome? Getting started might be a little expensive depending on what you've got, but you can build pretty much anything for pretty cheap.
As I replied to another who suggested ESPHome - I don't want a bunch boards and wires stuck everywhere and unless I am misunderstanding it I'll need to get into 3d printing to make enclosures for stuff. I can see going there some day but no room for a makerspace in this house until the boy moves out.
There are some specialised esp32 devices sold with cases (sometimes optional), but 3d printing is another fun thing to get into since you seem bored;)
If the boy has a gaming rig, then he also has a CAD workstation.
I managed to get a dodgy copy of AutoCAD 2 running on my 80286 with an 80287 maths co pro that I persuaded my parents to buy me for Chrimbo. Sadly, it was a bit shite. The next version of AutoCAD needed a 32 bit machine with 32 MB (yes MB) of RAM. That was way out of my league.
Depending on the age of the boy and given how long the little darlings are tending to hang around these days, a constructive bribery system in lieu of rent or pocket money enhancement might be in order 8)
ESP-32 based voice controller, with LLM support: https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/s3_box_voice_assistant/
NFC tags are cheap and fun
Actually NFC tags were one of my first things back when I was using HomeKit. They are much better in HA because you can fire an event without any interaction with the device that scans it and that is pretty cool.
Thanks, I have a 10-pack of tags that I could deploy to do random stuff for my own enjoyment. I appreciate the reminder!
Ooh, Ive heard of these. Can you name some of the ways you use them? Do these effectively work as a cheap alternative to a physical switch or can they be used more creatively?
Yeah it's essentially a trigger. I have a few purposes. One is for my dumb washing machine plugged into an energy monitoring smart plug. After it registers the washing is done, I'll get alerts through the house in intervals until I get up and scan the NFC tag on the washing machine (I forget to hang out washing.
As I'm in a rental and I can't have smart switches so I have smart globes and put tags on the switches to toggle the lights.
One by my bedside table to turn off all the lights and smart plugs.
One on my front door to set my away from home scene.
I also have a signed band poster hung on the wall with one, which opens the album in Spotify.
Good fun.
I use mine for a jukebox with various playlists. Allows anyone in the house to scan a tag. You can also have them do anything a button can do (run a script, turn on/off devices, etc.
Do you use Plex at all? One fun integration is to turn the lights off automatically when something starts to play, then turn them back on when paused/stopped. It’s fun to see the lights auto-dim as media starts to play.
I do but Mrs has clearly stated that she dislikes light level automations - I have a couple FP2 presence sensors and I set up various zones so the light would follow you around and dim asa you left. I wigged her out.
Have you got any air quality sensors? Particulates, CO2, VOCs, CO, Radon, there’s a while bunch of sensors, and a variety of DIY projects to put them together.
It also has the practical benefit of maybe improving your health.
My CO2 sensor has dramatically changed my routines. My space isn't small - maybe 1200 square feet/100 sq m - but it must be pretty well sealed, because I can easily see my own breathing add to CO2. Nevermind cooking on the gas stove. Treadmill time adds 500+ ppm.
Now, I open windows every chance I get (which isn't super often, because the dewpoint is 70 oF/20 oC in Atlanta), and I've shifted a lot of my cooking to an electric tea kettle, hot plate, and toaster oven.
Do you have a suggestion for a good air quality sensor (especially for CO2 and VOCs) that outputs reliable results, works over ZigBee and is preferably battery powered? I had a CO2 sensor once but that needed to be calibrated outside really frequently so I stopped using it.
If you want a whole kit then the AirGradient ones look pretty nice
The CO2 sensor calibration thing is inherent in the technology. They drift, a lot, and without occasional reference to a known standard, there's no way to know whether "1000" is really 1000, or 500, or 2000, but exactly how that gets implemented seems to vary a lot. I have an SCD30 board from Adafruit, which internally records CO2 minima and, over the course of week or so, adjusts its calibration so that minimum is 420. That means no special calibration procedure, but it does have to be somewhere that it gets periodic fresh air exposure.
There's a newer, photoacoustic sensor technology that doesn't seem to require continuous recalibration, but (at least this one: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/22956 ) require an extensive initial calibration.
Maybe something from My config will inspire you.
Hook up your bathroom fan to a humidity sensor
Automate any window blinds
Christmas leds on exterior. Dig-quad with WLED software.
Bathroom fan connected to a humidity sensor is my (and my family's )absolute favorite automation. I spent so much time on my system setting up sensors, configuring things, etc, but nothing gives me more delight than when I'm taking a shower, the fan kicks on automatically and then shuts off automatically.
I haven't had to deal with foggy mirrors in years!
Done all that except the Xmas stuff - my neighbor across the street puts up incredible holiday lighting all year long...literally tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear in play. I can't afford to even make a showing next to that.
Power monitoring and temperature
I have a athom smart switch plugged between the wall and the washing machine just for power monitoring. When the power is above a certain level for thirty sec, then drops below a certain level for thirty sec. It announces over the Google home that the washing is done.
Do you like birds? BirdNet-Pi might be interesting. https://github.com/alexbelgium/hassio-addons/blob/master/birdnet-pi/README.md
I started to play around with WLED and integrated a whole mess of LED lights to HA. I’d also recommend ESPHome so you can build your own devices. Voice control, water flow rate sensors, etc.
Yes, LEDs and water flow and voice control among other goodies.
I keep hearing ESPHome but it seems so bare metal - how do you make the little boards look like they belong? I really don't want to have to start 3d printing stuff to make enclosures.
3D printing is half the fun! Although I have no skills in design so I usually look for STLs that other have created. The NFC tag reader was such a fun project because I got to: 3D print the enclosure, solder the wiring for the ESP and NFC hardware, write the login within Node Red to work as a juke box, and then I wrote an excel file that I use to track my playlists (allows me to copy/paste the Spotify share link and have it translate it into an NFC tag payload).
Not an answer: whats your setup for your cameras/security?
I don't do NVR - my servers are all low power except my PleX and I have so much storage dedicated to that I just can't see adding more. All cameras have SD storage and I have key events backing up to cloud.