Posting this on behalf of @techyspeaking. Here’s a Home Assistant blueprint to check out which might make this easier! community.home-assistant.io/t/track-repetitive-tasks-with-nfc-tags/678736
For the dashboard, you can use a Conditional panel so it only displays items that require maintenance and not anything that’s already been maintained recently.
@@FutureSmartHomeIf I can find a flexible NFC tag, I might try putting it behind the mesh of my nest audio and then using an automation with spot-cast to mimic the handoff feature from homepods.
I love this idea! Starting to implement this now. One tweak i made to this is that I created number entities for each task, so I can dynamically change the task frequency easily in the dashboard if need be. Plus it gives context to the user how frequently it's currently supposed to be done.
LOVE this Automation. Thank you for this wonderful Idea. I have copied your work and have benefitted greatly. Spousal acceptance factor of this automation is expected eventually. :)
I did something slightly different: when I scan a tag I actually set a datetime object to the next date I have to clean it. A good (simple) example is the cat water fountain. When I scan the tag I set the next date on which I'll have to clean it (which I've now set to the first saturday after at least 5 weeks). On or after that date I start nagging myself every hour, but only when I'm actually home and during 20:00 and 00:00, which is when I typically have time to do this. This way I reduce the number of automations and I also can send myself a notification on the next date I'll have to clean it. The vacuum cleaner is a bit more complicated because I don't want it to function when we're at home and it has to do at least 2 passes before it starts notifying me that I have to clean it so it does work with other logic. The good thing though is that when I clean it, it will do a spot clean (some dust always falls on the floor while cleaning it) and then it will return to base (and marked it as clean so that the following pass it doesn't send a notification to my wife saying "the vacuum cleaner can't operate because your lazy husband didn't clean it in time"). Like the idea of other filters though! Going to implement them :)
i use these as well, have one on my trash can (used super glue for that one) and in calendar in HA i have it tell me the day before to take out the trash can. If i remember before google tells me then when i take it out and scan the NFC tag it doesn't remind me. The next day after the trash has been picked up i have it remind me again to take it back to its normal place, and again if i remember before he reminds me i scan the NFC tag and he doesn't remind me. Also have one in my car to arm and dis-arm the alarmo (great HACS integration by the way) alarm system.
I should really do this for my trash as well. Didn’t think to super glue but I think I’ll have to do that! What do you use for keeping track of trash day? I’m thinking of pulling in a Google calendar I maintain as my town doesn’t publish one.
Great video! I know you mentioned it but think the todo integration would work will combined with your automation. This would give your smarthome the ability to create and accept ad-hoc todos that can persist.
Great video. I have something similar to remind me to clean my Roombas. Every Friday at 5pm one helper is set to True, and when a person is detected in the living room Alexa notify "Roomba need to be cleaned", the notification will stop for one hour, even if a person walks in. In the HA dashboard I have a button to reset the cleaning helper back to false when the job is done. Maybe I could get and glue NFC tag in my Roombas and scan them when the cleaning is done to reset the helper.
Great idea! I run Home Assistant/Homebridge/HomeKit too, and I've always used Apple's Reminders App, calendar reminders, and scheduled emails to remind me of this kind of stuff. Bringing it all into my Home Assistant geekiness is a fantastic way to not only track these tasks but inject some fun into it. Not sure about the NFC element, though. I have NEVER had much luck with NFC, at least on Apple devices (I've had better luck with Android, but I'm back to all Apple gear now). I have a pack of NFC tags, though (actually, the exact same pack you have), so I might give it another go. Thanks for the idea!
Cool video! I have those exact tags which I use for storing a link to my Google drive that has Tool Manuals. So if I need to read the manual, say for my DeWalt planer, I just scan the tag and the tool manual in PDF form comes up! Now that is just a direct link to my Google drive, but this is different as it goes to your Home Assistant. My problem is that I have Hubitat... I need to figure out how to do this for Hubitat!!!
This is great and will be a really nice way to try and get some better equality between me and my fiancée in terms of household tags. Would love to see a tutorial on how to get which person is using the NFC tag and how to keep track of who has been doing what etc. I tied a NFC tag to the cat litter box scoop and have set up so that scanning the tag will change who last emptied the litter box, but I'd love to also have it time stamped and aim to set up reminders like you did as well. This is literally (or maybe litter-ally huehuhe) perfect for ADHD people like myself, thanks for the video!
