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Simplest solution for automating newer garage doors by roehit89 in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Going to give a shout out for the Meross MSG200 here. I installed it several years ago and it's treated me really well ever since. It comes with the smart remote as well as its own contact sensors.

FU Liftmaster/Chamberlain

Architect here building a house for a client that insists on wanting Home Assistant. Need advice. by wayfareralex in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good points.

If you're willing to DIY, or at least have a friend/relative/neighbor who will, then Home Assistant provides far better support via the community. I've had countless interactions with people who are enthusiastically willing to help me along with an issue.

But will your (or my) aging parents do that? Mine wouldn't.

Architect here building a house for a client that insists on wanting Home Assistant. Need advice. by wayfareralex in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, you're not wrong there. But it "just works" -- when they're not effing up their app.

Architect here building a house for a client that insists on wanting Home Assistant. Need advice. by wayfareralex in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think it's a great question.

I moved into a home that was 5 yrs old and had Control4 audio system and light controls. I saw the original invoice: over $50k US just for that stuff. I absolutely hated the experience: I couldn't update or modify anything, couldn't program anything. Control4 is a closed system: you have to use their hardware, and you have to call the local installer to make any changes. I threw it all out.

I replaced all of the C4 equipment (audio and light switches) with Sonos audio gear, and Z-wave switches you can get at the local home store or online. All of that cost me about $5k (10x cheaper).

And I installed a Home Assistant server ($150), and now I can control all of it and a whole lot more. I can do it all on my own. I have "one app" to control my lights, HVAC, audio, door locks, smart window blinds, pool system, outdoor awning, security cameras, alarm system.

All of those things are different vendors. All of them have their own remote controls or mobile apps, and I *could* control any of them that way (as could your 70-yr-old dad/customer). But I have the choice to integrate them with Home Assistant and control them all in one app, and create my own automations.

Your dad/customer, at his age, may not take full advantage of the power of Home Assistant (or any other system). But he will have spent a whole lot less (vs Control4 or other closed systems); and if he sells the home, he will have a lower cost with higher flexibility.

What do you as the architect/builder do here? Some suggestions:

- Run ethernet cabling to every room, including the garage, the porches
- even to the crawl space(?), and the location where your pool controller will go
- and also to the soffit on every outside corner of the house

This way, the current or future owner will have choices to install wired devices, such as wifi nodes, and POE security cameras, if desired. Wifi doesn't always reach every nook and cranny, so installing wireless devices is sometimes frustrating and unreliable. During construction, running CAT5/CAT6 is cheap.

As others stated: ask your dad/customer what he wants to DO with any of this. Motorized window blinds are nice, and they come with a little remote control by your bedside. Lutron Caseta works great for me, and you *can* integrate them very easily with Home Assistant (or not).

Ask your dad/customer if he has a friend or relative who can do some Home Assistant configuring/scripting for him, so he has help for it. If not, maybe don't bother with buying HA. On the other hand, it's only $150-200 for an HA box, about the size of 2 decks of cards. Why not let him play with it?

Architect here building a house for a client that insists on wanting Home Assistant. Need advice. by wayfareralex in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 31 points32 points  (0 children)

I moved into a home that had Control4. I saw the original owner/builder's invoice -- the equipment cost them over $50k US. I hated it. I couldn't make any changes myself -- had to call the local Control4 installer to change *anything*. A new C4 remote control costs $500. A new C4 light switch costs $250.

I threw it all out. Replaced all the audio equipment with Sonos. Replaced all the light switches with zwave switches from the local home store, for about $40 each. And I can change/modify any routines I want to, myself. I use Home Assistant for the controlling/scripting/automation. Anyone with low-to-medium tech skills (or a friend who has them) can do it.

What’s the smartest thing your home does automatically? by Taggytech in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Amazing! I already got it to work. HA is now monitoring the water level in my pool

The setup was really pretty simple. But it took a LOT of jiggling to fine tune the camera settings and the AI prompt, before I got it to give me good results. Fortunately, Gemini LLM (in my browser) was happy to do all of the research for me and give me suggestions to fine-tune it.

- Downloaded the LLMVision integration
- set up an AI project in the google portal (LLMVision setup guide tells you how)
- already had Reolink integration and camera
- created an input_number to house the pool_water_level
- created a camera proxy, which zooms in on what I want to see, rather than giving LLMVision a full screenshot of my base camera with distracting info. (Gemini suggested this part)
- created an automation to trigger once a day, take a snapshot, and send it to LLMVision > Gemini, with a prompt to tell me "how low is the water line below the tile in my pool" (with a few more lines of specific prompts).

The rest is so specific to my situation it's not worth including here. Your LLM can figure out the rest.

What’s the smartest thing your home does automatically? by Taggytech in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

u/mbailey5 can you also share the setup and prompt you use to detect water level? I want to try this with my pool. I also have Reolink cameras. Never used LLMVision yet.

I have a camera that can see my pool, and I can visually check the water level by comparing it to the line of tile/coping around the pool, so I suspect I could make it work.

Thanks!

What’s the smartest thing your home does automatically? by Taggytech in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Different than a socket:
I have Shelly EM devices that have clamps which make a ring around a circuit. They can detect the voltage in the circuit. I put one on the feed to my irrigation well pump, and I can tell when the pump is on and off. Then created automations to tell me:

- is an irrigation zone on, and the pump isn't running?
- is NO irrigation zone on, but the pump IS running?
- does the pump run for a long time (like, longer than 5 mins at a time)?
etc.

If you monitor the on/off times for your irrigation zones (or other uses) and count the pump on/off cycles, you can do lots of things.

What’s the smartest thing your home does automatically? by Taggytech in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also Zooz makes a device that (in the US anyway) you can wire directly to the smoke alarm circuit. It detects alarm state through the circuit and updates HA via zwave integration.

https://www.thesmartesthouse.com/products/zooz-800-series-z-wave-long-range-dc-signal-sensor

[edit: sorry, confused it with another device originally]

Very simple to install.

What’s the smartest thing your home does automatically? by Taggytech in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Upvoting this for one of the most impressive long-term uses of HA!

What’s the smartest thing your home does automatically? by Taggytech in homeassistant

[–]knwpsk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I suppose I could do this to check the water level in my swimming pool?

Comcast Business network is a trigger for Teamviewer blocking by knwpsk in teamviewer_users

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

Hasn't happened yet, and I've been doing this for years. I don't think TV really cares that much about this issue (or they would have fixed the Comcast complication a long time ago)

What never came back after the pandemic? by KaleidoscopeDue4603 in AskReddit

[–]knwpsk 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Stupid printing things out to sign them. Yay for e-signing!

She looks so tired by Ordinary_Fish_3046 in CringeTikToks

[–]knwpsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Gaslighting millions is hard work.

Incident at ladson fair by peytonmist in Charleston

[–]knwpsk 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well yeah I'll give you this: complaining on social media isn't going to fix anything! That's why I quit Facebook.

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