this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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Good luck!
One tip if you have a SO: Make sure that they are on board, and that it only adds benefits & there's a backup/fallback plan. E.g. don't say "Oh sorry the lights don't work if the internet is down", that won't go down well :)
Haha good point! What is the plan when that happens?
I'm avoiding plugs that require internet access, but it's a bit hard, especially in NZ. E.g. the TP Link smart plus don't work if the internet is down, and my standing desk is Tuya based which requires the cloud.
But, e.g. the TP Link plugs still have a button to turn them on manually in case the internet is down. The lights still work if you turn them off and back on at the wall. So everything can still work without internet.
Ok cool, I'll be sure to think about that stuff before getting too far along, thanks for the suggestion.
Most of the lights in our house are built in LED downlights, so can't really switch them out for smart bulbs, it would need to be a smart switch
Yeah it's a big rabbit hole like I suggested. I am also looking at automating our "dumb" alarm, our garage door, our Nissan Leaf, etc. I'm no longer allowed to talk about it during dinner, so please take it slowly :)
Just to add, it IS very handy. I've just created a script that sets the heat pump to Dry & 2c lower than ambient temperature.
This way I will be able to create automations to e.g. run it on Dry every night for e.g. an hour, then back to heat, etc.
This sounds like a rabbit hole I'd like to get lost in. Except when I'm away and no one else can use anything because I stupidly started an update just before I needed to leave and it broke things and now nothing is working.
Yep, try to do small things first instead of letting hell go loose if something doesn't work.
I've set up a tablet in the living room as "wall panel" where e.g. the kids can change the thermostat for their bedrooms, check the weather forecast, and it shows random photos from the NAS as a screensaver, which is just fun & nice.
What is something simple to start with if getting into HA? I already have a NAS.
I started with:
Next to do is put smart plugs in our electric blankets, make our dumb alarm smart and make the garage door smart.
You can run it dockerized to get started.
Oh cool. I'm going to try the temp sensors. Thank you!
Enjoy. It's a rabbit hole, I've just spent hours googling for a Zigbee IR blaster that's compatible with ZHA, and there's none. Zigbee2MQTT has better compatibility but I don't want to convert my Zigbee network to Z2M at the moment.
That's cool! I like that idea.