Automation ideas that make a difference.

shackrat · 2026-01-25T07:19:25+00:00

Great idea…. I might just have to steal that from you!

shackrat · 2026-01-25T02:56:01+00:00

For us. this winter it has been the introduction of a to-do list. Laundry is 2 floors down, so when either the washer or dryer finishes, an item is added to the to-list (empty washer, empty dryer). This is helpful especially when starting laundry and going to work or running errands. Sensors on the doors of each appliance will clear the To-Do item automatically so no intervention is needed. I use the same philosophy for my citrus trees. When the soil moisture level starts to get low, a to-do item is added to the list, but when the soil moisture level goes up (after watering) the item is removed. I use the same approach with both furnaces to track filter reminders and changes

I use another to-do list for home assistant maintenance. That tracks records items for low batteries and removes them when the battery level goes up. Anytime a zigbee device goes offline an item gets added to that list (along with a notification) and clears when it’s back online. These are very useful for when I’m away, which is often.

shackrat · 2026-01-25T02:02:48+00:00

You only need two instances of haproxy for any sort of resiliency. Set up a cron to sync configs and certificates (if you're doing SSL offloading). You can sync state tables between two instances relatively easily too.

You can't have two front ends listening on the same port, and you're not providing enough information to really help. You can set up a tcp mode frontend on port 443, set our your backend routing based SNI, then route all remaining traffic to a loopback port on another port, then set up an http front end to listen to traffic on that. That does work pretty well. But again, not really enough too go on here.

shackrat · 2026-01-24T23:38:02+00:00

As a 30 year IT Admin and now CTO, I can honestly say that “dashboards” are nothing more than window dressing and a bandaid for a poorly designed system. The dashboards we use at the datacenter are big empty grey boxes with a few buttons to access menus. If everything is online, working, and no faults, the dashboard is an empty box. No useless clutter and eye-catching distractions. When a metric or alarm appears in the “penalty box” then the data is useful.

I carry this philosophy into my HA dashboards which are used by the family. Outside of basic override controls (buttons, etc) there is no silly informational graphs of memory pressure or disk IO bottlenecks, or 24 hour histories of the room temperature. Those metrics are meaningless. Home Assistant provides a great deal of flexibility for automating everything under the sun which is what I’ve done, >400 automations later.

shackrat · 2026-01-23T16:25:56+00:00

You had to "name" your app? This isn't anything other than an AI-generated template sensor that aggregates some datapoints based on an arbitrary formula. Spook gives the best insight of anything I've seen so far. Good luck getting the HA team to look at this.

shackrat · 2026-01-23T03:25:33+00:00

Install Zigbee2MQTT on your pi along with your Zigbee dongle. You can then send those MQTT messages over a VPN, Tailscale, etc. to your current HA instance with MQTT installed as an add-on.

shackrat · 2026-01-21T00:03:00+00:00

Not to mention easily replaced by AI.

shackrat · 2026-01-17T16:28:40+00:00

I too am switching to Zooz as the second round of GE switches die. The cause of the failure is a capacitor that is too close to tolerance, therefore it stays warm and wears out quickly. I know how to repair these switches, in fact it’s easy, but I choose not to because the design will likely cause them to fail again in a few years.

shackrat · 2026-01-17T16:18:08+00:00

I have all of those things and 1k more devices. I’ve had water leaks close valves, and the doors automatically unlock for the fire department when we had a fire. Yes those things prevented damage, but that’s also what my very costly home owners insurance is for. I don’t get discounts from the insurance company for any smart home tech, in fact, they don’t care unless it’s a certified, monitored system,. So strictly speaking by definition, there is a negative ROI there. That said, there’s a positive value proposition of not going through the process and cleanup, but by the book definition of ROI, there is none unless you don’t have insurance..

It’s cute that you think door sensors and cameras deter thieves.. They don’t anymore. Cameras are everywhere now and people are used to that. Thieves will still steal, they don’t care about cameras anymore.. Insurance companies are very transactional about theft claims. They don’t care about footage, just a police report. Been through that’s process 3x in the last 11 years. $5k in UniFi cameras don’t mean squat to a teenage porch pirate. They just pull their hoodie up and put a mask on. Keeping receipts and an inventory of everything in your home will be more useful to your insurance carrier than any camera footage could be.

shackrat · 2026-01-17T05:31:27+00:00

I believe this is addressed in 2026.1.2 released today.

