I'll show these automations and more in my video this weekend for Smart Home Solver! And make sure you're subscribed here on the new channel because my next video will be showing in-depth how the automations work from a technical perspective. 🤓
For the garage motion light turning off at the appropriate time, use helpers (timer) and trigger IDs for turning on and turning off the light. Basically if the door opens at 5 minutes into the 10 min timer, the timer resets. And, if the light entity becomes unavailable (which can happen when your devices are too far from the hub or you have a LOT of entities), the timer will continue to countdown and turn off when the timer expires and the entity becomes available again (this is also helpful if you have timers running - through helpers and you need to restart HA, your modem, routers, etc). Keep up the fine work Reed - I really love the material and the addition of your new channel!
This is a great channel for getting more into how to set up automation. One of the automation I’ve tried to setup on Amazon echo is when I say dinner time, Amazon announces dinner, turns on dinner music, and turns off the TV. The automation does everything, except turning off the TV. I can’t figure out how to get that part of it to work.
I tried light timers so many times, and in the end this is what worked for me, I have an automation that turns the light on when the sensor in the room sees motion, then I have another automation that turns the light off when that same sensor sees no motion for 10 minutes. I tried pausing timers, restarting timers, all the different modes for parallel, and this is all that worked for me. Also, when using light sensors to set the brightness based on how dark it is in that room worked great.
Nice video A good video suggestion would be completely camera based automation on a corridor with multiple doors where a single camera can replace multiple sensors at all the exit points. I didn't find anything concrete in my search on UA-cam or anywhere else.
About smart home ideas, I always forget what interesting things comes to mind while walking around the house. Maybe I should use a Google Home or Alexa list :)
Looks like a contact sensor triggers your garage lights? I don't remember from the original video. I assume you don't have any other sensors in your garage. The easy solution is instead of monitoring the lights to determine when they should turn off, monitor the contact sensor. Rather than "Turn off the lights when they've been on for 10 minutes, change it to "turn off the lights when the contact sensor has been closed for 10 minutes." I'm hoping you're doing more precise location calculation with your mmWave and indoor motion sensors. I really want to get into the bayasian stuff in Home Assistant so my instance can figure out where I am and what I'm doing and run automations based on that. I do have that working for my bed-time and wake up routine, where it closes the blinds, locks up the house and starts the vacuums. In the morning it opens the blinds, turns on the kettle and when I finally get out of bed it grinds the coffee :)
New to smart homes- I just got Philips hue for the whole house, flair vents, Nest for doorbell and temp, HomePods and Flic for switches. I’m having a hard time naming everything between the hue bridge and HomeKit to use voice commands and such. Is there a best practices for the simple stuff? Naming lights, sorting zones, time based automations, teaching my wife how to do everything? Honestly please just come up and help me and make a video haha
I love your videos, I am just starting my smart home and want to know if you have a back to basics video? What device you used to set up your garage, your lights ect If you started a brand new smart home how would you do It?
What I did for my turning on/off light in home assistant is: when motion is detected -> turn on the light -> wait until no motion detected(here you can set to wait for x minutes) -> turn off the light. Works every time. And if the sensor will see you again, the automation will automatically run again and it will wait again x minutes until it sees no motion. I also set it to run just between sunset(15 minutes before) and sunrise(15 minutes after). It’s my favorite automation.
Hi Reed, a solution to your garage door light would be to set the automation mode to restart. This would essentially restart the timer when the door is opened, stopping it from turning off on you.
Or just have turn off when the motion sensor doesn't detect motion for ten minutes, which means it will automatically reset the 10 minute timer whenever motion is detected
Like the new channel. Would you have any interest in doing a step by step on how you transitioned from smartthings to home assistant? I think alot of people are looking to do so but not sure how. Thanks and will continue to watch!!
