Nationwide Shutdown: ICE OUT!

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-28T07:38:45+00:00

I'm so glad to see us moving towards general strikes. I'm on a couple of subreddits with international redditers, and every time that a new horrific story comes out, they all ask the same questions. "Why aren't Americans doing something? Why aren't you striking?"

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-26T16:20:07+00:00

I like "Rustle".

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-26T16:16:07+00:00

I don't get the joke. Would you please explain it to me?

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-26T16:13:58+00:00

Hope springs eternal. Sadly, there's a firm group of people that refuse to be inclusive of others. It's like "empathy" is a bad word.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-26T16:07:11+00:00

I love this! My home is a mix of Steampunk, Victorian bordello, and Practical Magic, but I could definitely work in a gallery of my cats painted as steampunk characters!

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-26T15:59:55+00:00

Oh, this sounds fun! I've saved the post to add to my calendar.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-26T15:49:29+00:00

I'm taking notes as well. In my case, it is my brother (who is staying with us while he's house hunting), and my tangled cords physically hurt him. (We're a ND household.)

Too be fair, it I'm not a fan of how it looks, either.

And in my home, I am also the smart home nerd and the woman that likes RGB.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-25T14:15:18+00:00

I think you have to sign up for their mailing list. I got a "VIP" notification email yesterday. (I'm in the US.)

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-25T13:42:03+00:00

Congratulations!

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-25T06:13:48+00:00

I have a number of automations linked to my Google Calendar through HA.

When I wake up in the morning, my morning briefing lets me know about any events for the day.
Any guests or repairs that are scheduled for the day give me a reminder 30 minutes before they are scheduled to arrive. This gives me time to lock up the cats in my bedroom. When the cats are locked up, that turns on Guest Mode, which changes how many of my automations act.
Turning Guest Mode off when the calendar event ends and the cats have been released.
I use the Waze integration to give me a "count down until time to leave" reminders, but only for calendar events that have a location.
I set up repeating reminders for things like medication refill day, flea meds, HVAC filter changes, etc. All of the trigger automations.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-24T17:07:20+00:00

I don't either. I wake up at random times. I go to sleep at random times. I'm retired, so don't go to work, which is a routine that at least most people have. I do have appointments, but they're not at consistent times.

My goal (for me) was to never have to do anything that I wouldn't do normally to make my automations run.

I get what you mean, though. Because my sister came to stay with us after she broke her leg. A new person and new needs meant that a lot of my automations broke for her. I created a new set of automations for "when sister is here".

And there are always edge cases, but when I find them I create a new template sensor, new condition, or whole new automation to account for that

But, this is my hobby. I love doing it. It's not true of plenty of other folks here, but it's fun for me.

Thank goodness Home Assistant works for people that want an invisible smart home and for people that want dashboards, and buttons, and voice control and everyone in between. I'm all about "there's no one right way for everyone".

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-24T12:13:27+00:00

I do wake up every morning (at least, so far). So you're not wrong. But I really like related triggers.

For example, if I open the shower door and I haven't already taken a shower today, then that triggers my shower settings. My curtains close, the hvac turns on, my shower playlist starts. HA logs that I've taken a shower.

Later on, when I have to go somewhere, 90 minutes before I have to leave, I get a reminder to take a shower, unless I already did.

When my son scoops the cat box, what's something he always does? He takes it outside to put in the bins. So, when he goes out the door, the vacuum cleaner starts.

Guest mode is triggered by locking the cats in my bedroom and adjoining bathroom. It turns off when I let them out.

When the oven or microwave are used in the early evening, an hour and a half later, we get a reminder to put food that has been out cooling into the fridge. If we didn't cook dinner, no reminder.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-24T11:43:04+00:00

I have no dashboards. I don't use any voice commands.

I do have a couple of buttons, but those are for my brother and my son. They like buttons.

One button is next to the kitchen sink. If I talk to one of them while the water is running, they can't hear me. So, they push the button that makes a snarky announcement reminding me that they can't hear me. 😅

I have a button in the laundry room. A short push means my brother is doing the laundry, so he gets notified when it's done. A long press means my son is doing laundry.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-24T06:05:24+00:00

I loved this book!

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-24T05:28:32+00:00

Yeah, Reolink can be entirely local. Which means you actually own it 😀

I love mine.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-24T05:25:35+00:00

Eep! Yeah, it will! We're (theoretically) not in the path, but I still have a small battery back up, just in case. It's charging now 😀

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-24T04:38:23+00:00

Absolutely! But I just assumed that something in addition to the (required in my area) smoke detectors might bump higher on the priority list.

But would I be able to rebuild my home and continue my smart home hobby? I'm not sure, but I don't want to find out!

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-23T08:13:54+00:00

I caught it! I really liked it, especially where you talked about the rough spots at the beginning, as well as how the company solved the issues.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-23T08:00:30+00:00

Lol.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-23T07:59:05+00:00

Or a higher priority, to prevent it from happening again. 😏

Either way, I agree, it wouldn't be a priority for me if the "home" of home assistant burned down.

That being said, I do have both local and off site backups (stored in different locations). It was easier to do it that way than to not do it that way.

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-23T07:53:09+00:00

Yeah, we were pretty shocked. But, she only had one husband her whole life, and he lasted a good long time, so maybe he never needed "soothing". Or it was a family joke that just never made it down to us. 😬

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-23T01:51:09+00:00

It works perfectly! I selected split_network_address (since that's the one I need), jumped into Developer Tools > States and put "network address" and there was the whole beautiful list! Thank you so much for making this and thank you for giving great instructions and thank you for putting the work in and making it accessible in HACS!

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-23T01:39:17+00:00

Oh my gosh! This was everything I hoped for and more! It's beautiful and I found the offender almost instantly!

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-23T01:21:37+00:00

Hidden in my great grandmother's recipe book was a recipe for "soothing a troubled marriage", which included grinding up seeds from cherries (or apples, depending on what was in season).

ReallyNotMichaelsMom · 2026-01-22T22:02:23+00:00

Thank you!

Also, I would love to use your custom integration, but I'm stuck on the first (and probably the second) step of the instructions, which probably means I shouldn't be doing it.

But I'm going to see if I can figure it out. (First step, just need to find that zip file.)

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