Awesome! Glad you like it. The way that I might differentiate is based on either the home assistant user that was signed in and captured the NFC tag or I’d make a different NFC event that fires within the shortcuts app on iOS for each person. I think you should be able to do it all within home assistant though.
@@FutureSmartHome that’s the thing, I’m on iOS and my fiancée is on Android. I may be looking in the wrong place, but where can I make a basic if-statement that checks the user that triggers the tag?
@IronMeDen1 I looked around online and you might be able to do something like this trigger.to_state.context.user_id Look to see if you can grab the context. Might require some template code.
Great idea and great video! I was inspired and followed your lead. Im having a problem in that the the counter fires when it exceeds the maintenance threshold but subsequent days executions, where the counter continues to be incremented do not fire and therefore no further notifications beyond the initial one are initiated. What might i be doing wrong? TIA for your thoughts!... Don
Glad you are giving it a shot! Things I’d check: is the counter actually incrementing each day? If so, the bug is probably in your notifications code, and I’d bet it’s maybe only looking for when the count is equal to the threshold not greater than the threshold. Maybe give that a shot!
I feel like you need more reminders! Change out the batteries on the smoke detector/CO detector (if battery powered) Change out the air filter on the air conditioner Mow the yard (would have to be more complex based on season) Add jet dry to dishwasher Change out fridge water filter Interesting video. Also what's 'Move Peleton' - is that just to move and clean around or?
I was waiting for someone to ask this! Smoke detectors are nest and hard wired, so I’m covered there! Air filters on the AC for sure, it’s on my list before summer. Mowing the lawn is a bit tricky, I agree. Fridge filter is on a subscription auto-purchase from Amazon. Jet dry I hadn’t thought of! And moving the peloton, we realized it was actually digging through the rubber mat we have under it and scuffing up the floor! So now we cycle it so it doesn’t do that 😂
Not using this for maintenance…yet but I have something similar setup for the amount of batteries I have remaining for sensors. Also I can’t remember seeing how you get it to keep reminding you if you haven’t done it, did I just miss it or something?
So, the daily maintenance notification automation just runs every day and sends notifications if the counter is above its target number of days. If it isn’t completed the counter keeps ticking up and the next day at noon notifications go out again.
Ahh, I see what you mean. I am sure there is a way to do that. But it would probably be a Home Assistant calendar integration. The other thing to consider is to have a duplicate list of maintenance tasks that are updated only once when you scan the tag. Then the modified date is when you updated it last. You might also be able to do this with an automation last ran date if you have one automation for each tag. There’s probably a cleaner way to do this, but that’s what came to mind.
Nice video. Is there a reason why you didn’t use the tag functionality built in Home Assistant? The only thing I could think of is because you have to have the Home Assistant app installed on your phone as I noticed it will always open the app when you scan a tag. The advantage of using it though is that you can scan the tag from any device and you can distinguish, which device scanned the tag.
It’s been a while since I made the decision to not use the HA tags functionality, but I believe, by using the shortcuts app it can also run in the background and doesn’t need to open up the HA app. That way I just scan and move on. I think that was the reason.
@@FutureSmartHome It does prompt me to open the app, but I don't mind that. Do you have other members of the house performing these tasks? If so, how do you manage the shortcuts on all the different phones? That's why I wonder if the prompt is a better solution (for me). By the way....great idea overall. I was looking for this exact thing.
This is a great idea. Curious if a home assistant wizard out there could tell me a way to do this, but also take the list of reminders and highlight some, maybe in the list down in the video or a separate card, for a more visual reminder? "If range filter is greater than 5 days past due, turn task red." Etc
You could also use a double tap on a smart button like the Aqara mini switch. Or a flic switch or something. You could also configure the UI to allow you to reset with a virtual button.
Days since dryer lint cleaned = 70? You should really clean that thing every single time you use the dryer (unless you mean a deep clean, and not just cleaning the lint trap) Also, NFC scanners are on the back of phones, so yeah, pushing the top against it like you do at 1:57 won't work very well.
