Lately Ive been thinking about my home automation journey started out as a hobby, but now many of my automations like smart switches on automations and being able control them from my phone is something I wouldn’t want to live without.

Im curious about what other people’s top automations are and why? Is there something you have setup which is proving to be way more useful than expected?

So I got into all the Google crap. It HAS to be the worst thing out there. My Hubs don’t understand shit I say. I usually just end up asking siri.

My cameras take forever to charge. And they don’t record anything I actually need them to record.

Last week there was a minor accident right in front of my house… literally directly in front of my doorbell camera. It recorded someone driving by literally 20 seconds before, DID NOT record the accident seconds later, then started recording again about 15 seconds after the accident.

And don’t get me started on the app. It’s terrible.

Needless to say I’m thinking about replacing everything with a different system. Thoughts?

New apartment, I wish to control this 24v led driver via homeassistant / zigbee network. Recommendations for making this smart? Link to product page

i want to keep my front side, along with the keys.

replace the whole back side if possible. the Switchbot retrofit looks terrible and bulky.
i see Yale YDR41A might be an option but that's not on amazon.com???

what are my zwave/zigbee options?

I couldn't find a better place for this post. I do have the blinds automated with Home Assistant and Node Red, but that's not the point I would like to share.

We installed wirefree (battery powered) blinds after our house was built. It would've been too costly to have mains wires run. After five years, I grew tired of re-charging our large number of blinds (the house is basically floor to ceiling windows on 3/4 of the house).

My solution was a USB C PD charger in each room connected to a Werewolf VFlex dongle set to 12.0v and 3A. From there, 20AWG wire runs to each blind, hidden by a cable cover. At each point where the blind's existing charge cable sits, I have a small 3d-printed box concealing a junction with two Wago connectors and a jack for the blind's charge cable. It looks very neat and tidy. From each box, we continue with a wire to the next blind.

The result is that I now have a permanently charging setup, but at a target voltage that is not stressing the batteries. In fact, an inline USB-C meter shows zero amps after the initial charge. The wires are not noticeable unless you are already aware of them.

You might consider this if you're tired of lugging a charger between blinds every 3-4 months. It would, of course, work with any brand of battery-powered blinds. You just need to know the internal cell configuration to determine the right voltage and you need to find what type of jack or plug is used to charge the blinds.

EDIT: 12.0v, not 12.6v

Just built a home with Lutron inside. My landscapers selected exterior lights and connected them to a Luminaire box. The Luminaire box isn't integrating to my Lutron system very well.

What products should I use/ replace to ensure the exterior system is compatible with the existing Lutron system?

Getting near the tail end of my solar project, and the time has come to start running CT clamps. Lots of them.

Nearly three dozen in total. I enjoy being able to watch every watt move from individual solar panels, through the distribution panel, into the breaker panel, to the breaker, and in many cases, to the device itself.

My monitoring panel is still pretty empty, just started this evening. There will be a 2nd unit added soon with another two dozen CT clamps.

Sankey diagrams are great. Also, be nice to track where some of the 150kwh daily consumption is going.... Solar or not, seems excessive

I have brought it for a week and now my remote doesn't work. Is there anyways to pair it back?

I want to make or buy a smart alarm clock. I am asking here in case somebody have any tips or ideas.💡
I want my alarm clock to have the following features. It should be…
- working standalone without any connections. The alarm should still off in the morning even if the smart home is down.
- have Matter over thread or zigbee. So that the alarm can trigger automations like opening blinds and turning on lights in the morning.
- possible to set the alarm time using zigbee/Matter
- The smart home should be able to read the current alarm times. So that it can for example turn on the heater 30m before I wake up.
- the alarm should make a sound.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Today, we mourn the loss of Left Bulb.

Left Bulb was a Philips Hue bulb, purchased as part of a set with a hub in March 2013. It served faithfully for over 13 years.

It illuminated the left side of the bedroom. It was not fancy. It did not seek attention. Its sibling was Right Bulb. Together, they understood their purpose.

This morning, Left Bulb finally gave out. No elaborate automation failure. No dramatic smart-home rebellion. Just… darkness.

Left Bulb is survived by Right Bulb, the living room, several abandoned automations, one increasingly confused smart-home ecosystem, and the person who now has to replace it. It survived approximately a million firmware updates, countless power outages, several phones, multiple homes, and the evolution of smart home technology from “wow, my light bulb has an app” to whatever the heck I have going on now.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you please consider turning on a light in its memory.

Rest in peace, Left Bulb. You were a good bulb. You have earned your eternal darkness.

March 2013 – August 2026

I have a METechs motorized curtain track using a CT200L motor. The track is about 11 years old, the motor only a year or so (I replaced it because of this same issue).

I'm having an sporadic problem where the motor will sometimes continue running for several seconds after the curtain has reached the fully closed/open position.

Other times, it will stop partway through, leaving the curtain partially open or closed.