That's a great suggestion! Here's a video I did that touches on switching from SmartThings to Home Assistant. It's not a step by step, but a good start in case you haven't seen it already: ua-cam.com/video/3xMvjOig8J4/v-deo.html
For the garage lights create 2 automations: 1) An automation turns on the lights if the sensor is triggered 2) An automation that loops every minute that turns the lights off if the motion sensor hasn't been triggered in 10 minutes
When will we be able to link my Q garage door opener to Amazon Alexa? Because I would like to do a simple automation where when the garage door opens at a specified time the garage lights that are connected to my smart switch. Turn on.
My biggest test case is always "do the pets set it off?". I''ve had to get a little creative in my placement of motion sensors and presence sensors, so that I can set off the routines, but not the pets. I also have back off shut down routines. For example, when I leave the bedroom, I want the lights to turn off. If a cat is on the bed, my room thinks that someone is in there. But, when I sit down on my living room chair, the lights in the bedroom turn off.
I've spent so much programming around our new dog. I have a bed sensor to know if I'm going to bed. The dog likes to lay right in the spot where the sensor is, so I've had to add extra checks to make sure it is me and not the dog. And motion sensor lights... I don't think I can get them to not trigger with the animals. maybe if I place them low and aim upwards.
@@michaelmcelrath1163 I'm fortunate that I'm over 6 feet tall, and my animals are not :) I set my motion sensors on the light switch by the door and point them up and across the door. We have a cat that is fascinated with the motion sensors. Maybe he can hear something from them? Anyway, he keeps trying to play with them. This set up as worked pretty well, except where a nightstand is by the light. I also set my "asleep mode" to end when I get out of bed *and* when I trigger a motion sensor that points up. This has prevented animal triggers :)
To resolve the problem with the garage door notification: When you send the notification to a phone that the garage door is open, add the following ```yaml message: "The garage door is open" data: persistent: true sticky: true tag: "garage_door" ``` And when home assistant detects that the garage door closes send this: ```yaml message: "clear_notification" data: tag: "garage_door" ``` This will create a persistent notification that you can't dismiss from your phone, and when the garage door closes the new message will remove it.
Reed I have a little problem I have Sofabaton x1 I set up a activity to turn my tv,receiver,fire tv on to watch my fire tv everything great then I set up another activity to turn on my tv,receiver just to watch tv then I tell Alexa to run the first activity it only works for the 2nd activity now help anybody
I have been busy and not spending much time watching videos. Did I miss a video of where you switched to the iPhone/Apple Watch ? I thought you were using a Pixel or am I thinking of someone else ?
I never did a video about it, but I did switch to the iPhone and Apple Watch. I still use the Pixel often for automations and testing, but the Apple ecosystem is a good fit for communicating with my wife/family.
Me, I want an automation to get rid of Christmas music. I don't do Christmas (why should I celebrate the birthday of some random carpenter who zilched out 1000s of years ago and 1000s of miles away?) and I'm not happy about having Christmas songs shoved down my throat. Grrr!
Does anyone have a solution to trigger Alexa routines based on it asking you a question? For example: 1. My morning routine triggers when my Echo Show 8 sees my face in the home office 2. What I'd like it to do is to ask me a question like 'Would you like your morning coffee now?' to which, if I say yes, it'll trigger a routine/action to start brewing my coffee from my smart coffee machine. If I say no, then it does nothing. I've googled for endless hours with no luck!
What options does a noob like myself have when it comes to wanting to have a simple smart bulb setup? I want to stick with Philips as I trust the brand so probably Hue I would assume. I live in an apartment so I have almost all ceiling fixtures with 2 bulbs each. I want BRIGHT white... like daylight bright if possible. Problem is the fixtures are enclosed so I do understand that I would be sacrificing some milage on the bulbs using them enclosed, but I'm good with that. And would like to pickup something like the 5th Gen Echo Dot.
