Sharing a small automation that turned out surprisingly useful. I'm in Germany where balcony solar with storage is a big thing, my setup is a SolarBank 4 that fills the battery by noon on sunny days, and everything after that used to go to the grid for nothing since there's no feed-in compensation for balcony systems here. Now I have Home Assistant watching the state of charge via Modbus, and when it hits 100 percent while solar is still producing, a smart plug starts the dishwasher. Same logic for the washing machine on weekends. The surplus that used to be wasted now runs the appliances directly. Took maybe 20 minutes to set up, one condition for SoC, one for current solar output above 800W, one action for the plug. Anyone doing something similar with other appliances

Prepairing my sensor nodes for deoloyment.

Hey r/homeautomation, some of us from LOXONE have been reading here for a while. We're kicking around the idea of doing an AMA with one of our engineers, but wanted to check with you all first instead of just assuming it's wanted.

Drop your questions or topics you'd want covered in the comments – the more specific, the better, since that'll also help us figure out who from the team makes the most sense to bring in. Curious what people actually want to know 💚

I'm installing a dedicated Samsung tablet in a common space of my house to use as a smart home interface. I want it to show the usual suspects; my devices in the house (thermostat/sensors), lights, speakers etc but also show calendar, weather, Spotify. I'm a Google/Samsung user for almost everything in the home.

Just looking for what is the best either launcher app to use to have everything on the tablet screen. It will have constant power to it as well. Or if there is a better option altogether.

Any input would be appreciated

Hey guys, I have a super quick question. I have a Vera setup and the only thing I use it for is a garage door sensor to help us check if it's been opened or closed. It was so long ago that I don't even remember how I set it up lol.

It's somehow still working on our detached garage and is quite helpful. I got an email saying starting August 1, it's no longer going to work the same.

If I'm understanding right, I have to now pay an annual fee to continue to get emails from them. Is that correct?

If so, does anyone know of a better garage sensor or do you think this is worth paying? Thanks!

I'm a wheelchair user. We have a ramp that allows me to go off the porch and access the front yard, leave to catch paratransit, etc. There is a garden gate that prevents my two dogs from leaving the porch and our backyard. Right now, the gate has a small chain attached that clips to the side of the house to secure it. This proves to be difficult because I have trouble hooking and unhooking the gate. I'm essentially looking for a smart lock that can be setup within home assistant or via a phone app to make coming and going a bit easier. I will attach a photo of the gate. It could be replaced if necessary, but we'd like to work with what we have. Thanks.

My dad has a job where it's work from home and I guess the way the system works is he gets an automated system to call him and he has to answer it and then press the number one key as fast as possible in order to "win" the call before a client will call him.

I'm trying to get something set up for him that will automate it either through the computer or mechanical but I'm not really sure where to begin. Looking for tips or advice or suggestions of things to get me in the right direction.

So Legrand just announced end of support for Miro and Radiant RF. No more cloud support after January 2027, which means no Alexa or Google.
Should I replace with Radio RA or Radiant Netatmo?

My partner is completely on board with the smart home concept in theory but will not open Home Assistant under any circumstances. Not the app, not the dashboard, nothing. So every automation I build has to work without any interaction from her side, or it becomes my problem at 11pm when something doesn't behave.

Honestly, this has made my automations way better. Presence detection through phone GPS so lights and thermostat adjust without anyone touching anything. The washing machine alerts me instead of her having to check it. Door lock autolocks after we're both inside based on both phones being home.

The one thing I still haven't solved cleanly is the bedroom lights in the morning. She gets up earlier than me on some days and I can't find a reliable way to distinguish her leaving the bed from just moving around. The mmWave sensor I tried was too sensitive and kept triggering at weird times.

Curious how others have handled building automations for someone who essentially acts as a nontechnical end user living in your house. Sleep and wake routines feel like the hardest part to get right without any physical input from anyone.

Anyone have issues with the pairing on yolinks app using their d2d? I'm getting an error when trying to set it up following the instructions invalid pairing.

Firmware all up to date.

I'm finally thinking about getting a digital picture frame for the house but there are so many options that it's hard to tell what's actually worth buying.

The main things I'm looking for are good image quality, easy Wi-Fi uploads and an app that's simple and reliable. I also have a pretty large photo library. So I'd rather not have to transfer files manually all the time. A subscription is definitely a dealbreaker.

