My Favourite Automation ?

Hard to pick one. They are probably no big deal, but it is so satisfying when they kick in.

I'm probably proudest of the master bath & powder room automations. Each room has both a door open/close sensor AND a motion sensor. If you open the door on a dark room, the light comes on. If somebody else left that door open, and you walk into a dark room, the light comes on. If you close the door on a lighted room, the light stays on indefinitely. If you open the door on a lighted room, you are exiting and the light turns off. If there is no motion for a while in an open room, the light turns off.

My most elaborate is the bedtime automation. First it turns lights on in the rooms we'll pass through or visit, then minute by minute it starts shutting lights down starting with those furthest from the bedroom and eventually leaving the slightest night light glow where we need it.

I'm also super happy with the bubbler fountain automation. We have this fountain along the approach to the house, and we only care to run it when people are present ... and always whenever company arrives. I used to scramble whenever somebody rang the bell, so that the fountain was running whenever I buzzed them into the courtyard. Added an I/O Line controller wired into the entrance gate. NOW whenever that gate opens, the fountain comes on (for 10 minutes).

And this one is super dumb, but ... I just added a Philips Hue LightStrips to the back of my TV. When you turn the TV on, the LightStrip turns on. Turn the TV off, the LightStrips turns off.

Now, if I could just get Indigo to notice whenever my screen goes into screen saver or sleep ... so I can control the lights in that room accordingly.

Thank you for sharing! I wish more people posted cool automations like this. No bloopers yet? E.g. open door to partner brushing teeth and lights turn off?

The bedtime automation sounds really cool. Sounds like you have a linear house and maybe no kids/pets?

Can you share how you did this? Lots of motion sensors or switches with built in sensors?

Now, if I could just get Indigo to notice whenever my screen goes into screen saver or sleep ... so I can control the lights in that room accordingly.

this page

https://www.kodiakskorner.com/log/258

Might get you started.

Thank you for sharing! I wish more people posted cool automations like this. No bloopers yet? E.g. open door to partner brushing teeth and lights turn off?

Yes, we used to have problems like that all the time! Realized that the logic for a powder room and for a shared bathroom couldn't be the same.

Powder room is pretty straightforward ... I toggle the lights whenever the door opens. Augmented with a motion sensor so that I can better *know* that the room is occupied (or empty) based on what the motion sensor detects.

In the shared bath, I let the lights stay on for a couple minutes after what might seem to be an exit, and if I get an indication that the room is NOT actually empty I keep the lights on longer. I also have a special rule where I don't turn the lights off if someone ha turned the light onion the shower, and I am very generous with my lighting timeout if motion has been detected AFTER the door has closed.

Thank you for sharing! I wish more people posted cool automations like this. No bloopers yet? E.g. open door to partner brushing teeth and lights turn off?

OH - and I aded to my master bath automation accommodation for a Sonos One speaker. The music fades in and out to match occupancy, and the volume increases to compensate for fan or shower noise whenever either of those are in use.

The bedtime automation sounds really cool. Sounds like you have a linear house and maybe no kids/pets?

Can you share how you did this? Lots of motion sensors or switches with built in sensors?

Correct on the no kids or pets, though my elderly in-laws moved in here a number of years back.

My bedtime programming isn't fancy ... it starts whenever I push the button (or say the phrase) and advances along a set timeline. Minute by minute different areas of the house turn off, starting with those furthest from the bedroom. Its a bit of a no-brainer, and now that you mention it maybe I should throw some motion sensors at this automation to handle the *exceptions* !

Thank you for sharing! I wish more people posted cool automations like this. No bloopers yet? E.g. open door to partner brushing teeth and lights turn off?

OH - and I aded to my master bath automation accommodation for a Sonos One speaker. The music fades in and out to match occupancy, and the volume increases to compensate for fan or shower noise whenever either of those are in use.

My god this reminds me of the awesome stuff i did in single life; if only my latest wife enjoyed debugging rather than becoming enraged by it

What are you using for your logic? Anytime I try to put too many constraints on a trigger I forget how I made it, so I tend to just use python to keep it all on one page (which is less preferable because there is no alert message preventing me me erroneously deleting a variable, Device, or Action group, trigger, etc.

Thank you for sharing! I wish more people posted cool automations like this. No bloopers yet? E.g. open door to partner brushing teeth and lights turn off?

OH - and I aded to my master bath automation accommodation for a Sonos One speaker. The music fades in and out to match occupancy, and the volume increases to compensate for fan or shower noise whenever either of those are in use.

My god this reminds me of the awesome stuff i did in single life; if only my latest wife enjoyed debugging rather than becoming enraged by it

What are you using for your logic? Anytime I try to put too many constraints on a trigger I forget how I made it, so I tend to just use python to keep it all on one page (which is less preferable because there is no alert message preventing me me erroneously deleting a variable, Device, or Action group, trigger, etc.

Thanks for asking !

I rely heavily on a couple of status variables and schedules. Whenever the room BECOMES occupied, I turn on lights and sound and start two counters. The first is initialized with a small number like 3 or 4, which I decrement once per minute and shut things down if and when it reaches zero. When motion is detected, I bump that countdown variable back up (so that the lights stay on so long as motion is detected. If motion is detected AFTER the door closes, I suspend the countdown until the door is opened again. If the shower light is turned on, I bump that counter all the way up to 360 (which is probably too generous) to make sure the lights all stay on regardless of the door or motion. (I bump that counter back down to something like 5 when the shower light is turned off, but if we forget to turn it off I know the automation will clean up within a few hours.

Meanwhile, I am ALSO incrementing a counter to track how long the room has been occupied (for as long as it is occupied). Once THAT counter reaches 5 (minutes), I activate the bathroom exhaust fan. Then, whenever the room becomes Unoccupied, I start decrementing that counter so that I can turn the fan off whenever it hits zero.

OH - I also have a variable for how loud the music is supposed to be whenever it comes on. I set this to something like 10 at sunrise, down to 5 at sunset, and zero whenever we go to bed. Keeps the ambient music low in the evening and silent overnight. ( I run a similar variable for how bright or dim certain lights in that room should be, based on time of day. I use it to keep the under counter hue lights at a low dim setting overnight - off continues to mean OFF for most things in the bathroom, but for that light strip it means ALMOST off)

Got it and thank you. So it sounds like you are heavily using variables for persistence and state identification.

Any plugins used here aside from the controllers for things like sonos?

This looks a lot like functionality the Timed Devices plugin provides. Cheers

Got it and thank you. So it sounds like you are heavily using variables for persistence and state identification.

Any plugins used here aside from the controllers for things like sonos?

This looks a lot like functionality the Timed Devices plugin provides. Cheers

Yes - I also use the Sonos plugin to control playback and volume on that speaker. I'll take a look at that Timed Devices plugin. Incidentally, I also have an automation that cuts of devices that have exceeded their maximum time allowed with no change in state. Its supposed to be "just in case" I forget to shut something off.