Node Red for Beginners - 2021 Edition (Using Home Assistant)
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- čas přidán 12. 01. 2021
- Home Assistant and Node-RED are the ultimate automating duo, get started today with this video. Thank you to Govee for sponsoring this video. Check out their new Govee Immersion TV backlight: amzn.to/3oAsaSi
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Right.... you've convinced me that I need node red - thanks!
Oh and Dr Zzzzzs does have a hair attribute, it's just null!
Man, I had no idea home automation had gone this far. I literally do this kind of work to automate power plants with distributed control systems. It is amazing just how similar the Node Red interface is to Mitsubishi Netmation, Siemens T3000 and Emerson's Ovation programming interfaces.
Good stuff...
Automation Idea: Make your robot vacuum start when no one is home after sending a actionable notification to the last person who had left (just in case the floors are prepared for the robot). If the robot is started with the actionable notification, use max power settings. If started manually, automatically turn the power to eco (so it's quiet since people are home). If someone returns back into the geofence of the home, have the running robot return to the base station. This is actually one I'm currently working on myself!
One of my more complex Automations:
-trigger: power meter induction stove rises above 100 watts
-condition: furnace fume extractor is off
-action: turn on fume extractor an set kitchen downlights to full power
And a similar automation to turn off fume extractor and dim kitchen lights after 1 min of no power drawn by stove
Zoom is a lost art and when I saw you zoom in to allow the viewer to actually see what you were referencing I had to stop and say thank you. Wish more YTers would do this.
Your previous NodeRed videos are why I'm all in on Home Assistant. I've made so many automations, that I have no idea how I'd survive in a non-smart home anymore. Thanks for all your hard work!
Awesome, love to hear stuff like that.
When my friend moved to a new apartment, and his wife realized that shouting Alexa… won’t do anything and she actually had to walk to the light switch to use it, she said ‘OMG, we live like animals. Do something!’
I started using node red as well a few months ago thanks to your video's
. I have made some very complex stuff in the meantime 😅
Likewise. Any room I still have to touch something like a light switch is a room that needs automating!
I think it is from this channel where I first heard about Home Assistant.
My favorite automations are based around working from home in my basement.
Automation "Kids Incoming":
- Door sensor to the basement trips
- Office RGB light blinks green twice for a heads up that I have incoming and I should close the door if on a call (This has saved me many a time)
Automation "I'm on a call":
- Using the call state sensor in the Home Assistant companion app for Android, when on the phone, and is business day/hours
- Turn the light in the main basement room to RED and 100% brightness
- Turn my LED panels white to illuminate my face for video calls
- Update the Home Assistant UI to show me as do not disturb (DND)
- Update my Slack instances to show me as DND
- On hangup -- return LED panels to previous active effect, return basement room light to previous state, turn off DND in Home Assistant and Slack
Automation "Get Work Links":
- Every morning poll a shared Github gist to get the latest mark down file with client meeting links, phone numbers, holidays, etc....
- Push to Home Assistant as a sensor
- Sensor state auto-updates Lovelace Markdown card to show links on my office tab in Home Assistant
Your videos are really of another levels in terms of quality, use of language / layman terms and subtle touches of humor. I’m learning a lot! Thanks for existing.
Thanks Anatoly!
I have been watching your previous node-red videos and I feel like you released this video because you knew I was lurking :D. Thanks for the video
I honestly cant even imagine someone doing a better job of thoroughly yet concisely giving a beginners breakdown of node red. Thank you sir! This planet is better off with you on it.
automation idea: automate a smart switch ( water pump for a aquaponics garden)
needs to turn on each 1/2 hour for 10 mins, between the hours of 5am to 11pm
if HA or NR is rebooted at anytime the cycle need to finish so the garden bed is not left half full of water
etc. Great videos by the way , thanks for making them.
Thank you opensource developers for making all of this possible!
Here is my idea for a home automation: whenever I start doing the laundry I often forget it after it ran for a few hours. I would love to get a notification when my laundry is done! Using a SonOff with power measurement I can detect if the washing machine has started. When it stops using power for a certain amount of time (after it started to use power) I want to send a notify service using home assistant!
