discussion General Home Automation / Home Assistant thread

[SugarJ]

Same guy all the time? Then he's obsessed with privacy. Which you shouldn't expect walking in pubic places, duh.

 

[sswilson]

Wifes friends cameras are all wireless and it isn't even just people targeting your house but one person walking through the alley every time they do walk through the cameras all cut out when they get close to their house. And all turn back on the moment he gets further away. Been the same person each time but the camera can't pick up enough detail before they are out of range with their back turned again.

Sounds like somebody who should be reported to the appropriate regulator for illegal use of jamming equipment (thus interfering with radio waves). Not sure if they'd do anything about it, but an identifiable repeat offender might be worth their while.

 

[Marzipan]

Wifes friends cameras are all wireless and it isn't even just people targeting your house but one person walking through the alley every time they do walk through the cameras all cut out when they get close to their house. And all turn back on the moment he gets further away. Been the same person each time but the camera can't pick up enough detail before they are out of range with their back turned again.

check if they can record to an mSD card or something, that way if the network drops, it still records?

 

[lowfat]

Didn't really use Home Assistant since moving in to the house 2 years ago. Did do a few basic automations for the work shop. But recently did all the living room home theatre stuff as well. My Harmony Hub has a bunch of issues controlling setup properly. And I hate the default FireTV launcher/UI.

Side loaded Flauncher, which is the only other launcher I could get to work. All the other launches dont use basic APK files and I couldn't figure it out.


It is very basic but at least doesn't have all that spam Amazon stuffs down your throat. But there is still no way to set any other launcher besides Amazon to default. So in Home Assistant I use an emulated Roku that i add to the Harmony Hub. It thinks it is sending commands to a Roku, but then I can set whatever I want those commands to do in Home Assistant. So I bind the Guide key on my Harmony to some Roku command, and then I have Home Assistant open the launcher on the FireTV over ADB. Every time I 'turn off' the FireTV via the Harmony, I have Home Assistant open Flauncher, so next time I use it, it is on the right launcher. Been a few weeks and been working perfect.

The other issue is just listening to music on the AVR. It does support Tidal. But the Harmony can't open the Tidal app but Home Assistant can. So I have the Harmony set the input to SERVER. And anytime HA sees the AVR on SERVER it automaticaly switches to Tidal. Also have it automatically switch sound modes depending on app/device. Tidal gets set to straight / 2 channel. YT gets set to Dolby Surround. And then Plex is straight for multi-channel passthrough.

Plus then the basic stuff like having the amplifiers turn on with the Harmony, turning down the air purifier, and turning off the plant lights when TV is on.

 

[lowfat]

Have 2 automatic cat litter boxes. Different brands. But both use the same Tuya smart home backbone. Or so I hoped. After receiving the 2nd, I was disappointed with how the app lacked features. Even tho it was literally the same app. I couldn't get notifications at all. And it has a limit of 10minute delay for cleaning cycle.

I know Tuya was supported by HA as I've used it for bulbs many years ago. So I add it back to HA, but the litter boxes show as unsupported. I find that some dood has a plugin, which I added to support them.

So I wanted HA to send me a notificaiton when used, and allow a longer time before use and cleaning. So try using manual mode. The dumb litter box won't allow me to do a manual clean if its set to manual mode. And it also won't detect if a cat enters or not. After a bunch of tinkering was finally able to get it working the way I want. As soon as a cat enters it, I have HA turn litter box off and back on. This stops the automatic cleaning cycle. Then I can have my own delay done w/ HA. Then do a manual clean cycle.



I think this relies on the cloud still tho. Will have to look in to if other plugins will add local control. Don't want my litter boxes not working if power goes out lol.

 

[lowfat]

Finally added my PC AVR added to my network. Then added it to Home Assistant. And then w/ the Hass.Agent PC app, I'm now able to power on the AVR as well as control volume w/ just fn + one key (for each). No longer need the remote control at all.

Same goes for the LG TV I'm using for display. Although that isn't through HA. Just apps running on the PC.

AVR will power off automatically when the PC turns off / goes to sleep.

 

[lowfat]

Use an LG C1 for my display. There is an app called LGTVCompanion that can turn TV on/off when you wake/power up. As well as blank the display when idle. Except recently I've been having issues waking the display reliably. Possibly because its on a different VLAN. But it still blanks the display and turns if off properly.

So I'm getting Home Assistant to ping my desktop once every 10s. Once it pings ok, it will send a WOL magic packet to the TV. Works like a charm.

Home Assistant seriously solving so many 'issues' in the house w/ tech I use.