Posting this on behalf of @techyspeaking. Here’s a Home Assistant blueprint to check out which might make this easier! community.home-assistant.io/t/track-repetitive-tasks-with-nfc-tags/678736
For the dashboard, you can use a Conditional panel so it only displays items that require maintenance and not anything that’s already been maintained recently.
A great point! Conditionals didn’t exist when I made this video.
Having the NFC tags reset the counter is quite clever, I might need to pick some of those up.
Thanks so much! I like them. Some times it takes longer than I would like to scan, but I think that’s an iOS limitation rather than these tags.
@@FutureSmartHomeIf I can find a flexible NFC tag, I might try putting it behind the mesh of my nest audio and then using an automation with spot-cast to mimic the handoff feature from homepods.
GAME CHANGER. Absolutely love the way you've implemented the counter!
💪 thank you!
I love this idea! Starting to implement this now. One tweak i made to this is that I created number entities for each task, so I can dynamically change the task frequency easily in the dashboard if need be. Plus it gives context to the user how frequently it's currently supposed to be done.
Great idea!
I'm one of your subscibers, and you started new, but do not stop, as your videos are innovative, keep on going my friend.
I appreciate that!
Love the NFC reset! Going to try that with the kids emptying the dishwasher
Excellent idea.
I'm so glad you created this Video, I've implemented your suggestions. The Blueprint is not 100%, so your steps are awesome.
Thanks!
LOVE this Automation. Thank you for this wonderful Idea. I have copied your work and have benefitted greatly. Spousal acceptance factor of this automation is expected eventually. :)
💪
I did something slightly different: when I scan a tag I actually set a datetime object to the next date I have to clean it. A good (simple) example is the cat water fountain. When I scan the tag I set the next date on which I'll have to clean it (which I've now set to the first saturday after at least 5 weeks). On or after that date I start nagging myself every hour, but only when I'm actually home and during 20:00 and 00:00, which is when I typically have time to do this. This way I reduce the number of automations and I also can send myself a notification on the next date I'll have to clean it. The vacuum cleaner is a bit more complicated because I don't want it to function when we're at home and it has to do at least 2 passes before it starts notifying me that I have to clean it so it does work with other logic. The good thing though is that when I clean it, it will do a spot clean (some dust always falls on the floor while cleaning it) and then it will return to base (and marked it as clean so that the following pass it doesn't send a notification to my wife saying "the vacuum cleaner can't operate because your lazy husband didn't clean it in time").
Like the idea of other filters though! Going to implement them :)
Haha! I love this
Love this idea so much I shouted it out in my newest video coming out tomorrow! Thanks for the idea!
Sweet! Thank you! I’ll be sure to check it out!
i use these as well, have one on my trash can (used super glue for that one) and in calendar in HA i have it tell me the day before to take out the trash can. If i remember before google tells me then when i take it out and scan the NFC tag it doesn't remind me. The next day after the trash has been picked up i have it remind me again to take it back to its normal place, and again if i remember before he reminds me i scan the NFC tag and he doesn't remind me. Also have one in my car to arm and dis-arm the alarmo (great HACS integration by the way) alarm system.
I should really do this for my trash as well. Didn’t think to super glue but I think I’ll have to do that! What do you use for keeping track of trash day? I’m thinking of pulling in a Google calendar I maintain as my town doesn’t publish one.
@@FutureSmartHome I use google calendar. The one built into HA. Works great then you add a automation to do whatever you want.
Great video! I know you mentioned it but think the todo integration would work will combined with your automation. This would give your smarthome the ability to create and accept ad-hoc todos that can persist.
Thank you! Yeah I need to dig in to that more. I built this one a long time ago, time for a refresh!
Oh I wonder if I could then share that to-do with my Alexa to do list which our family use.
Great video. I have something similar to remind me to clean my Roombas. Every Friday at 5pm one helper is set to True, and when a person is detected in the living room Alexa notify "Roomba need to be cleaned", the notification will stop for one hour, even if a person walks in. In the HA dashboard I have a button to reset the cleaning helper back to false when the job is done. Maybe I could get and glue NFC tag in my Roombas and scan them when the cleaning is done to reset the helper.