I did this by doing a hybrid node red and HA automation. I use HA to monitor when power increases above a certain value and then when it decreases again. That triggers an input Boolean I created to monitor this. I then used a Node Red current state node to monitor the state of that boolean and output that to my echo device with a custom message to let us know to unload the washer. I’m sure you can do it all more simply in Node Red but this was a more intuitive way for me to achieve what I wanted to do.
Automation idea: vacation mode that replays the lights from 7 days ago.
THANK YOU! So many YTers have excellent videos but it leaves some folks wondering why ZOOM is not used to show what you want us to focus on (and can see). Your videos meet this criterion and make the point so much easier to see and understand. Again thank you.
I wish I'd seen this before I went through using Node RED. Lots of good Node-RED resources and 'recipes' out there, but this is way better than stumbling around the Net. Node RED was worth the effort before, this removes a lot of the learning curve and makes the return on investment even higher.
Thanks for yet another great video! Now I can get back to taking measurements for my soon-to-be-purchased pergola...
Automation Idea: When all Phones are away, trigger a Lights away sequence that randomly turns on and off different lights at different times to simulate presence till about midnight. I tried something like this but failed. I'm interested to see your attempt ;-) I'm now using Presence Faker, thanks for the recommandation.
I used the presence faker node for this
I'll have to look in to presence faker.
I used an "inject enhanced" node to send a message every 30 minutes from sunset to bedtime. From there, I have several "within time" nodes turning lights on and off. I also have an input_boolean to turn on and off my "away mode". I'm going to have to look into the "presence faker" node @PersonXes mentioned (thanks). Always looking for a more efficient way.
Thx for the help, I will try it out👍🏻
There seems to be interest in my automation, so here it is:pastebin.com/TuCYuL4F What does it do: At 04:00 it determines the sunset & sunrise times. One minute later it feeds that information into a series of presence faker nodes which control a light. The reason I have multiple is because I want the light to behave differently depending on what time it is. The first presence faker node runs from 07:00 untill sunrise, the second one from sunrise to sunset, the third from sunset untill bedtime, the third runs around bedtime and the last one runs during the night. All the presence fakers nodes are inactive except if a vacation switch is turned on. I have probably exaggerated a bit, but the result of this automation is a node which simulates quite intelligently my behaviour. Another alternative solution: there are automations that just rerun the on-off cycles of your lights of for example 2 weeks ago.
Another awesome Node Red overview... thanks a lot man! Your channel recently inspired me to make some ESP32 based MQTT products of my own (E26 RGB Bulb, GU10 RGB Bulb, Battery-Powered light switches, etc), which have actually turned out to be viable prototypes that build upon some of the general security and ease-of-use issues you often discuss in your videos.
I just wanted to extend a sincere thank you for your passion to demonstrate secure and effective smart tech implementation, and who knows! maybe one day you'll be doing an overview of some of my products too :)
Awesome Patt, good luck on the prototyping!
@@TheHookUp thanks Robert!
Thanks for all the videos! Your channel has helped me start migrating from Smartthings/Webcore to Home Assistant. I am loving the Blue Iris/Camera Feed integrations, now slowly moving my Zwave/Zigbee devices over to Home Assistant. I've played around a bit with some automations within HA, but now after discovering NodeRed, it will help keep all my automations organized and easier to manage/troubleshoot. Keep up the great work!
As always, great video, Rob! It's also nice to read all the automation ideas.
Great topic. Loving Node-RED ❤️
msg.topic = 'Great'; // ;-) I'll see my self out
Your "old" node red videos are one of the first I saw when getting into the home automation scene 4 months ago (feels much longer! My wife feels the same way). So glad I found your node red videos back then as I couldn't IMAGINE making all the automations I already have with dropdown lists. Just shared this video with my friend who's into home automation but was having a hard time with node red.
Edit: And Im trying to think of a crazy, but useful flow I need you to make but honestly node red is pretty easy once you get into it. Plus with all the palettes you can download, chances are someones already made a node specifically for what you want to do. Oh and the guys at the node red forum are super smart and will help you best they can (as long as it not something super specific to the Home Assistant version of node red)
Is your friend still your friend because as an intro, this video is appalling
Thanks so much for this video. I've been a long-time user of HA, and making my own custom automations with Python. In about 30 minutes, after watching this, I replaced a Python script (that manages my guest wireless SSID via REST API) with a Node-RED flow. Awesome stuff!