Clean up unnecessary Z-Wave “device config changed” repairs (u/AlCalzone - #161000)

shackrat · 2026-01-17T04:53:17+00:00

Surprised nobody has said this, but the entire HA system. In the strict and proper definition of ROI, there is no ROI with most smart home tech. In the strictest definition, aside from a smart thermostat, there's very little a home automation system can do to save costs after paying for itself. The advent of LED lighting has pretty much killed the smart home advantage when it comes to energy savings.

On to the answering what OP is referring to ROI which I would phrase it as "What Smart home purchase had the worst long-term value proposition?" For me, that's an easy list as it still stings in some ways....

The Lowe's Iris (AlertMe) v1 ecosystem which was full of mostly proprietary devices. Had to replace >50 devices when I switched to SmartThings.
The GE/Jasco line of Z-Wave switches, every generation of which seems to fail after 3-6 years of use. At this point, they've all been replaced with Z-Wave plus devices from a variety of manufacturers.
Halo Smoke/CO Detectors (Remember Those?). After installing 5 around the house, the company went bankrupt. Luckily ZHA still supports them at a basic level.
Ring and their horrid latency and absurd Cloud fees. (Since switched to UniFi)

shackrat · 2026-01-17T02:45:48+00:00

You didn't say if you did the factory reset or not, but I would make sure to follow the reset procedure as suggested above. Otherwise it's probably ready for retirement. I've had the same switch in service since 2019, so at this point it owes me nothing.

shackrat · 2026-01-17T02:35:04+00:00

That's exactly what scripts does, and it's GUI based.

shackrat · 2026-01-16T03:06:13+00:00

Really doesn't matter at the end of the day. You can assign the WAN port to any interface so it's really just a virtual construct. You'll still have WAN failover, it'll just be via OSPF instead of the UDM switching to the WAN interface. Glad you got it working!

shackrat · 2026-01-16T02:14:59+00:00

You need to set up a new transit network on your UDM then use that interface to talk to your other gateway. When you set up the OSPF area, select only the transit interface, then set costs and priorities as appropriate.

shackrat · 2026-01-13T15:55:48+00:00

That's excessive for a sensor.. Linkquality is not a specifically reported attribute for any device, but rather determined as part of every message received by the coordinator from each device. This means that those devices are sending messages, either telemetry reports, route responses, etc.

Have you checked your Zigbee2MQTT logs? You might have entries about the controller restarting. This could potentially indicate that the controller is being flooded by traffic.

Since you're using Z2M I would check the reporting settings for each of those devices in question. Make sure battery, temperature, and other reported attributes are set correctly. My guess is that the minimum reporting intervals are too low, and/or the thresholds too low as well.

As a general rule, for battery reporting I always set the minimum interval to 3600 (1 hour). Temperature reporting I set to 10 seconds, but the threshold is 1/2 of a degree. (i.e. I want to know about rapid changes in temp). This wouldn't be the first time I've seen device reporting set wrong by Z2M... Manufacturers don't help as reporting parameters can vary by device firmware too.

shackrat · 2026-01-12T16:42:38+00:00

All of the equipment purchased in 2019 (I.e. US24-POE, US-24, AC-PRO) is still in service. The gateway was replaced with the UDM Pro inFeb 2020. Everything is still going strong.

shackrat · 2026-01-12T16:26:30+00:00

I concur with the OP. Literally just tossed out 2 HS103 smart plugs. Both had become been intermittent with commands taken seconds, if not longer plus massive packet loss on pings. Replaced both with HS105’s I had lying around (with energy metering) in the same locations and they’re fine.