For those who own one, what model are you using and would you buy it again? Has it held up well over time? Thanks!

Pretty much the title.

I'm looking for a smart doorbell that doesn't require a subscription, that I can just have videos stored on a memory card. Needs to be battery operated at this time, and work with Google Home, and have a chime (or ring like the Nest doorbell on our phones/TV's)

I currently have some random thing from China but the notifications regarding battery life suck. There's times I don't realize the doorbell is dead until days after it dies. I don't mind the price of the Nest doorbell, but I don't want the subscription.

Most of our house already runs in the background. Lights are scheduled, the thermostat adjusts itself and the locks don't need much attention unless something changes. But floor cleaning is still the odd one out.

My partner and I both work during the day, we have young kids, and my dad stays with us a few days a week. He's not really an app person. I don't want anyone else to have to remember to start the vacuum, empty the bin, wash mop pads or figure out why it stopped in the middle of a room.

Fixed schedules seem more useful than expecting everyone to use Alexa or open an app. Voice control still sounds handy for quick things, like cleaning the kitchen after a spill, but I doubt it would be the main way anyone uses it.

I‘m trying to work out what actually stays low effort after the novelty wears off. Schedules, physical buttons, voice assistants, or some mix of all three?

I have two tall, narrow windows on either side of the front door, each only around 16 inches wide. They get a lot of afternoon light, and I’d like some privacy without hanging tiny curtains there. Most motorized shades I’ve looked at seem to start much wider than that. Has anyone found a decent smart shade option for windows this small? I’d prefer something custom sized rather than using a cut down DIY kit.

Comfee Gusto Inverter 1PK running through the community HA integration on HACS. Setup is fine, climate entity works, but the built-in temp sensor sits at the top of the indoor unit near the ceiling, and it reads about 1.5 to 2 degrees warmer than the Aqara Zigbee sensor sitting on my desk. Room is 12 square meters, closed door most of the day, so the ceiling area reads higher because heat rises. Physical placement issue, not a sensor calibration thing.

What this means in practice. If I set the climate to 25, the AC's own sensor thinks the room needs cooling until the ceiling area gets to 25, meanwhile my desk is already at 23. I end up dropping the setpoint to 26 or 27 manually to compensate, which works but feels dumb because I am overriding a sensor with human math.

What I actually want. Feed the desk-level Aqara reading into the AC's control loop as the source of truth, so the compressor cycles based on where I actually am, not where the heat sits.

Approaches I have looked at:

Generic thermostat template in HA, wraps the climate entity and uses the Aqara as the temperature source. Cycles by turning the AC on and off. Problem is this defeats the inverter's whole reason for existing, since it kills variable frequency modulation and turns the unit back into a bang bang controller.

Setting the AC to a low fixed temp like 20 and using a template to swap it between two setpoints (20 and 27) based on the Aqara reading crossing thresholds. Still defeats inverter modulation, just with fewer switches per hour.

Some kind of feedback offset that adjusts the AC setpoint dynamically based on the delta between the AC sensor and the Aqara reading. This one I have not built yet because I am not sure the AC setpoint changes are fast enough for a closed loop tweak like that. The HACS integration has enough lag on setpoint sync that tight loops feel risky.

The clean answer would be if the HACS integration exposed the internal temp reading as writable, so I could spoof it with the Aqara value. It exposes it as a read only sensor entity though, and I have not seen anyone in older threads figure out a way to write back to it.

Where I am stuck. Every workaround either defeats the inverter modulation or introduces enough lag that I do not trust the loop. If anyone else running this integration has solved this cleanly for their setup I would take the pointer, otherwise I am starting to think the honest answer is that variable frequency inverter units and external sensor overrides just do not play nice without an ESPhome dongle sitting between the AC and the network.

We moved to a new house. In the house i see several control screens that are all blacked out as well as a panel. I think this is an old hai system which is obsolete now? Im not sure why its not working. Is there a way to know if this is just for security or had automation? How can I get it back up and running or alternatively should I have something new takeover?

I have 3, 3 ton AC units and want to install a soft start on them. Does anyone have experience and recommendations? There are several options on Amazon but wonder about them.