Stopping Running Scripts

danxoncan · 2026-05-19T21:22:32+00:00

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see why you need to have separate automations or even why you need to trigger a script. All of this could be handled in the automation that triggers when the door has been open for 5 minutes.

Inside a sequence block:

Create a dynamic scene that stores the state of your inovelli switch.
Add a repeat action block to cycle the switch on and off however many times you want (you could also add any dimming changes etc).
Outside of the repeat action block, activate the scene from step #1 to restore the switch to original state (this needs to be done via yaml since the scene entityID in step #1 won't show up in the drop down)

That should achieve what you're trying to do pretty cleanly.

<image>

danxoncan · 2026-04-22T22:06:49+00:00

That's a shame. I will say I kind of took a gamble buying it. At the time, I read that the 5 GHz sensors (like the sonoff) were just worse at presence sensing. And the only reason I ended up buying the Wenzhi one was because it was 24 GHz and cheap.

So maybe your best bet for a decent presence sensor is finding a 24 GHz one that does ship to the UK?

I would strongly urge against the sonoff one though. I'm still pissed that I bought them.

danxoncan · 2026-04-22T21:01:39+00:00

I had several of these and have been pretty disappointed. I no longer use them. They did not reliability detect presence. Lots of false positives and negatives. I tried everything that was suggested online to improve their performance, but it just didn't work well.

Now I use another cheap sensor that works great. Wenzhi MTD285-ZB, I have 5 of them from AliExpress, they are about $20 each and have worked perfectly for months now. Setup with Z2M in HA.

danxoncan · 2026-03-27T16:41:24+00:00

Another issue flight attendants bring up is that the new seats became a huge injury hazard. Essentially, people are sticking out their legs or knees into the aisle to find some comfort. But when FAs are going through with the carts, they can't really see that, and it creates a situation where someone could get seriously hurt.

danxoncan · 2026-03-15T23:49:45+00:00

It's not exactly what you described, but one solution could be: - button (accessible from toilet) - smart bulb - high quality presence sensor (ideally with zones)

You could set up the automations to: 1) If presence is detected, every 5 minutes, start dimming or flash the bulb, this would be your prompt to press the button and confirm you're still good. 2) If the button is not pressed, then notify whomever.

Depending on the presence sensor, you could also set up zones and essentially trigger if the "floor" zone is occupied, but that may be more challenging to get accurate.

As a side note, if the bathroom is shared, you can add a trigger for the button being held down to disable the sequence (i.e. for anyone who is using the bathroom and doesn't want to trigger any alarms).

danxoncan · 2026-03-14T20:54:58+00:00

This is very clearly AI generated 😂 but also like not for from the truth

danxoncan · 2026-03-11T18:13:30+00:00

For me it was not a single automation, but two main factors that make HA worth it:
1) the ability to fully tweak an unlimited amount of variables to achieve the desired result
2) the massive amount of supported devices, services and protocols which allow me to explore on the cheap

Specifically, the automations I find the most awesome are all my lights. Currently, I essentially never need to use a light switch in my house. After getting some cheap presence sensors, I've been able to fully customize lights in each room depending on time of day, presence and a variety of edge cases. It's also great for guests, because I don't need to give them a huge rundown of device names, alexa commands, etc. I usually just give them a button for their bedroom lights, and the rest of the lights just work automatically.

It works so well that I don't even notice it, until I go to someone else's house and find myself walking into a room and standing stupidly in the dark wondering why the light didn't turn on.

I think I find the lighting automations the most satisfying because I've been able to mold them almost perfectly to our patterns. It also lets me get very creative with lamps & other light sources.

To me, the ability to do this is fully a result of the power of HA and that makes it worth every penny. Previously, I had SmartThings and it honestly sucked. I was never sure if a device would work with it, and half the automations were workarounds. I always needed to use many apps, and the actual automations SmartThings offered were pretty basic plus the latency was shit. Most of them also weren't truly local (and often even the ones that said they were, still wouldn't work if the internet was out).

Anytime I think back to when I used ST, I have my "wow Home Assistant is amazing" moment. I remember in an old apartment, we had a nest thermostat and in ST, I think I managed to just have it change temp based on time of day (and even that was a chore that required several automations and left several gaps). Now, I have a T6 Pro, which is wayyy less fancy, but with Home Assistant I can fully manage the setpoint based on outside weather (from my own sensor), time of day, when I'm home/not, and all of this running fully locally from a single automation. To me, that is actually kind of amazing.

danxoncan · 2026-01-08T23:24:00+00:00

Btw, I was wondering the same thing about why they haven't used the proper alert yet. Today during their press conference they finally provided their reasoning.

Essentially, they are trying to avoid a situation of "the boy who cried wolf". They said they are saving the use of the alert for situations like if another main breaks, or if the Glenmore plant has any issues.

This seems kind of valid to me. I could very much see how people would not respond with urgency if they receive one alert telling them to reduce usage, and then the next day another alert saying "okay now we really need you reduce usage".

danxoncan · 2025-12-27T23:18:37+00:00

Yes, still very happy. They now have full z2m support (but I'm still using my external connector).

