Home Automation

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Oct 13, 2013
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How many other are in to this?
I just recently moved from Smart Things and went down the Home Assistant rabbit hole. Took about 2 weeks to migrate over and get all of my automations switched over. About 100 devices total. About 60 of which are Zwave, Zigbee.
I have home assistant running on a refurbed dell optiplex running virtualbox..
16gb RAM, 3.4GHz I-7 3770, 250 Gb ssd. Reboots are fast but I had to run it on my work computer for a few days. It has an I-7 10700. Reboots were insanely fast on it.
The advantage to Home assistant is that I have all devices running locally, not dependent on any cloud services. I could lose internet and all devices will still work. Even the wifi devices. Piece of mind considering we have some idiot here that likes to cut the fiber feed to the neighborhood occasionally..
 
I’ve done a fair bit of this. I was using android for ease of use but recently switched to apple HomeKit and I’m finding it much better. Especially with HomeBridge allowing integration with loads of non apple devices.
 
I’ve been meaning to seriously look into this….
I would start with Smart Things. Its about the easiest to start with, integrates with Alexa or Google easily. If its Zwave, or Zigbee, Smart things will connect. most of the time. I hear that Samsung may be looking to get out of the arena though...
Once you decide you want to disconnect from the cloud, Home Assistant is a good option. It certainly requires a more advanced understanding of things though.
 
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A walkthrough of my home.

That was really cool, lovely house btw. Ya gave me many ideas, I took notes 😆 guess I got homework now. Not many smart devices throughout my house, may start with my room, as a test bed. I think the latest major smart device is the washer/dryer, this one

IMG_4965.jpeg

Oh, but if I gotta say something that broke my heart, I went in hoping you narrated it in your interpretation of Banes voice or impersonate David Attenborough.
 
That was really cool, lovely house btw. Ya gave me many ideas, I took notes 😆 guess I got homework now. Not many smart devices throughout my house, may start with my room, as a test bed. I think the latest major smart device is the washer/dryer, this one



Oh, but if I gotta say something that broke my heart, I went in hoping you narrated it in your interpretation of Banes voice or impersonate David Attenborough.
LOl, I can do Banes voice for about 10 seconds...
I didnt mention that what I did with the Washer/Dryer. They are both "Dumb" devices...
Using power monitoring plugs/breakers, they will send a notification to the TV if we are watching it and let us know when they finish their cycle. at the same time it lights up a lamp in the loft. Red. and the dryer has finished, Blue means the Washer is finished. When I open the door on either, it turns the light off.
I also have an email set up that pulls from a list of meals and sends us a weekly meal plan for dinners. That one is handled in Microsoft Power Automate and Excel. We order groceries on Friday, so that email comes to us on Thursdays.
 
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That was really cool, lovely house btw. Ya gave me many ideas, I took notes 😆 guess I got homework now. Not many smart devices throughout my house, may start with my room, as a test bed. I think the latest major smart device is the washer/dryer, this one

View attachment 11986

Oh, but if I gotta say something that broke my heart, I went in hoping you narrated it in your interpretation of Banes voice or impersonate David Attenborough.
Banes voice should be an Alexa option.

*Turns light off*

"You think the darkness is your ally?"
 
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I made a voice assistant with a $15 speaker from Wal Mart.
I had to remove the components from it and replace with some new stuff.
 
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Woah, is there software for that? Do you get to choose what replies it says back to you?
Its based on esp32 using a dev board.

Dev Board

Microphone

Amp
Replies are pretty basic right now. Im sure we will be able to dictate replies eventually. I know with Alexa, I can have replies in a different voice on a different speaker if I want, I prefer the voices from Amazon Polly more than the Alexa voices. I rarely use voice assistants anymore. I have my house trained pretty well to do what I need and when. I just wanted to do this project since the ones I have seen people do are on breadboards and such. Then they would 3-d print a case for it. Not very aesthetically pleasing...
Im pretty sure this is the first one done by modifying and already existing speaker assembly. Unless you own a 3d printer, I think this is cheaper than you can get a 3d printed option and it comes with the speaker itself.
Here is a video on building the basic setup.
 
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Woah, is there software for that? Do you get to choose what replies it says back to you?
Turns out you can do custom responses. They implemented that feature a couple of months ago. You can set teh action and responce to a request pretty easily.
 
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Ive integrated ChatGTP into my homes voice assistant. If I ask the assistant to do something simple, like turn on a light, it will keep that request local and not reach out to ChatGTP. More complex requests/questions are handled by ChaGTP.