I'm just starting in the world of home automation/smart home... and your channel has been a HUGE help for me! Thanks a lot!
Here's my automation idea:
Entities:
- Door sensor (Daughter's room)
- Echo Flex (Or any connected speaker) (Daughter's room)
- Echo Dot (Living room)
- Cellphone
- RGB LED Strip
- Smart doorbell (DIY ESPHome... but it shouldn't matter)
- A 7 months old daughter
- and... a delivery perfectly timed during my daughter's nap.
Idea:
When my daughter's room door is closed:
- Disable the doorbell
- Turn the RGB LED strip in my office red. (Telling me to be quiet)
- Start music (lullabies on the echo Flex)
When the doorbell is disabled:
- Disable the chime
- Announce the delivery on the echo dot
- Cellphone push notification.
When my daughter's room door is open:
- Back to normal.
Thanks!
I've always been interested in a "good night" (or condition blue from Star Trek) command that would automate the entire house for sleep: check state of blinds/curtains and close if open, turn off or dim house lights, activate hall and stairs lighting, check garage door status and close if open, activate security system, lower volume on all alexa devices, activate pool cleaner, check security camera status and output a message if any are unresponsive, turn off holiday lights if on, set sleeping temperature on thermostat, order cleaning robots to stop work and recharge, ceiling fans on or off depending on sleeping preference or weather outside, activate sprinkler system, and output a notification or alexa response if there are any issues along the way. This is my ultimate dream when I finally automate my house!
My good night routine is my favorite automation.
@@TheHookUp please share all about it
I don't know about Amazon Alexa, but Google Home added "Routines" a while ago. You can use some built in routines or create/add your own routines. It is pretty much exactly what you describe, you use a key word/phrase to instruct Google Home to take a series of actions. You can add a number of actions directly in the routine, or you can link it to a Home Assistant Automation (or presumably Node Red) if you have HA integrated with Google Home.
I have a bedtime routine ("hey Google, good night") that turns off all the lights except for the master bedroom and arms the alarm system in home mode. I actually need to adjust this routine to turn off master bedroom lights as well and turn on the crown molding LEDs in my soft white before bed mode. I need to see if I can expose WLED presets to HA and Google Home.
I have another leaving home routine ("hey Google, good bye") that turns off all the lights and sets the alarm to armed away. I find this is more useful than presence based away since I have younger children that are hard to detect if they are home or not. Even if I use a BLE tracker, it is likely they will leave it at home as often as not.
@@NathanKrick I also use google routines, but I would like to automate it in Node Red tbh. More flexibility and have all your automations in one place, especially usefull if you re-use certain flows - When you go out you might want to reuse parts of that flow for commands as "im going out".
Also it can only work within the 'realm' of google home, which is limited compared to Home Assistant.
I have not yet found a way to automate the google routines in Node Red yet, so if anyone has a good tip/link for this, please.
@@doodvuurtje7690 I don't use Node Red, so I don't know the capabilities. Can you expose Node Red workflows to Google Home as a smart device (I realize it is not actually a device, but that seems to be how Google Home sees everything; even the Logitech Harmony integration seems to be around device control and Logitech Activities look like devices in Google Home)?
Here's my most useful Node Red Automation: *Notify me in the morning if it snowed so that I can get up a little early and shovel*
This is useful, because I don't usually check the weather before bed, and if it snows I need to shovel the sidewalk the driveway to safely get our cars out in the morning.
In Home Assistant I use the ClimaCell HACS add-on. It creates a field for precipitation for the next 12 hours (configurable amount).
In the evening I use a flow to check each value for the next 12 hours. If there is a frozen type precipitation (freezing_rain_heavy, freezing_rain, freezing_rain_light, freezing_drizzle, ice_pellets_heavy, ice_pellets, ice_pellets_light, snow_heavy, snow, snow_light, flurries) in the upcoming 12 hour period it will turn on a helper boolean in Home Assistant.
In the morning another Node Red automation checks to see if this is on and if we are home. If it is on and one of us is at home then I and my wife get a notification, Alexa speaks a notification, and turns the helper off.
My notification:
"title": "Grab the shovel",
"message": "Looks like it showed last night. Might need to grab the shovel.",
Wife's automation:
"title": "Looks like it snowed last night",
"message": "It snowed last night. You should remind Josh to shovel, or if he's gone plan extra time for travel.",
Alexa says: "It looks like it snowed yesterday or last night. You might need to shovel your way out this morning. Grab the shovel and get moving."