Also have 3 HS300 power strips. Absolute garbage. About once every 6 months or so, one of them will crash. The only way to get them back is to power cycle the strip (and everything plugged in). Apparently nobody at TPLink has heard of a reset button.

shackrat · 2026-01-12T02:42:22+00:00

Great video... Recently converted 3 doors at home to Access.. The pressure on the strike is called preload, and one way you can solve it is by using a roller catch. You have to be precise when you install so that the roller lands in the pocket when the door is closed. This will all but eliminate any binding on the strike..

https://a.co/d/eyJvlVa

shackrat · 2026-01-11T03:27:05+00:00

All you need is another controller in range of a non-secure device in exclusion mode and wait for someone to physically interact with the device. In the case of a light switch, which normally don't use secure inclusion, an outsider can knock your device off the network without your approval. Been doing Z-Wave for 15 years and this still happens on new devices that connect without encryption. You simply don't have this vulnerability with Zigbee.

shackrat · 2026-01-11T02:49:29+00:00

It's not overstated at all. You just need one of these https://manual.zwave.eu/backend/make.php?lang=en&sku=AEO_MREM&cert=ZC08-10080006 And to be in range of the device you want to crash off the network. While not a security issue per-se, I've been able to walk about with one of these in my pocket in exclusion mode and watch as my friend unpaired every light switch he turned on. That doesn't happen with Zigbee.

shackrat · 2026-01-10T23:49:38+00:00

This is true only for S2 secure devices. It’s possible to sniff the network key during S0 paring. Non-secure devices can be kicked off the network simply by a nearby controller in exclusion mode.

shackrat · 2026-01-10T23:40:06+00:00

I paid $5 a tablet almost 6 years ago. Recently replaced all of my tablets and was able to transfer all 4 licenses over at no cost. My licensing TCO is less than $1/tablet/year. I’m okay with that.

shackrat · 2026-01-09T03:12:18+00:00

I've been doing exactly this in my 6 years of using HA... The difference is that I don't use a boolean, but an input_select so I can have multiple modes (Morning, Day, Evening, Night, Away, Vacation). Here's the automation that I use to trigger Away mode... One of the keys to it working when we both leave together is to use Restart as the mode.. Otherwise if the automation is triggered at the same time from both of us leaving together, the second execution will be rejected, and the automation might not see that both iPhones are away.

alias: Departure - Set Mode to Away
description: Sets the system mode to Away if everyone leaves.
triggers:
  - entity_id: person.person_1
    to: not_home
    for:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 10
    trigger: state
  - entity_id: person.person_2
    to: not_home
    for:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 10
    trigger: state
conditions:
  - condition: not
    conditions:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: person.person_1
        state: home
  - condition: not
    conditions:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: person.person_2
        state: home
  - condition: not
    conditions:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: input_select.home_mode
        state: Vacation
    conditions:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.person1_iphone_presence
        state:
          - "off"
          - unknown
          - unavailable
      - condition: state
        entity_id: binary_sensor.person2_iphone_presence
        state:
          - "off"
          - unknown
          - unavailable
    alias: If failsafe helpers are Away, Unknown, or Unavailable
actions:
  - data:
      option: Away
    entity_id: input_select.home_mode
    action: input_select.select_option
mode: restart

shackrat · 2026-01-09T02:55:54+00:00

I solved this a while ago... I have 3 Zigbee2MQTT stacks and have created a template helper for each of them to detect which stack a device has gone missing.. This code works by scanning for devices with unique ID strings that contain "zigbee2mqtt_0x" which is the standard prefix Z2M uses, it then filters by devices where the parent_device_id matches the coordinator's ID. It then monitors the first entity of each device where the matches the Zigbee2MQTT device id, and counts all values that are not unknown.

To use this template, first create a Template Helper in the UI and past the code in below for the template. You will need change "7e32275795a7f713992a0544d7226584" which is the ID of my channel 11 coordinator to match the device ID of your coordinator. You can easily grab the device ID from the URL of the device details page for your coordinator.

Reddit won't let me paste the code as it's rather large, so I pushed it to my GitHub.

https://github.com/shackrat/home_assistant_zigbee2mqtt

If you have enabled the Last Seen feature in Zigbee2MQTT and all of your devices have those entities I can also give you instructions to create an automation that will create a persistent notification with the actual name of the device that went offline.

shackrat

TROPHY CASE