People aren't realizing that the Garage lights are triggered by the Door. Unless the Door remain open when in there, a Motion Sensor is the best option. Maybe a new mmwave based creation could be used....? It can be done reliably by using the Door Sensor. It's not my preference, but you can use the 'Toggle' option to flip from on and off. Even if shutting the door turns off the light when you're in there, you'll instantly notice and reset the door to turn the lights back on. The only way the light could stay stuck on is if a kid opened the door but didn't go in. However, a 2 hour, self-resetting timer can ensure the lights only burn for 2 hours. (I have a 3:00 AM 'turn off basement light' routine just in case) Hmm, after all that, I guess my suggestion is to make the Door a Light Switch Toggle. (but you may need to use Conditions in case you leave through a different door)
German tinkerers call that the WAF: Woman's Acceptance Factor. And that should be always between 85 and 99 on a scale of 100 :-) I mean, WAF is english, but we use it alot. Is it even known in english speaking areas?
I would like to see how you fix the garage door issue- I see @michaelloia585 made a suggestion below. Mine is "almost there" When the door to the garage opens (door sensor) and the Lux is below X (motion sensor w/ lux) and the garage door is closed then the light turns on (smart light switch) stays on for 2 min then turns off. Then there is a script that checks is the light already on, is there still motion (same motion/lux sensor from above), and will turn on the switch. It mostly works but if I go out, then back in and the light has gone out it won't turn the light on. I think it is my script or ma=ybe where the script is or maybe the fact I can't adjust the timeout on the motion/lux sensor.
I have a question. I set up a routine where my Alexa announces that “dad is home.” That way my family knows I’m home and they can open our garage door for me. (That’s our main entrance to our house). The issue I have is when I leave for work my Bluetooth stereo cuts out like 2 or 3 times for a few seconds each time. It’s almost like it’s letting me know that I’m leaving the geo location. Is this normal, and is there an easier way to announce where I wouldn’t be having that interference each day. It’s pretty obnoxious.
I have a light turn on while my garage door is open. I also change the color to green (G in green for garage). That way I know the light isn’t on for normal use. It turns off when the garage door closes. But before it does I have the light reset to its regular color.
For the garage door, you could have it to auto close in 1 hr but prompt just say 50 -55 mins in to ask if you want to extend the timer for another 1 hr ?
We have a similar situation when it comes to pickup. I've had the situation before where my wife went shopping and I assumed our kid has been picked up and taken along for the shopping trip. I doubled checked, on time, of course, but I didn't want the situation to happen again . What I've done is to have an input Boolean set up for pick up and it turns on if someone enters the pickup zone. I also have a proximity set up to that zone so if nobody is moving towards the daycare at a certain time we get a gentle reminder that it's time to go.
@@reedssmarthome The Proximity integration is something I don't see a lot of people talking about with HA (at least here on UA-cam), but for these sorts of applications it works great! I was literally looking up math papers online trying to figure out how to do this (not that I understand anything past the number 4) and had my mind blown when I discovered that HA just has this thing already built in!
Hi Reed, Congrats on the new channel and baby girl. I know you use ikea tradfri 5 button remote control. I use mine with the SmartThings hub but find the battery dies very quickly. I heard it could be due to signal strength and the mesh route it takes to get to the hub.. please can you confirm how you have got yours working? Do your batteries last? Thanks Chris
The lights is a pretty simple one in Home Assistant. Need to use a restart option on the automation, and have the off timer reset, or have a separate automation for the off automation. IE: Has to be 10 minutes of the sensor not detecting motion, which means when the sensor detects motion, it will reset the timer so it starts at 10 minutes again. Unfortunately Amazon / Google routines may not be able to do that alone, but if you run Home Assistant, you likely don't need Amazon routines. Most can be done in Home Assistant
The garage light was the first thing my wife asked me to automate. I used a wireless Lutron motion detector and set it to relay the signal to my garage Lutron switch with an auto on and off if motion hasn’t been detected after a minute.
Reed, keep them coming, great info! I’m still a SmartThings user but would like to, possibly, get HomeAssistant to also work in my home! Would be a great info if you could talk about how to get that going with hardware & software instructions😁
Just getting started on my SH so these videos are very helpful. BTW, are you concerned with the long term viability of the Amazon system due to the recent news of layoffs in the Amazon AI group? I've seen some articles speculating that it could be the beginning of the end for Echo devices. Wondering if that is the right platform to build on...