I have a similar automation checking for precipitation before bed if the temperature is >55 and
I'm curious about this export too, sounds amazing!
You read my mind Rob! Love you’re videos and I’ve been hoping for a new video on node red. I’m finally ready to start learning node red and installed it on my homebridge raspberry pi over the weekend. After figuring a few things out I decided I’m just going with home assistant after all and I’ll be installing it on my home assistant pi soon.
Keep up the great work sir, I love all the info you put out! Very detailed and you think about these things from all angles! Thank you!!!
Yet another SUPER helpful video. Very much appreciate you cutting through the weeds on all of these preliminary decisions as to "what is best" !
The hardest part for me is not really the automation side, but keeping it all tidy, maybe you have some tips/best practices on that?
I'll add that in.
Totally agree. Adding commas for multiple entities under a call service node just made me rethink my whole setup. I have one call service per entity so I’ve been using 5 or 6 call service nodes to turn on the lights in a room.... also copying attributes from the current state node is a huge help. Tips like that are exactly what I’m looking for. Thank you for this
@@csquared9660 Also consider whether creating groups could work in your setup
Totally with you Rob, all my automations are in Node Red, much easier to visualise. Good job with the video.
I'm in the process of moving my last few YAML automations over. Much better too to see it visually.
Thanks, Rob. Your channel is on the top of my list for home automation.
I know I'm probably too late, but here are two ideas I would like to implement using Node Red:
1 (simple) - Using a pulse (or touch) switch to activate different scenes (e.g.: 1 short pulse = white lights, 1 short + 1 long = dim ceiling light and so on...) Then one can use a single switch for a few different scenes. I know Shelly has it already made, but I'd like to do this with my ESP32.
2 (rather complex) - At a switch you set the lighting mode (or scene) e.g.: study, bedside reading, relaxing. Then you gather light intensity (maybe also color) from a few sensors at strategic places and use Node Red to control all lights in the environment (including blinds or curtain) to adjust the scene. This would work so that if you select reading lights but there is already enough sunlight outside, HA would open the blinds and just complement with a desk lamp. If the same scene is triggered at night, it would use other lamps to provide the same reading comfort at the desk.
As I still have a lot to learn, it would be much easier if you showed some clues.
Thanks for this! First NR video that actually made things click.
Anyone trying to figure out how to view ALL the current state properties of a device (in the video, the Nanoleaf. colors, brightness, etc.), go into the DEBUG module and under output, select COMPLETE MSG OBJECT. It was hard to see in the video and wasn't explicitly mentioned.
Automation idea: I just used Node-Red this week for a website in-stock item notification to my phone with a link to the items page. This allowed me to snag up some of the new Unifi G3 instant cameras before they sold out in 20 minutes.
i'd love you to make a video of this just to see the HTTP scraping and scripting interaction. Sounds neat!
@@FrankGraffagnino Alright, I did it. It may suck but I just uploaded it. czcams.com/video/1Ta7JgzuWfI/video.html
I like this idea. Is there an add-on that can check stock and prices for any item on shopping websites? I know there are web browser extensions that can do this and send you an email, but I don't always check my email on a timely matter. An automation would alert me immediately if a product I have my eye on goes on sale.
Automation Idea: Automatic Vacation Mode. When house is unoccupied for greater than 24 hours, automatically turn on "Vacation Mode" in HA. This will set thermostat to a conservative value, cut off power to any devices/appliances to save on electricity, and turn off lights. Every night in vacation mode, a single light will turn on in a random room. If a bold intruder is detected (via window/door sensors, motion sensors, etc), play warning sound, wait a bit, then flash main lights, play an alarm through speakers on max volume, and turn on your permanent Christmas lights to do a certain animation. Let neighbors know if they hear an alarm or see those Christmas lights on, an intruder has breached the premise. Automatically stop the audio and flashing of lights after 1 minute. If you can connect to HA remotely, receive a push notification. Maybe add an indoor camera that only turns on only in vacation mode so you can monitor what is happening inside.