Love this!! Didn’t think about audio based alerts.
Great idea! I run Home Assistant/Homebridge/HomeKit too, and I've always used Apple's Reminders App, calendar reminders, and scheduled emails to remind me of this kind of stuff. Bringing it all into my Home Assistant geekiness is a fantastic way to not only track these tasks but inject some fun into it. Not sure about the NFC element, though. I have NEVER had much luck with NFC, at least on Apple devices (I've had better luck with Android, but I'm back to all Apple gear now). I have a pack of NFC tags, though (actually, the exact same pack you have), so I might give it another go. Thanks for the idea!
Give it a go. You may be disappointed as they are slow, but it’s not terrible and I really like the physical reminder and ability to not open an app.
very clever. NFC tags (and QR codes) are tech that is underrated.
also I subscribed to you because you used Buckaroo Banzai theme song!! 😊
Wherever you go, there you are
@@FutureSmartHome love that quote. can't argue with that logic either 😆
I feel like NFC tags don’t have any benefits over QRcodes that are much cheaper (could we say free?).
@Clem.E at least for me, Not opening an app is a nice benefit. Can scan from Lock Screen, and unlike QR I don’t need to use camera.
Also a QR is public. NFC is private (ie, you have to "pair" the tag to the task)
Cool video! I have those exact tags which I use for storing a link to my Google drive that has Tool Manuals. So if I need to read the manual, say for my DeWalt planer, I just scan the tag and the tool manual in PDF form comes up! Now that is just a direct link to my Google drive, but this is different as it goes to your Home Assistant. My problem is that I have Hubitat... I need to figure out how to do this for Hubitat!!!
Very cool! Good luck!
That's clever
I suscribe your Intro is the best intro i Never seen
Thanks!
This is great and will be a really nice way to try and get some better equality between me and my fiancée in terms of household tags. Would love to see a tutorial on how to get which person is using the NFC tag and how to keep track of who has been doing what etc. I tied a NFC tag to the cat litter box scoop and have set up so that scanning the tag will change who last emptied the litter box, but I'd love to also have it time stamped and aim to set up reminders like you did as well. This is literally (or maybe litter-ally huehuhe) perfect for ADHD people like myself, thanks for the video!
Awesome! Glad you like it. The way that I might differentiate is based on either the home assistant user that was signed in and captured the NFC tag or I’d make a different NFC event that fires within the shortcuts app on iOS for each person. I think you should be able to do it all within home assistant though.
@@FutureSmartHome that’s the thing, I’m on iOS and my fiancée is on Android. I may be looking in the wrong place, but where can I make a basic if-statement that checks the user that triggers the tag?
@IronMeDen1 I looked around online and you might be able to do something like this trigger.to_state.context.user_id
Look to see if you can grab the context. Might require some template code.
@@FutureSmartHome thanks for taking the time to reply, looking forward to more of your videos, you just got another subscriber 😁
@IronMeDen1 of course!! Thank you for watching and subscribing.
Great idea and great video! I was inspired and followed your lead. Im having a problem in that the the counter fires when it exceeds the maintenance threshold but subsequent days executions, where the counter continues to be incremented do not fire and therefore no further notifications beyond the initial one are initiated. What might i be doing wrong? TIA for your thoughts!... Don
Glad you are giving it a shot! Things I’d check: is the counter actually incrementing each day? If so, the bug is probably in your notifications code, and I’d bet it’s maybe only looking for when the count is equal to the threshold not greater than the threshold. Maybe give that a shot!
We do something very similar to this to keep track of who/if fed the dog. 🐶
Smart! We don’t have a dog (yet) but that’s definitely on my mind.
I feel like you need more reminders!
Change out the batteries on the smoke detector/CO detector (if battery powered)
Change out the air filter on the air conditioner
Mow the yard (would have to be more complex based on season)
Add jet dry to dishwasher
Change out fridge water filter
Interesting video. Also what's 'Move Peleton' - is that just to move and clean around or?
