I’ve got a few fun ones:

At night, my cat sometimes gets the zoomies, so I have a projector pointed at a wall with a motion sensor. When he goes on his tear through the house while we’re sleeping, the projector turns on and plays a video of strings moving on the wall. This tires him out without him screaming at us to play with him. It turns off again after a few minutes with no motion.

The lights and Roku screens in my office are on a motion sensor, but are also linked with a seat sensor so they don’t turn off when I’m at my desk. Sitting at the desk also sends a Wake on LAN packet to my computer. Sitting at my electronics workbench changes the lights to bright white with another seat sensor.

Lights (HA), desktop wallpaper (with Wallpaper Engine), and in-computer RGB (using OpenRGB) change from blue/pink during the day to dark red/orange at sunset so being in my office late doesn’t mess with my sleep.

A macro button next to my keyboard disables my screens and turns on a fan pointed at my VR area for workouts.

For me one of my favourites are my extractor fan control in my bathrooms. I have a switch on the fan and a humidity sensor close by. Turn on the shower and the extractor will turn on until the humidity is lowered enough, then switch off. In addition I have a static programmable button to press should you need it for other reasons. I just love the world of entities and how they link together to make something functional.

• All my lights turn on and off based on motion sensors
• Through the unofficial community Mila integration, I control my air purifiers based on different circumstances, like whether the house is empty.
• Collect indoor air quality info from my Airthings to view in Grafana

I’m tracking my HVAC filter and rest it’s 90days with an NFC tag

Loosely followed an online how-to to create a tracking chore list using NFC tags for my son’s allowance. Automations to nag him on trash night to gather/take out the trash.

A simple Automation that turns on a fan in the basement when the outside temp is above out AC setting to help distribute cool basement air.

Outside security lights on/off at dusk/dawn

House auto arms/disarms (Alarmo) when everyone leaves or someone arrives (via life 360 integration)

On trash day, after noon if my son scans (NFC) one of the trash cans, the garage door opens to let him in/put them away.

My son gets a notification when he comes home from school if we got mail (aka the mailbox was opened that day)

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

The ones I use the most are:

• Turning on lights and setting specific scenes when I turn on TVs in my bedroom, living room and theater room.
• Brighten lights whenever Plex is paused or finishes playing, which is great in a dedicated home theater where the lighting is very dark when watching a movie. This has actually helped improve many hang out nights with friends because the moment after a movie finishes is less awkward, leading more naturally into a nice conversation before every heads home.
• Reminder notifications for when washing machine or dryer cycles finish, or when my garage door has been open for more than 15 minutes (unless I override that with a toggle on my dashboard).
• Turning off all of my lights and switches when I leave the house, unless a boolean variable is flipped (e.g. if someone else is at my house w/o me, which is unusual since I live alone). Well, not quite everything, there are a few devices like a couple power monitoring smart pugs that always remain on.

How did you manage to get selenium working with Amazon!? I can’t get it to work well. Amazon always thinks I’m a bot and blocks access. Which is right but still.

Washing machine and dryer are monitored for power consumption. When the power consumption drops to a minimum for some minutes then my wife gets a push notification to her mobile that the machine has finished. Was a bit trial & error especially for the washing machine which has phases while washing where it does “nothing” for some minutes and at the end it turns the laundry every now and then after the program is done (to avoid crease).

Which addon did you use for the paperless-ngx integration?

A few automations are running in my house:

• Turned the nightstand light into a wake-up light, which distinguishes between weekdays and weekends,
• Kitchen light turns on and off based on sunset and midnight with random offset respectively,
• Garbage collection notifications,
• Introduced an extra (wireless) light switch in the hallway, which controls a Shelly connected to the light. The original light switch is still intact, however it is positioned at an unconvenient location.

In the coming period I want to:

• Automate the shutters and combine that with a light sensor.
• Introduce a routine that starts the washing machine and/or drying during the day based on the amount of incoming solar power. Not sure yet how to do this, since the washing machine has a physical start button via touch.

I don’t have a lot of automations yet, but a really useful one has been using smart plugs to detect when the laundry machines are running so that Home Assistant can send alerts when they finish.

I have my house switch to night mode after a certain amount of time after sunset. During night mode:

• turning my computer on or off will toggle my desk light.
• if my cellphone is put over my wireless charger it will turn off my bed light (or turn it back on if I remove it).

I love my door sensor announcements. Garage opens? Google Home goes “GARAGE OPEN”. Front door blows open at 11pm because it wasn’t closed properly? “FRONT DOOR OPEN… all home lights come on”

Just security stuff. So much customization that other products don’t offer.

My tankless hot water heater is controlled via Home Assistant too. Shuts off the circulation loop at 11pm~630am. Saves a ton of gas!

Turning on heated blankets at night, turn off after I plug in my phone to charge.

Climate control in every room.

Made dumb standing desk is now smart and goes up and down randomly every 45-60 minutes while I’m working.

• Turn off the heating when a window in that room is open for more than 30 seconds (not manual, but included in the HACS “better thermostat” integration)
• Warn me if I turn the lights off in the office without closing the window (only relevant and active in winter, this means that I am going to bed but forgot to close the window and I would wake up to my room being near freezing)