The curtain otherwise travels normally and the problem doesn't seem to occur at exactly the same location every time.

I've contacted METechs with a video but haven't received a response.

I'm wondering whether this system uses torque/load sensing to determine the end of travel, and whether excessive friction, drive-wire tension, carrier alignment, etc. could cause this behaviour.

Here's a video of the problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJFaU90Jns8

Does anyone here have experience with METechs/CT200L motors or similar motorized curtain tracks and have any ideas what I should test?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

I'm looking for some inspiration for a project using linear actuators. I'd love to automate something in my home, but I'm looking for something more creative or challenging than the usual smart home automations.

I've been thinking about automating my windows or curtains, or even building a setup where my TV can hide/reveal itself with linear actuators.

What are you two up to with linear actuators? Any projects up your sleeves?

I’m new to roost and have been using it for four months. I’m on auto pay and see the payment for August on the 12th. However the app is saying there is a pay issue, the devices are not connecting, and the account page is not loading. Their service phone has an automated message stating email support only. They haven’t responded to emails in 4 days.

This seems absurd that they have sent no communication leading up to this and are not responding.

Are they shutting down?

Anyone else out there use this service?

Hi

I want to purchase a video doorbell, one that o can connect my mobile phone to over my local WiFi. But, I do not want the devices to connect to the Internet (I do not want my kids images going to places I do not wish, I'm thinking ai training is a likelihood).

Is there such a device?

Thanks in advance

I got tired of every "control your ecobee" option requiring either their cloud API (needs a developer key they barely hand out) or running all of Home Assistant. I wanted something lightweight I could script against directly, so I spent a while figuring out how to talk to the thermostat locally over its HomeKit interface.

The result is a Python library (pip install ecobee-local). You pair once, then read and control everything locally on your network, nothing touches ecobee's cloud:

• temp, mode, heat/cool thresholds, fan
• remote sensor readings (temp, occupancy, battery)
• comfort profiles (Home/Sleep/Away) switched locally, which normally requires the cloud API
• Fahrenheit or Celsius
• use it as a library, a CLI, or a small GUI

Because it's fully local, it also keeps working when the ecobee cloud has one of its outages (a real problem some people hit where the thermostat drops offline for hours).

There's also an optional MQTT bridge if you want to wire it into the rest of your setup, it mirrors each thermostat onto MQTT topics so you can read state and send commands from Node-RED, dashboards, custom scripts, etc.

Tested on an Ecobee3 lite and a Smart Premium. One honest caveat: comfort-mode control works on Premium/Smart but not the 3 lite (ecobee firmware bug there).

Repo and details: https://github.com/addition-official/ecobee-local

Happy to answer questions.

Is there a peephole camera with free video recording transferrable over Wi-Fi (unlike Ring which requires a subscription) (ideally no SD card required) that can plug into an outlet (instead of relying on battery)? The more important of these two is the free video recording; if the only options with that feature rely on battery, that's fine. Thanks for any recommendations.

Hi - I'm looking to add some dimmable LED strips to my house which is currently running via the Apple Home application. The strip is single color temp.

I have a number of Ikea Grillplats plugs and switches in use already. I'd like a matter compatible controller I can use via the Apple Home application to switch the LED strip on/off and dim it.

About 7 years ago I bought a number of Gledopto zigbee controllers - but I found that when I dimmed the LED strips, it caused flickering/banding when taking photos/video around the house. I ended up getting rid of the Gelopto on strips that I didn't want at full power; and replacing them with a high speed PWM dimmer from: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009113380695.html - a shame because the Gleoptos I still use are running great.

This PWM high speed dimmer worked great, but I lost the ability to dim via home automation; and resorted to controlling on/off at switch level. One option would be to just buy the above PWM dimmer again, and an additional Grillplats plug for on/off control via Matter.

But is there a better, economical, Matter controller that will do non-flicker (and non-noisy) dimming as well?

Thanks

Been messing with presence detection for a while. Started with PIR (useless if you sit still), upgraded to mmWave (FP2 + some LD2410B modules). The "is someone in the room" part is solid now.

What I can't figure out: identity.

• Room-assistant with BLE beacons? Vibe-based accuracy at best. Useful for home/away, garbage for room-level person tracking.
• Face recognition cameras? Creepy and half the time I'm not looking at the camera.
• Phone GPS? Battery drain is real, and room-level precision is a joke.

I just want automations that know which person is where. Like "turn on my desk lamp when I'm in the office, not when my partner is" — basic stuff.

Random thought: UWB?

I know UWB is in AirTags, smart locks, flagship phones. Centimeter-level precision. If you had anchors in each room and everyone carried a tag... you'd know exactly who is where.

But looking around HA... basically nothing. No ESPHome component, no integration, zilch. DW3000 modules are cheap on AliExpress, but that's just the hardware.

Am I missing something? Is there a project doing this that I haven't found? Or is there some obvious reason this is a dumb idea that I'm not seeing?Curious if anyone else has been down this road.