I was waiting for someone to ask this! Smoke detectors are nest and hard wired, so I’m covered there! Air filters on the AC for sure, it’s on my list before summer. Mowing the lawn is a bit tricky, I agree. Fridge filter is on a subscription auto-purchase from Amazon. Jet dry I hadn’t thought of!
And moving the peloton, we realized it was actually digging through the rubber mat we have under it and scuffing up the floor! So now we cycle it so it doesn’t do that 😂
@@FutureSmartHome haha nice!
Not using this for maintenance…yet but I have something similar setup for the amount of batteries I have remaining for sensors. Also I can’t remember seeing how you get it to keep reminding you if you haven’t done it, did I just miss it or something?
So, the daily maintenance notification automation just runs every day and sends notifications if the counter is above its target number of days. If it isn’t completed the counter keeps ticking up and the next day at noon notifications go out again.
@@FutureSmartHome ah yes, my bad. I forgot about that bit 🤣 apologies
@michaelthompson657 no worries! Thanks for watching!!
@@FutureSmartHome no problem! Thanks for the video!
Is it possible to output when you scan the tags into a calendar? I’d love a visual representation of when they’re scanned
You can have an alert popup when the automation runs. Mine just vibrates. All configured through shortcuts app.
@@FutureSmartHome I mean like an actual calendar so I can visually see “on March 1st I changed the air handler filter”
Ahh, I see what you mean. I am sure there is a way to do that. But it would probably be a Home Assistant calendar integration. The other thing to consider is to have a duplicate list of maintenance tasks that are updated only once when you scan the tag. Then the modified date is when you updated it last. You might also be able to do this with an automation last ran date if you have one automation for each tag. There’s probably a cleaner way to do this, but that’s what came to mind.
What is the advantage of using shortcuts over using the built in NFC read in the home assistant app?
I should have covered this but, it doesn’t require an app to open and can happen in the background.
Nice video. Is there a reason why you didn’t use the tag functionality built in Home Assistant? The only thing I could think of is because you have to have the Home Assistant app installed on your phone as I noticed it will always open the app when you scan a tag. The advantage of using it though is that you can scan the tag from any device and you can distinguish, which device scanned the tag.
It’s been a while since I made the decision to not use the HA tags functionality, but I believe, by using the shortcuts app it can also run in the background and doesn’t need to open up the HA app. That way I just scan and move on. I think that was the reason.
I had the same question. I'm going to try it with the tag function in HA. That way it's all done in one app, vs HA and Shortcuts.
@bcrawfo2 let me know what you encounter! I *think* it’ll prompt you to open the app. But I can’t remember.
@@FutureSmartHome It does prompt me to open the app, but I don't mind that. Do you have other members of the house performing these tasks? If so, how do you manage the shortcuts on all the different phones? That's why I wonder if the prompt is a better solution (for me).
By the way....great idea overall. I was looking for this exact thing.
This is a great idea. Curious if a home assistant wizard out there could tell me a way to do this, but also take the list of reminders and highlight some, maybe in the list down in the video or a separate card, for a more visual reminder? "If range filter is greater than 5 days past due, turn task red." Etc
I *think* that would be something like a template on your dashboard that could toggle between different colors of icons, but I am no wizard!
You could use the flex-table card from HACS and list and colour them using that, if the names are similar.
Apologies for another question but this video is great! I don’t use nfc tags, what other ways would you recommend to reset the counters?
You could also use a double tap on a smart button like the Aqara mini switch. Or a flic switch or something. You could also configure the UI to allow you to reset with a virtual button.
@@FutureSmartHome thanks for the ideas! I was thinking actionable notifications 🤔
@@michaelthompson657 that would totally work
@@FutureSmartHome yeah gonna experiment!
Days since dryer lint cleaned = 70? You should really clean that thing every single time you use the dryer (unless you mean a deep clean, and not just cleaning the lint trap)
Also, NFC scanners are on the back of phones, so yeah, pushing the top against it like you do at 1:57 won't work very well.
I will try a different orientation for the phone! And yeah that is for a deep cleaning of the exhaust piping, not the lint trap we clean almost daily.
You didn't show the helper?
I should have done that, but for reference it is a simple Counter that starts at 0 and increments by 1
What did you learn from this video? Me: dishwashers have filters that need to be changed.
😂😂😂