introducing what home automation offers

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When you look for home automation equipment you find many systems. They turn on lights and plug sockets; water the garden; unlock a door, turn up the heating; record a security camera, open the garage or play music in every room. The use-cases are variably compelling. Not everything needs to be life-changing, but let’s list some examples for starters:

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• turn on my printer upstairs remotely because it takes 5 minutes to warm up and I’m saved a few trips between the printer and my PC.
• turn off the laptop charger socket twice a day to ensure it’s not left charging.
• turn off lights and devices after midnight.
• turn off the iron after an hours use
• change the colour of the porch light depending on the coming weather – white for snow; blue for freezing; orange for warm and purple for rain.
• alert me when there’s post in the letter box. Get an alert when heating oil needs to be ordered. Get an alert when electricity use is unusually high
• turn on multiple kitchen lights when you enter; turn them off later. If you enter the kitchen at night, turn on just the floor lights so that people aren’t disturbed.
• switch the dim levels on the room lights and the table lamps when the TV comes on
• see how much fuel or electric charge is in the car and get a notification when you need to do something
• lock the car while you’re in the cinema because you’re not sure if you actually locked it.
• get the set top box to record a film even though you’re away on holiday,
• remember your favourite temperature and set it. But don’t warm the house when no-one’s home. Show the room temperature on a graph over time to see if I’m wasting energy
• tell me the weather; today’s diary; time of the next train; or my broadband speed

what do you mean by smart or smart home?

Home automation ought to mean that some of your tasks are decided and managed for you. To use a phone app to turn off a plug socket isn’t automation though it’s clever. If I’m miles away from the plug socket it is compellingly useful, a touch smart but still not home automation.

I take ‘smart’ to mean that a device connects to the network and that in turn provides extra capabilities. (In contrast I’ve seen daft homes – full of smart gear but where opportunities, such turning on the heating remotely, seem wasted).

You probably have a room thermometer somewhere at home. Having a smarter version of it lets you start something when a certain temperature is shown. My project pages nearby will show that the things we use can be improved or made to do things more economically. If you’d like to make things, work through the sequence below. The next page suggests a best way to proceed > why a platform.

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a tutorial sequence: > the offer > why a platform > home assistant > ESPhome > camera project > main menu

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image credits: Google Home mini – photo by Thomas Kolnowski on Unsplash