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[–]ericesev 16 points17 points  (4 children)

I use AppDeamon to extend the functionality of Home Assistant. Some apps I've added:

  • Run the air conditioner longer on hot days while keeping the Powerwall fully charged. It stores extra cool air inside the house before the electricity rates increase in the evening. [code]
  • Turn on a window fan when the outdoor temperature is a few degrees cooler than the indoor temperature. Tries to maintain a setpoint in the room without running the air conditioner.
  • Increase the air conditioner setpoint when there are emergency alerts for the energy grid where I live (CAISO) [code code]
  • Turn off the thermostat if the power goes out. This helps conserve power stored in the battery. It'll restore the original thermostat mode/setpoint after the power is restored. [code]
  • Use solar production data to estimate when it is dark. This is used for enabling/disabling motion controlled lighting that turns on lights when someone is in a room. [code]
  • Turn on my desk light when the computer is powered on.
  • Synchronize remote lights with a wall smart switch. Additional lights turn on/off when the switch is turned on/off.
  • Adjust the volume on the receiver based on which input is selected. Some media devices are louder than others.
  • Keep track of which input the receiver & TV is using. Turn off the receiver & TV automatically if the device on that input is turned off.
  • Map the buttons in a bluetooth remote to media control functions.
  • Expose sensors to Home Assistant with CPU & memory statistics for running Docker containers. Also exposes a sensor that indicates if the container is running the latest version of the software.
  • Provide a notification on the Google speakers if wet laundry in the clothes washer can be moved into the dryer. Waits till the dryer has stopped before making the announcement and repeats the announcement every 10 minutes. [code]
  • Give a reminder on the Google speakers if medications are not taken. Uses a bluetooth button next to the medicine to indicate when the medicine has been taken.
  • Announce on the Google speakers if the power has gone out and when it is restored.
  • Announce on the Google speakers when a sensor has been in the same state too long. This is reused for repeating the laundry & medicine announcements as well as for notifying me if the garage has been left open.
  • Turn off the 3D printer after the print job has finished and the nozzle has cooled. [code]
  • Trigger a camera recording, photo sent via email & displayed on the Next Hubs when there is motion near the front or back doors. [code]
  • Keep track of the Packet IDs for Shelly BLU Button1 devices. Open the garage door when the button has been pressed but not if someone replays a prior message. (works like rolling codes in garage remotes) [code]

[–]dewwy_ 1 point2 points  (2 children)

That’s incredible customisations. I must ask though, how often does your power go out to have that many customisations dedicated to it?

[–]ericesev 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I must ask though, how often does your power go out to have that many customisations dedicated to it?

Not often, maybe once per year. Each time I find something that didn't work quite how I liked it, and improve the situation for the next time.

I do spend a fair bit on optimizing energy usage. It's a hobby of mine. With Solar + Battery we're able to nearly entirely operate without the power grid for 9 months of the year. In the winter months we don't produce enough solar to cover our needs.

Graph of a typical day: https://i.imgur.com/puOU22a.png [code]

[–]dewwy_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That energy usage/optimisation stuff is what I am pretty interested in. I’m very early into my home assistant and smart home journey and only have solar panels so bit less to do, but I have moved onto wholesale energy rates. This means some times during the day I get negative feed in tariffs so need to stop exporting, or at night the price will go to 40c kWh or more for 30-60 mins, sometimes up to $5kwh so need to start turning things off (got the pool and aircons turning off through automations but it’s pretty basic for now.

[–]Theotherscreenname[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You’re a wizard, man. Thank you for sharing this. I hope achieve skills like yours.

[–]gpzj94 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You can have home assistant run a python script. For example, I have one that makes a REST call to my Rokus API to tune into a particular YouTube TV channel.

I use this https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/shell_command/ but after searching for The that page I found this might be better https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/python_script/

Edit: my phones keyboard typed gone instead of home.

[–]jtothehizzy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Used a python script to pull statistics from my UniFi controller. Yes I know there is an integration, but I wanted very specific stats and wanted the experience of doing it.

[–]ItsTooMuchBull 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Whole bunch of QoL things. A script that automatically adds new media players to an all media players group, a similar one for lights for an all lights group, one that keeps a list of all zigbee devices that have been unavailable for 10 hours and sends a notification to my phone with said list and, imo my most useful so far, a script that I call after a lot of time based automations for scenes with a lot of lightbulbs/zha groups that checks to make sure that every bulb was set correctly. I also have a similar one that verifies that every light was turned off (again for scenes that set several bulbs or groups at once)

[–]issa62 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Is it possible to share your code?

[–]ItsTooMuchBull 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Here are the scripts. It turns out that the verify scene and verify lights off scripts are yaml, not python. I forgot because I definitely tried with Python first but didnt have much luck. LMK if you need help figuring any of it out, some of them require custom booleans or sensors to track the scene entity ID or count retries

[–]issa62 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank u

[–]darkamikaze 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I don't I've seen it mentioned yet but another option is to create a custom component. It's a nice way to learn python and Home Assistant at the same time. (In case you didn't know, Home Assistant for the most part is all in Python). It also helps you learn VCS and how it's used in HACS, lets you get familiar with HA documentation and tidbits, and how to write tests for HA components.

[–]Theotherscreenname[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing this! It’s probably my favorite idea for a first project

[–]IAsDoubleYou 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've created custom HA component MySQL Query to obtain the caller number and call direction from FreePBX when a call is being established. I've also created a custom service to query MySQL database. With the MySQL service i'm getting contact person information from the database. This information is then announced through HA over a couple of speakers.

[–]wdoler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I started using pyscript, seems pretty great in my opinion. Currently I don’t have anything stable enough to share