homeassistant @lemmy.world LifeBandit666 @feddit.uk 6 mo. ago

Home Assistant things you'd miss now; what is a great little thing HA does for you, I'll start.

So last week I had a Proxmox fuckup and lost everything. I learnt the hard way what living without backups is like and I don't recommend it.

Silver lining is that I don't have to tidy up all those old automations and entities anymore.

Anyway it made me realise what I'd miss if I didn't have them, because I didn't have them.

I've been really really tired this week. I get up at 5am and start work at 6, and while I don't like it, I usually cope with it better than most and have comments about how "It's too early for you." But not this week.

I've put it down to losing my connection between my alarm clock and HA. I use SleepAsAndroid and have done for a long time. Back when I started it was because it connected to Tasker, but over the years I've moved to HA and still use it.

SleepAsAndroid with Tasker was done with web hooks but I use the MQTT integration with HA. This means it's connected when I'm home but not in network when I'm away, so it can't fire the messages, which is what you want.

Previously I used Node Red to set up this automation but I haven't reinstalled it yet, I'm seeing if I can do it all on HA, then it's one less thing and I can automate in the app.

I spent a while this morning trying to figure out how to reintegrate it with HA and struggled, but eventually I found an integration in HACS which meant I just had to change my device identifier in the alarm app by adding /MyName to the end of the SleepAsAndroid topic so it reads SleepAsAndroid/MyName, add the HACS integration and then add it again in the Integrations pane, with MyName plumbed in.

Then I added a blueprint from the add ons page and left the house to go on a day trip.

In and amongst the day trip I've been making my automation on the HA app via the blueprint, and have come home, loaded a bowl and set my alarm for 1 minute time, then smoke the bowl and wait...

Success!

Hopefully I'll have more energy this week when I wake up to my lights turning on, instead of complete darkness and a strange noise.

Now what would you miss that isn't obvious (like motion activated lights)?

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45 comments

My 10 year old son's most missed automation was the house telling him to go to bed. He noticed he was just chilling in bed with YouTube and it was well past his bedtime and asked me to set it up again.

Basically I automated bedtimes years ago so the house tells them to go to bed and an hour later turns their lights off. Didn't think they'd miss that but they did.
- next step: an hour later the tranquilizer sentries activate
  
  Any recommendations for tranquilizer sentries that work with HA?
  
  I’m holding out for matter over thread, personally.
  
  I prefer to give them the Benadryl earlier in the evening.
  
  My son walked in to us talking about "Head Count" (number of people you fucked) the other day and we all convinced him we were talking about how old we were when we tried alcohol.
  
  "But Mum said 1, that's like really young"
  
  "Ah but back in our day we had Rum put on our dummies to help teething"
  
  Also chloroform on their pillow-cases gets to sleep in minutes.
  
  It was whiskey they used according to my Mum.
- I have an automation that keeps track of which kid’s turn it is to empty the dishwasher. Keeps track of when dishes are done with a power meter on the dishwasher itself.
  
  Double tap on the light switch nearby announces whose turn it is on the kitchen speakers.
  
  This I like. I've just threatened to give the kids money for chores and I'm trying to work out how to automate it, and this is what I'm looking for

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