There's always that chance that it could go away in the future but I don't see it happening any time soon. Amazon seems pretty invested in it. Then again I can't tell the future so who knows. I think we would see more red flags if it was about to go away.
@@reedssmarthome I think the red flags are all the stagnant skills in Alexa that just don't work any more. I'm having a terrible time with SmartThings lately. For that reason, I duplicate everything Alexa does automatically inside Homekit, but I disable the Homekit automation. So essentially I maintain a HomeKit backup of all my Alexa routines. And if both systems can't do the same thing I just don't do it. This is the only way I can think of to not be limited by Apple, Google or Amazon's business decisions.Originally, I was going to use Google Home and Homekit, but I found Google Home to be much too limited compared to the other two.
I'll show these automations and more in my video this weekend for Smart Home Solver! And make sure you're subscribed here on the new channel because my next video will be showing in-depth how the automations work from a technical perspective. 🤓
Done! Already subscribed to your new channel, congrats! From Barranquilla, Colombia: THANK YOU! Your videos and tutorials are just great
Thanks Reed! I appreciate the run through of your process for creating your automations!
Always appreciate your videos and I'm loving the new channel! Keep them coming and I'll keep liking\watching them! Thanks, Reed!
Thank you, Reed. These tutorials are going to be a big help when I set up my HomeAssistant over my Christmas vacation.
For the garage motion light turning off at the appropriate time, use helpers (timer) and trigger IDs for turning on and turning off the light. Basically if the door opens at 5 minutes into the 10 min timer, the timer resets. And, if the light entity becomes unavailable (which can happen when your devices are too far from the hub or you have a LOT of entities), the timer will continue to countdown and turn off when the timer expires and the entity becomes available again (this is also helpful if you have timers running - through helpers and you need to restart HA, your modem, routers, etc).
Keep up the fine work Reed - I really love the material and the addition of your new channel!
This is a great channel for getting more into how to set up automation. One of the automation I’ve tried to setup on Amazon echo is when I say dinner time, Amazon announces dinner, turns on dinner music, and turns off the TV. The automation does everything, except turning off the TV. I can’t figure out how to get that part of it to work.
I tried light timers so many times, and in the end this is what worked for me, I have an automation that turns the light on when the sensor in the room sees motion, then I have another automation that turns the light off when that same sensor sees no motion for 10 minutes. I tried pausing timers, restarting timers, all the different modes for parallel, and this is all that worked for me. Also, when using light sensors to set the brightness based on how dark it is in that room worked great.
Nice video
A good video suggestion would be completely camera based automation on a corridor with multiple doors where a single camera can replace multiple sensors at all the exit points. I didn't find anything concrete in my search on UA-cam or anywhere else.
Thanks Reed.
About smart home ideas, I always forget what interesting things comes to mind while walking around the house. Maybe I should use a Google Home or Alexa list :)
I appreciate your bein vulnerable and telling us that sometimes you create automation s that need to be reworked. WIP
Yes they are definitely a work in progress!
Looks like a contact sensor triggers your garage lights? I don't remember from the original video. I assume you don't have any other sensors in your garage.
The easy solution is instead of monitoring the lights to determine when they should turn off, monitor the contact sensor. Rather than "Turn off the lights when they've been on for 10 minutes, change it to "turn off the lights when the contact sensor has been closed for 10 minutes."
I'm hoping you're doing more precise location calculation with your mmWave and indoor motion sensors. I really want to get into the bayasian stuff in Home Assistant so my instance can figure out where I am and what I'm doing and run automations based on that. I do have that working for my bed-time and wake up routine, where it closes the blinds, locks up the house and starts the vacuums. In the morning it opens the blinds, turns on the kettle and when I finally get out of bed it grinds the coffee :)
New to smart homes- I just got Philips hue for the whole house, flair vents, Nest for doorbell and temp, HomePods and Flic for switches. I’m having a hard time naming everything between the hue bridge and HomeKit to use voice commands and such. Is there a best practices for the simple stuff? Naming lights, sorting zones, time based automations, teaching my wife how to do everything? Honestly please just come up and help me and make a video haha
I love your videos, I am just starting my smart home and want to know if you have a back to basics video?
