how smart has your home gone?

Soldato
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This is my first foray into Home Assistant, I found it amazing how many devices and entities exist around my home! for example all the Hue motion detectors I have also contain a Thermostat! Who knew, well I didn't.

I am running HA as a virtual machine in Docker on my Synology NAS, and have repurposed an old surface tablet I had as a wall mount display. It seems to work well using edge in full screen mode, is large hi def and I think looks great. (wife is on the fence...). Still exploring and tweaking, so much to learn and get right.

A couple of questions for all you experts:

1. What dashboard would you recommend, beyond the standard?
2. I would like to use the built in camera to trigger the screen coming on when it senses movement. Can I do this in Windows 10?

Thanks!

tu5C9UEh.jpg
Okay, I'm sold lol. I have been looking for simple thermometer readings etc. for a while. How did you end up with something like this?
 
Associate
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Some of the apps (e.g. Hugo, Bright) can integrated with your IHD and do current readings.
Correct, I signed up to bright, and waited 2 days for my meters to be registered. I then used an app from HACS called hilde ‘something or other’ to create a device and 2 entities, one for each meter. There is about a 30 minute delay in the readings. It pulls the information from Bright.

What is great is it automatically also downloads my rates I for elec and gas (Scottish Power).

sorry I am out at the moment so can’t check exact names.
 
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Associate
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Wonder if worth starting a Katie's Home Assistant converts thread or something? Happy to answer questions/point in right direction and so on if it saves blundering/reading endlessly.

Also given how fast it's developing, a lot of the videos/guides from even six months ago are out of date and teach unnecessarily long-winded approaches - eg automations have come along hugely, almost all integrations don't need yaml code changes now etc
 
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Associate
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Wonder if worth starting a Katie's Home Assistant converts thread or something? Happy to answer questions/point in right direction and so on if it saves blundering/reading endlessly.

Also given how fast it's developing, a lot of the videos/guides from even six months ago are out of date and teach unnecessarily long-winded approaches - eg automations have come along hugely, almost all integrations don't need yaml code changes now etc
I think that is a great idea, a place where novices like me can learn and we can swap info as we learn
 
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I think that is a great idea, a place where novices like me can learn and we can swap info as we learn
I’d like this as well, started earlier this year but had to pause as we renovated the kitchen. About to setup pc and raspi again and itching to connect panels etc which have been installed since
 
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Done!

 
Soldato
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Going to be decorating the living room soon and was looking at hue downlights but they seem really dim at only 350lm, I think for my 4.6 x 4m room is need more than my planned 4.
Anyone used them, specially the colour ones?

And how best to control them, can easily remove the standard light switch.
 
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Going to be decorating the living room soon and was looking at hue downlights but they seem really dim at only 350lm, I think for my 4.6 x 4m room is need more than my planned 4.
Anyone used them, specially the colour ones?

And how best to control them, can easily remove the standard light switch.
Have them in various rooms - work fine for us. In lounge (8m x 4.5m) we have eight hue colour spotlights and they produce a decent amount.

I've installed the hue relays behind the lights switches so I can control them even if the kids switch off the main lights, other than that it's pretty normal.

Home assistant great here as you can go way beyond the 'hue app' which obviously just controls lights, so have buttons for 'movie mode' which dims lights, turns on telly, speakers, turns on the hue sync to match the TV (ambilight effect) all in one press.

Likewise, 'chill mode' turns down the lights, sets a nice warm tone and turns on some quiet music through Sonos.

And so on!
 
Soldato
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Correct, I signed up to bright, and waited 2 days for my meters to be registered. I then used an app from HACS called hilde ‘something or other’ to create a device and 2 entities, one for each meter. There is about a 30 minute delay in the readings. It pulls the information from Bright.

What is great is it automatically also downloads my rates I for elec and gas (Scottish Power).

sorry I am out at the moment so can’t check exact names.
Hi mate, could you shed any more specific info on how you did this? I have spotted HACS but can't find the hilde app. Can you help?

Edit: solved, below.
 
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Soldato
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Hi mate, could you shed any more specific info on how you did this? I have spotted HACS but can't find the hilde app. Can you help?

I think this is what you're after:
 
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Spotted, thanks chap.

Now just trying to gather my thoughts at the fact I somehow spent £3.50 on electricity today...
Knowledge will set you free! ;)

Have a look at charts - apexcharts card is great if you want advanced charting. I've used to build trackers of spend per day for last 30 days, annual views etc
 
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Associate
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The app is great for me because I live in an apartment, and although I have smart meters, the in home display thingy they give u to monitor energy is useless as I am too far from the meters for it to get any signal at all. The app at least gives me a 30 min update as to use, onto my HA tablet.
 
Soldato
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Going to be decorating the living room soon and was looking at hue downlights but they seem really dim at only 350lm, I think for my 4.6 x 4m room is need more than my planned 4.
Anyone used them, specially the colour ones?
gu10 ? e14 ? what fitment
with the narrow beam on gu10's doubt that is adequate if you want to be able to read/eat anywhere in room,
I use a 900lm uplighter gls bulb in a similar sized room for indirect/diffuse light , fine for about 2/3 of room, I'd think you need 2 hue 1000lm bulbs to be comfortable.

per earlier discussion here I prefer smart switch dumb (dimmable) bulbs since I don't want colour but good quality / colour rendition, white light.
used to use a 6000lm halide uplighter/75W , but electricities now expensive! led has never delivered the power
 
Soldato
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gu10 ? e14 ? what fitment
with the narrow beam on gu10's doubt that is adequate if you want to be able to read/eat anywhere in room,
I use a 900lm uplighter gls bulb in a similar sized room for indirect/diffuse light , fine for about 2/3 of room, I'd think you need 2 hue 1000lm bulbs to be comfortable.

per earlier discussion here I prefer smart switch dumb (dimmable) bulbs since I don't want colour but good quality / colour rendition, white light.
used to use a 6000lm halide uplighter/75W , but electricities now expensive! led has never delivered the power
Any recommendations for decent lights and the smart switches.

Might have to add colour by other means, I had hoped 4x GU10 would be enough but obviously not.
This is for the living room, mostly TV watching.

Another option is 8 hue white lights in a 2x6 grid with 2 in the centres.
Then where the bay window is boxed off put a couple of hue colour horizontal these would light the ceiling for ambiance.

Use a hue relay behind the standard switch to just switch all light bright white, then a hue remote for now control else where.
 
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Associate
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Seems like the best place to ask this.

These standard smart wifi bulbs that use an app, the set times/dimming/etc, is that tied to the bulb or the app?

A couple of scenarios. Phone has wifi off due to sleep, will the bulb work? Bulb is changed to another room/fitting, will it reset its timings/settings?

Thanks
 
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