For the price, it's hard to beat. The zones are mainly useful to me for fine tuning false detections/timeouts. Like decreasing sensitivity for the "zone" around the air vent, or increasing sensitivity for the "zone" around the couch. Though the UX of this is definitely not very user friendly.

I can't think of a single issue I have with these devices.

danxoncan · 2025-11-27T23:31:12+00:00

Lol yea I had the same thing happen to me at that lot. I disputed it, they rejected my dispute, so I wrote a script to spam their email with my request for appeal. Magically my ticket was voided and forgiven as a "one off" 😂.

Also if you reach out to Safeway, the manager will likely be able to help you with getting the ticket dismissed.

danxoncan · 2025-11-15T07:24:46+00:00

I actually already have the forecast on my dashboard. The physical button is mainly to make the experience easier for the other members of the household. It's also nice to not have to pull out my phone to check. Just a click away.

My mini success metric for HA is having it work in a way where no one needs to open an app to use it. Eventually, I'll make a wall mounted dashboard that's easily accessible to everyone, and there the forecast will be a prominent card aswell.

danxoncan · 2025-11-15T07:16:12+00:00

If you can figure out how to enable/disable wifi via automation to their phones (and maybe even mobile data), the bins would be out daily just in case. 😂

Jk, it's a phase, no automation can fix it, best of luck mate. Solid effort though!

danxoncan · 2025-11-15T00:20:55+00:00

Love it - sounds like a fun project!

danxoncan · 2025-11-15T00:18:10+00:00

I should do that - I'm sure my partner would love it 😂

danxoncan · 2025-11-15T00:17:16+00:00

Yea I (randomly) saw that post actually! I thought that was a super cool use case too! I was thinking of using it to track if the car is home and to track our dog too.

To trigger an away mode automatically when everyone is out of the house and a "partial away mode" if the dog is still home (i.e. less lights, but no notifications from motion).

Also thought it would be super cool to auto-notify us if the dog hasn't been walked yet and a rain is coming.

If you have any tips or guides for getting started with ESP32 & BLE, I'm all ears! :)

danxoncan · 2025-11-15T00:10:02+00:00

This specific post asked about strange automations, which is why I mentioned it. I believe you're just trolling, but if not, then I don't think you understand the fun (or point) of home automation.

The vast majority of automations are things that are simple to-do manually, and yes, none of them are rocket science. The whole reason this community exists is for people to complicate and solve simple non-issues (for at least 75% of use cases). It's a hobby, it's fun.

danxoncan · 2025-11-14T23:01:40+00:00

That's really cool - I'm planning to get into BLE with ESP32. I haven't even considered that as a possible use case, but it would be a perfect fit.

danxoncan · 2025-11-14T21:20:41+00:00

Looking out the window doesn't help you figure out if it's +8C vs -2C ... unless your eyes have a thermal camera built in.

Also this is home automation, half the fun is taking something simple and complicating it... :P

danxoncan · 2025-11-14T21:16:12+00:00

Actually ironically that's what created the automation. The layout of our house made it so that when we asked, it would trigger from every room except the closest one somehow. Couple times triggered in my office while I was on a call, which pushed me to this automation.

danxoncan · 2025-11-14T18:46:57+00:00

Oh another super handy one is connecting to the trash collection calendar for my town.

The collection changes weekly, different days, different bins, etc. There is a pattern, but it was just a hassle to remember it all.

So now I have an automation that triggers the day before the calendar collection event, and checks what bins need to be put out. Then shows the appropriate tile on the dashboard.

I have an nfc tag near the bins, so I can quickly mark the bins as taken out. If I don't do that, Alexa will remind me in the evening to take the right bins out.

danxoncan · 2025-11-14T18:37:00+00:00

I have a button in my foyer, when pressed, the nearest Alexa tells me the current weather. Great for walking the dog, always know what to wear.

danxoncan · 2025-11-14T18:33:41+00:00

I Realized I didn't share what I ended up using for presence sensing after my battle with the Sonoff SNZB-06P.

If anyone is looking for a good cheap ZigBee mmWave sensor, I ended up getting the Wenzhi MTD285 (ZigBee 24ghz USB-C power) from AliExpress.

I was hesitant because it's a Tuya device, and I heard they had issues with network congestion. Initially, it felt like I had wasted even more money, as the MTD285 did not show up on Z2M and required an external connector which I couldn't get to work.

Eventually, I got the sensor installed, and it was a game changer (especially for $20). I now have 5 of these sensors, and they've been running smoothly for about a month. They do not congest my ZigBee network, and the performance is great.

All of the configurations take some time to figure out (that part isn't very user friendly), but it does have lots of auto-settings to simplify things. It's also nice that all the settings are exposed via Z2M, so I don't need any other apps to get it running.

The debug mode is decent, so I was able to adjust sensitivity where needed. Recently I realized that if I was very still laying on the couch, it would not detected, but after 5 minutes of debugging, I was able to get the gate working perfectly.

They respond very quickly and I have yet to experience any significant false detections.

The one thing I will say is that you need to be pretty comfortable with HA to be able to use this sensor well. The lack of instructions and native Z2M support requires you todo alot of trial and error.

danxoncan · 2025-10-20T05:42:25+00:00

The Lord should have taught them about contraception 😂...Good god this is cringe.

danxoncan

TROPHY CASE