Your most creative use of HA Tech?

I use a water sensor to send alerts to fill my salt water tank automatic top off tank.

I use another for my christmas tree to tell me when to water it.

When the wife is close to home the porch light turns purple, front door unlocks and the house announces “The Queen is arriving” Funny thing is the dog and cat learned what this means and only on this announcement will they go running to the door to wait for her.

Put an open close sensor on the mailbox and the house announces when the mail comes using a quote from Homer Simpson. The mail is here Ooooh

When my alarm is triggered the house loudly announces on all speakers “Intruder alert. Police have been called. All video surveillance is now active and recording. Smile.”

When the laundry is done the house announces it. I change the phrase randomly to drive the wife crazy. Now it says “Hey Hey Hey Lisa Like the wash is done ya know” The looks I get are priceless. :smiling_imp: LOL

In the AM when the wife gets up the first motion event in the kitchen triggers the days weather forecast announcement for her.

Yes we love that the house has a voice.

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Our dog also reacts to lights coming on by running to the window to see who is arriving.

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Is your app available to share? I’m always looking for ways to get my house to talk back to me. My wife says I listen to our house more than her :smile:

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Do you use rule machine for something like this?

I assume you are using Sonos speakers or the like? We have a Sonos in our bathroom; when I built the house I have in wall/ceiling speakers in different zones in the house…not aware of a way to interface to those…but that is a sweeeet idea…

How did you interface with the hardwired one…I imagine more than one of us is wondering…I bought zwave First Alert ones so i could interface with those…and my hardwired ones still report to ADT…

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I’m using Ubi’s in a couple of rooms and use a virtual switch when the alarm is triggered. They are plenty loud enough you can hear them clearly announce throughout the house.

Lanounce and do the same thing using bluetooth from a tablet.

I believe you can just take the audio out from the Sonos and plug it into the house amp also. Then rule machine or big talker could do the same things.

Check out the Sonos Connect: Amp

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Set up an ifttt for my wife.
"Alexa, trigger ‘find my phone’"
her phone gets a phone call. she loves that.

and when she goes running, she can use her phone to open the garage door when she gets back.

The power outlet on her makeup vanity is zwave switched so it is automatically shut off when she leaves so it can’t be accidentally left on for 48 hrs… :frowning:

And when she comes home after sunset, the lights are on for her.

Anything that makes my wife’s life super easy makes her happy, which works out well for me.

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wrote a smart app that turns on roof coil for certain date range for certain temp range… set it and forget it…

Last year we forgot to turn on the roof heaters after a big snow and warm temps for a few days. only to be rewarded with a 2 foot thick ice damn leaking … I had to go out and chop it off, including the existing coils… worked great so far.

also turn off the space heater in the kitched when no motion for over 1/2 hour…

Absolutely:
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Goodnight_SmartHome

I tried it make it as customize-able as possible so you can tweak it to your needs as far as what to turn on or off and when and whether to run a routine or not.

Even the phrase spoken if everything is closed is able to be set when installing so you can use it for other things, like when you leave the house for example.

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Anyway to make this work for Sonos as the TTS?

EDIT: hmm my sonos speakers are not showing up when doing the setup.

Nope. Apparently sonos does not have the “capability.speechSynthesis”?

UPDATE: Change my sonos to a different sonos device type that support capability.speedsynthesis and now it’s working. One thing is Alexa does not recognize the button when I’m asking her to turn the button on. She discovered the button OK. I think it has to do with the “buttonName=” in the name.

You should be able to pick any TTS device when installing.

I have a Hue in the entry way and another in my housemate’s room that turns blue when I enter the front yard. This lets both my dog and my housemate know that I’m on my way in in case I need help with the door. :sunglasses: :bulb: :dog:

Is you dog able to tell the difference between the colors or is it just the light going on that alerts him/her? I know it’s a myth that dogs can only see black and white but I do know they are limited somewhat with colors (red maybe? too lazy to look up right now).

Dogs can see blue and yellow quite clearly, but not most other colors. (Green and orange both look yellow to them).

We use blue and yellow color coding on a lot of things in the house, so I did test to see that he could distinguish the blue light and he can. :sunglasses:

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that looks good and the ST can interact with it with the usual efficiency with Sonos… haha Dont know how I never saw that particular item.

If you’re a Mac user, look ar @obycode’s Music app for iTunes turns your iTunes into an ST compatible music player. Then add an airport express to your speakers as a source.

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My wife is currently recovering from some surgery. And since I spend a good chunk of time in the basement, I might not hear her yell for me if she needs some help. So all she needs to do is press button #4 on any of the minimotes around the house and a light will turn on in the basement & the Sonos will say, " Murray, get your a$$ up stairs, your beautiful wife needs some help".

When she gets better, I will definitely delete that function.

Also when my pool is full of kids, it’s fun to press a button and announce over my Sonos; “The pool pee detector is now armed, if you pee in my pool a large electrical shock will be sent to your body”. I always make sure they have my attention to make sure they hear it.

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If she lets you. :slight_smile: 20 char

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