I used Home Assistant to create my very first automation today. It’s really stupid simple, but I feel as though things will only get crazier from here.

Context: i have an old dumb window AC that has 2 physical dials. One turns fan- low, fan-high, cool-low, and cool- high while the other is labeled from 1 to 8 with 1 being warm and 8 being coldest. This AC is either on or its not. Even if the compressor is not running the fan runs 24/7 until it is physically switched off.

My current automation checks once per hour, and if the temperature is above 80 degrees, it will notify me to turn on the air conditioner.

I intend to buy one of the third reality smart plugs soon and switch the action from notify to “turn on the third reality plug for 10 minutes”. Then I will just leave the unit itself on Cool High and let the plug manage the power.

Eventually, I think I will also buy a third-reality temperature sensor and set the trigger to if the temperature sensor says that the room itself is above 80 degrees instead of using the forecast.

  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    Do you at least have the volume set at a low level, like 10% or 20%, so that if nobody is in the family room, it doesn’t wake anybody else in the house up? But yes, if you had a presence sensor in the living room, then you could do it on the condition that there was somebody in the room.

    The way I see it is trigger at midnight. If presence is detected, set Alexa volume to 10% and announce, hey, you should probably go to bed.

    • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      Yes, but unfortunately that makes it even dumber - anyone up at that time likely has headphones on to game or listen to music without disturbing anyone trying to sleep

      • djmikeale@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        4 days ago

        You could perhaps just flash the lights, or if they’re dimmable, turn them a lot down over eg a duration of 20 seconds

        • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 days ago

          Not dimmable unfortunately, and changing that would be far more complicated and expensive than you’d believe

          I actually do the slow dim in a different room- that’s an automation I’m more proud of, although most of the credit goes to Inovelli! I have the dimming rates set differently for manual dimming, automated dimming, and good night dimming

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
        3·
        4 days ago

        Hmmm. Good point. I dont really see a way around that one though.

        If the living room has smart lights you could turn them to red if a person was detected at midnight

        • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 days ago

          I would so do that if I could.

          There’s a longer story but: I finished converting to LED years ago, except for this room. The lights are …. different …. And I just haven’t found anything comparable even today