Home Assistant beginners

Bluecube said:
You can get 1600 lumen Hue bulbs but they’re stupidly expensive.
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I certainly won't be buying anymore Hue bulbs. Every other single ZigBee device was a doddle to reset took me minutes to do the whole house. The two Hue bulbs just don't do the reset after trying for way too long, 5 sec off, 8 sec on, 2 sec off, 8 sec on and so on.
 
Question about lights.

I have a light that comes on triggered by a motion sensor for 2 minutes. It's set to Restart, but it's going off even when you still have motion.
 
robj20 said:
Question about lights.

I have a light that comes on triggered by a motion sensor for 2 minutes. It's set to Restart, but it's going off even when you still have motion.
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I think is more a question about the motion sensor as this is the trigger. Motion sensors can be finicky things as they generally have a cooldown period where they won’t detect motion and therefore won’t trigger your automation. You may find a presence sensor is required which provides constant updates in terms of people being present in a room as opposed to moving.
 
Bluecube said:
I think is more a question about the motion sensor as this is the trigger. Motion sensors can be finicky things as they generally have a cooldown period where they won’t detect motion and therefore won’t trigger your automation. You may find a presence sensor is required which provides constant updates in terms of people being present in a room as opposed to moving.
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I'll check that out, can see via the app what the sensor is reporting. See if it sends the second trigger, for now I have tweaked the times.
 
robj20 said:
Question about lights.

I have a light that comes on triggered by a motion sensor for 2 minutes. It's set to Restart, but it's going off even when you still have motion.
Click to expand...

As mentioned it's all about occupancy



Also those triggers have a configurable timeout ie occupancy must be clear for 20 seconds or the door must have been shut for 10 seconds

eg

YAML: 
alias: When Front Door is closed
entity_id:
  - binary_sensor.lumi_lumi_sensor_magnet_aq2_opening
to: "off"
from: "on"
for:
  hours: 0
  minutes: 0
  seconds: "{{ states('input_number.porch_light_timeout')|int }}"
trigger: state
 
Subliminal Aura said:
As mentioned it's all about occupancy



Also those triggers have a configurable timeout ie occupancy must be clear for 20 seconds or the door must have been shut for 10 seconds

eg

YAML: 
alias: When Front Door is closed
entity_id:
  - binary_sensor.lumi_lumi_sensor_magnet_aq2_opening
to: "off"
from: "on"
for:
  hours: 0
  minutes: 0
  seconds: "{{ states('input_number.porch_light_timeout')|int }}"
trigger: state
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So do you do separate automations for on and off.
I have mine all in one.

My front "porch" light uses a camera in motion and person detect, and also a door open close sensor. I haven't checked if that behaves differently.
Ie of during the 2m delay or straight after that 2 mins the automation will immediately start again.

Presence sensor for the garage light might be tricky as I see they need power. It's like a little pantry really the sensor picks up the door opening and or a person moving in the 2m x 4m space.

I'll say it again this HA is such a rabbit hole soooo much to think about. Next thing I want to get working is the washer and dryer announcing or flashing the Amazon Echos to aert when done, see washer is an LG and has the app but that looks a little tricky, the dryer will need to be via an energy monitoring socket.

The VMware version has been rock solid so far, still nervous each time I open the app expecting it to have crashed.
 
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robj20 said:
So do you do separate automations for on and off.
I have mine all in one.
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I just separate them as it makes for easier debugging and reading

Well there are so many ways of solving a problem. I'm doing something similar to you for the porch - My cameras run through frigate which expose presence entities by defined zones (if you want to be very precise). The accuracy and speed is amazing - it literally startles unwanted folk from proceeding to the front door, I've caught so many u turns on cam :cry:

mW presence detectors are used indoors setting those up are a PITA let alone trying them outdoors
 
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Subliminal Aura said:
Aren't these the ones that require a neutral wire ?
I got a pack of 4 no neutrals ZBMINIL2 bought in 2024 still sealed :rolleyes:

Also one word of caution is that these are Zigbee endpoint devices and not routers as one would expect
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Ooh, didn't know these aren't routers.

I also was pleased with the price then realised I bought 4 from AliExpress in January and have used zero of them :D

I like them because they allow a config where the power isn't switched, they just pass the switch even into HA where you can change a smart bulb state.
 
Another thing ticked off my list, Echos now say "washing finished" when the washing machine is done. Took me a while to find the target for that rather than having it just make a sound.
That'll come in handy when I sort my Unifi doorbell out as well.
 
robj20 said:
Another thing ticked off my list, Echos now say "washing finished" when the washing machine is done. Took me a while to find the target for that rather than having it just make a sound.
That'll come in handy when I sort my Unifi doorbell out as well.
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Nice! I just have a push notification to our phones for the washing machine. It was nice and easy to set up with my LG machine as it has a 'run completed' entity to trigger the notification.

I do want to start using Chime TTS for notifications on various bits in future.
 
andy_mk3 said:
Nice! I just have a push notification to our phones for the washing machine. It was nice and easy to set up with my LG machine as it has a 'run completed' entity to trigger the notification.

I do want to start using Chime TTS for notifications on various bits in future.
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Yes mines an LG, when I first read it I thought it sounded a faff but getting the Token want too bad actually.
 
Music Assistant is an Home Assistant add on that’s grown massively over the past year. As I said, it can be installed as an Add On but also as a container. I’m mentioning this as there’s been a big update recently that’s made it much easier to set up and use. It’s great if you’re into your music and have a variety of smart speakers around the house. It’s easy to sync your music across speakers using Airplay, DLNA, Google Cast, Sonos and more, all at the same time.

It’s well worth playing about with
 
Wish I'd known about ZigBee channel settings, mines on 20 but it looks like 25 is the best channel to use as it overlaps WiFi even less.

Also didn't know non battery powered ZigBee stuff act as routers.

Are there any apps that can scan the ZigBee frequency? I have a WiFi one but it doesn't see the ZigBee stuff.
 
robj20 said:
Wish I'd known about ZigBee channel settings, mines on 20 but it looks like 25 is the best channel to use as it overlaps WiFi even less.

Also didn't know non battery powered ZigBee stuff act as routers.

Are there any apps that can scan the ZigBee frequency? I have a WiFi one but it doesn't see the ZigBee stuff.
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Just change your 2.4g WiFi channel instead which is the source of most of the interference
 
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