What device you used to set up your garage, your lights ect
If you started a brand new smart home how would you do It?
What I did for my turning on/off light in home assistant is: when motion is detected -> turn on the light -> wait until no motion detected(here you can set to wait for x minutes) -> turn off the light. Works every time. And if the sensor will see you again, the automation will automatically run again and it will wait again x minutes until it sees no motion. I also set it to run just between sunset(15 minutes before) and sunrise(15 minutes after). It’s my favorite automation.
Thanks Reed. This is super helpful.
Great content
Hi Reed, a solution to your garage door light would be to set the automation mode to restart. This would essentially restart the timer when the door is opened, stopping it from turning off on you.
I came here to say exactly the same. Simple fix
Or just have turn off when the motion sensor doesn't detect motion for ten minutes, which means it will automatically reset the 10 minute timer whenever motion is detected
Like the new channel. Would you have any interest in doing a step by step on how you transitioned from smartthings to home assistant? I think alot of people are looking to do so but not sure how. Thanks and will continue to watch!!
That's a great suggestion! Here's a video I did that touches on switching from SmartThings to Home Assistant. It's not a step by step, but a good start in case you haven't seen it already: ua-cam.com/video/3xMvjOig8J4/v-deo.html
For the garage lights create 2 automations:
1) An automation turns on the lights if the sensor is triggered
2) An automation that loops every minute that turns the lights off if the motion sensor hasn't been triggered in 10 minutes
Can you share your automation YAMLs (from HA)?
When will we be able to link my Q garage door opener to Amazon Alexa? Because I would like to do a simple automation where when the garage door opens at a specified time the garage lights that are connected to my smart switch. Turn on.
What light switches do you recommend?
What are the lights that are in the garage?
Ok I got lost so what do you use for animations??? Home Assistend how difficult is for a newbee.
I had a problem with the ac automation, I really made a mess lol just erased everything.
awesome video!
but I will love a video of you showing how to set up home assistant I refuse to watch anybody elses!
Thanks! Yes that is high on my list of things to make soon!
Hey do you know anything about “homey pro”? Thank you
My biggest test case is always "do the pets set it off?". I''ve had to get a little creative in my placement of motion sensors and presence sensors, so that I can set off the routines, but not the pets. I also have back off shut down routines. For example, when I leave the bedroom, I want the lights to turn off. If a cat is on the bed, my room thinks that someone is in there. But, when I sit down on my living room chair, the lights in the bedroom turn off.
That's a great thing to test for. Luna has ruined some of my motion sensor automations.
I've spent so much programming around our new dog. I have a bed sensor to know if I'm going to bed. The dog likes to lay right in the spot where the sensor is, so I've had to add extra checks to make sure it is me and not the dog.
And motion sensor lights... I don't think I can get them to not trigger with the animals. maybe if I place them low and aim upwards.
@@michaelmcelrath1163 I'm fortunate that I'm over 6 feet tall, and my animals are not :) I set my motion sensors on the light switch by the door and point them up and across the door. We have a cat that is fascinated with the motion sensors. Maybe he can hear something from them? Anyway, he keeps trying to play with them. This set up as worked pretty well, except where a nightstand is by the light. I also set my "asleep mode" to end when I get out of bed *and* when I trigger a motion sensor that points up. This has prevented animal triggers :)
To resolve the problem with the garage door notification:
When you send the notification to a phone that the garage door is open, add the following
```yaml
message: "The garage door is open"
data:
persistent: true
sticky: true
tag: "garage_door"
```
And when home assistant detects that the garage door closes send this:
```yaml
message: "clear_notification"
data:
tag: "garage_door"
```
This will create a persistent notification that you can't dismiss from your phone, and when the garage door closes the new message will remove it.
