The little smart home platform that could How Home Assistant plans to transition from an enthusiast platform to a mainstream consumer product.
The little smart home platform that could How Home Assistant plans to transition from an enthusiast platform to a mainstream consumer product.
With a new ownership structure, Home Assistant is making its next big move
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I'm not into home automation, but if I was, I'd much prefer a locally running solution that didn't involve tech giants. I hope this works out.
I didn't think I was. I got sucked in by sensors to monitor indoor temp, humidity, air quality... A smart switch to turn lights on and off when I'm not home. Now I'm thinking of how to turn the HVAC fan off when IAQ is good and temperature is comfortable. I'm not ready to have the house turn lights on when I enter a room or start the oven when I get within a mile of the end of my commute, but it's been growing, one $30 gadget at a time with no subscriptions and no data leaving my LAN.
I have a ton of east-facing windows on the back of my house. It's a blessing or a curse depending on weather and time of day. I always dreamed about them running automatically, and eventually ordered a bunch of Z-wave controlled motorized shades. Then a Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant to control it all.
While I was waiting for those shades to arrive, I got a bunch of Kasa light switches so I didn't have to sweep across the entire house to turn off all the lights every night. Turning the hallway light off after 9:45PM triggers the automation.
The rabbit hole only got bigger from there.
Yeah, same. I set it up as it looked like the best way to control my inverter - I wanted to set it to charge from the grid when electricity was free, and discharge during saving sessions without having to do it manually. I then expanded to trying to calculate how much charge I needed overnight in cheap rate based on the solar forecast for the next day...
Anyway, I now have everything on it and keep thinking of things to add.
To each there own, but i think after all is said and done, automatic hallway lights are just a natural fit and the best addition home automation gave me (as simple as it is). I have automatic lights in more spots because motion detection is easy, but I wouldn't really miss them except in the hallway, where taking the time to flip the switch takes as much time as traversing, and then you still have to turn it off after.
I can see that. Most of my house gets enough light - or streetlights at night - to walk through with the lights out at midnight. Add in a lumen sensor, though, to dial lights up when it's cloudy and down when it's sunny...
When I think of automations, it's either things like coordinating big power draws to cheap electricity or trivial quality of life enhancements, like turning out the lights in an empty room. The latter, I have trouble justifying to spend on occupancy sensors and smart switches if it's only going to save 20 Watts of LED or five steps. Once it's become your hobby, it's much easier to say, "I'm going to buy these sensors because they're fun to play with and it gives me joy to see them work."
Yeah you buy the sensors because you enjoy it all. The sensors then become even more useful when you realise they don't just pick up motion, but also temperature, humidity, lumens...
I recently killed the system I've had running since COVID, lost it all. The first thing I resetup was the hallway lights motion sensor.
It's a 4 floor house, so half of it is stairs. Carrying washing around is so much easier when the lights turn themselves on and off.
I've just written a post about how I missed having my lights turn on with my alarm clock this week. That was really missed!
Having my hallway and kitchen lights be motion activated and brighter/dimmer based on ambient light is fucking great. If you get there you might wind up loving it like I do lol.