HA sounds cool to me but other than being a fun thing to work on, what's so good about it? Can anyone "sell" me on it? Is it just being able to turn stuff on and off from your phone?
replies(2):
- remote control to turn on/off lights in bed
- Bed sensor to turn on/off lights when heading to the bathroom at night
- define a scene (lights dimmed, shades down, mood lights on) to trigger in an event (Netflix turned on TV at 8pm)
- Remote control of wall AC unit out of the house (shut off while away but turn on before driving home)
- Alerts for when my brother turns on the coffee maker
- Control system to avoid coffee maker and microwave running together long enough and tripping the circuit breaker in your old apartment (haven't done this one)
- Alert to tell you when washing machine is done (or use to estimate how much time is left)
- use color lights as reminders or to signify events
- check to make sure doors are closed and locked at night
- check that door for room (or window in room) with AC is closed when AC is running, otherwise shut AC off
- alerts when someone gets home even if you are out of the house (know kid gets home from school, for example)
Ultimately it is a hobby. I had a raspberry pi 4 I bought and had just sitting around. It feels good to see it in the corner doing something cool.
You can for example:
- Start the robo vacuum every time there's nobody in the house and tell it to stop when people are coming back - Add a voice command for said vacuum to just vacuum the kitchen or hallway - Open the curtains when it's light enough outside and put them back down when it's darker outside than inside. - Adjust light temperature and brightness based on the time of day so you won't get 1000 lumens of 6000K light blinding you when you go to the bathroom at night - Turn down the AC/heating when people aren't home and start preheating/cooling when they are nearing the house again
When everything is integrated to HA your imagination is pretty much the only limit when combining different sensors to devices.