Reed I have a little problem I have Sofabaton x1 I set up a activity to turn my tv,receiver,fire tv on to watch my fire tv everything great then I set up another activity to turn on my tv,receiver just to watch tv then I tell Alexa to run the first activity it only works for the 2nd activity now help anybody
I have been busy and not spending much time watching videos. Did I miss a video of where you switched to the iPhone/Apple Watch ? I thought you were using a Pixel or am I thinking of someone else ?
I never did a video about it, but I did switch to the iPhone and Apple Watch. I still use the Pixel often for automations and testing, but the Apple ecosystem is a good fit for communicating with my wife/family.
What platform is this? Can we have a smart home tutorial? Google home?
I'm using a few different platforms. The next video will show how I actually set everything up!
Me, I want an automation to get rid of Christmas music. I don't do Christmas (why should I celebrate the birthday of some random carpenter who zilched out 1000s of years ago and 1000s of miles away?) and I'm not happy about having Christmas songs shoved down my throat. Grrr!
[̲̅p][̲̅r][̲̅o][̲̅m][̲̅o][̲̅s][̲̅m] 🤗
Does anyone have a solution to trigger Alexa routines based on it asking you a question?
For example:
1. My morning routine triggers when my Echo Show 8 sees my face in the home office
2. What I'd like it to do is to ask me a question like 'Would you like your morning coffee now?' to which, if I say yes, it'll trigger a routine/action to start brewing my coffee from my smart coffee machine. If I say no, then it does nothing. I've googled for endless hours with no luck!
What options does a noob like myself have when it comes to wanting to have a simple smart bulb setup? I want to stick with Philips as I trust the brand so probably Hue I would assume. I live in an apartment so I have almost all ceiling fixtures with 2 bulbs each. I want BRIGHT white... like daylight bright if possible. Problem is the fixtures are enclosed so I do understand that I would be sacrificing some milage on the bulbs using them enclosed, but I'm good with that. And would like to pickup something like the 5th Gen Echo Dot.
People aren't realizing that the Garage lights are triggered by the Door. Unless the Door remain open when in there, a Motion Sensor is the best option. Maybe a new mmwave based creation could be used....?
It can be done reliably by using the Door Sensor. It's not my preference, but you can use the 'Toggle' option to flip from on and off. Even if shutting the door turns off the light when you're in there, you'll instantly notice and reset the door to turn the lights back on. The only way the light could stay stuck on is if a kid opened the door but didn't go in. However, a 2 hour, self-resetting timer can ensure the lights only burn for 2 hours. (I have a 3:00 AM 'turn off basement light' routine just in case)
Hmm, after all that, I guess my suggestion is to make the Door a Light Switch Toggle. (but you may need to use Conditions in case you leave through a different door)
German tinkerers call that the WAF: Woman's Acceptance Factor. And that should be always between 85 and 99 on a scale of 100 :-)
I mean, WAF is english, but we use it alot. Is it even known in english speaking areas?
I would like to see how you fix the garage door issue- I see @michaelloia585 made a suggestion below. Mine is "almost there" When the door to the garage opens (door sensor) and the Lux is below X (motion sensor w/ lux) and the garage door is closed then the light turns on (smart light switch) stays on for 2 min then turns off. Then there is a script that checks is the light already on, is there still motion (same motion/lux sensor from above), and will turn on the switch. It mostly works but if I go out, then back in and the light has gone out it won't turn the light on. I think it is my script or ma=ybe where the script is or maybe the fact I can't adjust the timeout on the motion/lux sensor.
I have a question. I set up a routine where my Alexa announces that “dad is home.” That way my family knows I’m home and they can open our garage door for me. (That’s our main entrance to our house). The issue I have is when I leave for work my Bluetooth stereo cuts out like 2 or 3 times for a few seconds each time. It’s almost like it’s letting me know that I’m leaving the geo location. Is this normal, and is there an easier way to announce where I wouldn’t be having that interference each day. It’s pretty obnoxious.
I liked, and subscribed! Thank you Sir, I look forward to more of your videos. Best wishes!
I have a light turn on while my garage door is open. I also change the color to green (G in green for garage). That way I know the light isn’t on for normal use. It turns off when the garage door closes. But before it does I have the light reset to its regular color.
For the garage door, you could have it to auto close in 1 hr but prompt just say 50 -55 mins in to ask if you want to extend the timer for another 1 hr ?
This not directly related, but what mic setup are you using? I noticed very little echo in your home and no wind noise outside. It's great!
I have Samsung hub, should I get something better?
OK.....I see you with the Tesla in the background.......are you going to share your experience so far????
Yes, that could make an interesting video! I even have an automation I use for remembering to charge it.
@@reedssmarthome How long ago did you get it?
Your life is so complicated 😁
Haha I make it complicated... so that it can be easy later. If that makes any sense at all 😂
We have a similar situation when it comes to pickup. I've had the situation before where my wife went shopping and I assumed our kid has been picked up and taken along for the shopping trip. I doubled checked, on time, of course, but I didn't want the situation to happen again .
What I've done is to have an input Boolean set up for pick up and it turns on if someone enters the pickup zone. I also have a proximity set up to that zone so if nobody is moving towards the daycare at a certain time we get a gentle reminder that it's time to go.
Nice, that's a great idea for perfecting the kid pick up reminder automation. Thanks for sharing!
@@reedssmarthome The Proximity integration is something I don't see a lot of people talking about with HA (at least here on UA-cam), but for these sorts of applications it works great! I was literally looking up math papers online trying to figure out how to do this (not that I understand anything past the number 4) and had my mind blown when I discovered that HA just has this thing already built in!
Hi Reed, Congrats on the new channel and baby girl. I know you use ikea tradfri 5 button remote control. I use mine with the SmartThings hub but find the battery dies very quickly. I heard it could be due to signal strength and the mesh route it takes to get to the hub.. please can you confirm how you have got yours working? Do your batteries last? Thanks Chris
The lights is a pretty simple one in Home Assistant. Need to use a restart option on the automation, and have the off timer reset, or have a separate automation for the off automation. IE: Has to be 10 minutes of the sensor not detecting motion, which means when the sensor detects motion, it will reset the timer so it starts at 10 minutes again. Unfortunately Amazon / Google routines may not be able to do that alone, but if you run Home Assistant, you likely don't need Amazon routines. Most can be done in Home Assistant
The garage light was the first thing my wife asked me to automate. I used a wireless Lutron motion detector and set it to relay the signal to my garage Lutron switch with an auto on and off if motion hasn’t been detected after a minute.
I love the more detailed videos. Thanks for the second channel.
Reed, keep them coming, great info! I’m still a SmartThings user but would like to, possibly, get HomeAssistant to also work in my home! Would be a great info if you could talk about how to get that going with hardware & software instructions😁
Yes I definitely want to do a video about getting started with Home Assistant!
Just getting started on my SH so these videos are very helpful. BTW, are you concerned with the long term viability of the Amazon system due to the recent news of layoffs in the Amazon AI group? I've seen some articles speculating that it could be the beginning of the end for Echo devices. Wondering if that is the right platform to build on...
There's always that chance that it could go away in the future but I don't see it happening any time soon. Amazon seems pretty invested in it. Then again I can't tell the future so who knows. I think we would see more red flags if it was about to go away.
@@reedssmarthome I think the red flags are all the stagnant skills in Alexa that just don't work any more. I'm having a terrible time with SmartThings lately. For that reason, I duplicate everything Alexa does automatically inside Homekit, but I disable the Homekit automation. So essentially I maintain a HomeKit backup of all my Alexa routines. And if both systems can't do the same thing I just don't do it. This is the only way I can think of to not be limited by Apple, Google or Amazon's business decisions.Originally, I was going to use Google Home and Homekit, but I found Google Home to be much too limited compared to the other two.