Care must be taken to prevent accidental triggering. "Vacation Mode" turns off when it detects your phone is in close proximity. But what if your phone's battery died when coming home, or you want to allow someone else to enter your home while you are away? Easiest way is to pause vacation mode when your expected person needs access inside. If you don't, instruct them of a way to turn off "Vacation Mode" before entering the house, or shortly after entering the house. The reason for playing a warning sound and then a delay before playing speakers is to let you or your visitor know that the alarm will sound and to turn it off before the alarms bothers them. An idea to turn this off is to turn on a light in a specific room. If using indoor camera, this will stay on until a family member is detected to be home. The reason for only playing the alarm and flashing of lights for 1 minute is because the intruder should be long gone by then, and if authorities were to come to investigate, they won't have to figure a way to turn it off. If you don't have access to your HA, you can still send a coded tweet for your HA to watch for to pause vacation mode.
Interesting {Tagging this for later}
I've developed Node red automations that do something fairly similar to what you're proposing. This is built around the fairly new but already great alarmo add-on for home Assistant. Fyi the alarm should not function based on vacation mode. You want the alarm to turn on when you are away (or sleeping, but only downstairs for example), not only when you're gone for more than 24 hours.
To kind of extend on this idea; you can do text notifications if you dont want to access HA remotely or use twitter. For text notifications, you can set node red to email out a message. most if not every US carrier has the ability to email to a phone number, just have to know how your carrier does it and set up the ability to email in node red...now IN THEORY, you can do actionable notifications based on a response text to that email but would have to filter for sender and is questionable on security. but for simple, "hey this is happening" notifications the email to text its fairly fast and easy.
@@kjm5187 Interesting. I haven't looked at node red myself yet so I wasn't aware of all the things it can do but I like it.
@@PersonXes I'll have to look into alarmo. Based on the add-on name, I assume it will sound an alarm if someone breaks into your home? Personally, I wouldn't want this at night when I am sleeping. For one, it's quite terrifying to be woken up that way. And what if it's a false alarm? Everyone in the house woke up startled. I can see this being the case if say you had your parents visiting you but they arrive at 2am and they have a key to the house. I think they would sound the alarm. This can be avoided if you remembered to turn alarmo off for a night, but that requires remembering to do so. Personally I would like things to always work without requiring me to turn on/off things at certain times. If alarmo can do other types of alerting besides an alarm, then that sounds great. I think for my home (which is being built right now), I'd want a gentle way to wake only me up and to check the camera feeds to determine if intruder or false alarm.
I always love your node-red videos and go back to reference them the time. Thanks again, keep it up!!!!
This is timely as this year I plan to install a home assistant instance in my Polytunnel. Curently I control temperature with a simple Arduino device monitoring temperature and controlling a couple of fans but I plan to use Node Red to automate temeperature and humidity control and to automate watering using soil sensors. Your video has convinced me that this is the right tool for the job. I would like to hear from anyone who has already done this.
I'm working on an automation that will, if my tv is on, and the doorbell rings, it will cast video to my tv. The part I haven't sorted is grabbing the state of the tv, and returning after some time. I'd also like to talk to the guest over the Google home so I don't have to pull out my phone
A some what complex one that has turned out to be pretty reliable: I have an outdoor cat that we like to let in the Garage to stay warm, I have an automation that cracks the garage door (I used your video with the Shelly) it can tell when he's in the garage and controls his heating pad too. It also reads the weather conditions to decide when to let him out and notifies me when it does so
Great start, the gate node is my favourite, and also the inject enhanced is very good.
My wife's two favourites are in the morning, when she opens the blinds in the bedroom, it turns on the coffeemachine in the kitchen :-)
Second one is her goodnight button, we have a cube in the kitchen that we use for turning lights on/off and dim, and if she shakes it in the evening, it changes the house mode to night (which changes the motion detections to only turn on certain lights at a low level), locks the frontdoor, turns on the 'under bed' lights in the bedroom, and opens the blind (so it's easier to open the window to get some cold air in), turns off the light in the kitchen and garden, and turns on the bugzapper in the kitchen as well (this will however turn off if the garden door is opened). If it's shook during the day, it sends a TTS to the nearby Google Home to tell our grandchild to put it down :-D
My wife has been very opposed to this, but is finding it more and more usefull.
I think the most complicated is my thermostat handling, which handles night-eco, open windows, holidays and summertime.
My most valuable automation:
My wood stove/chimney is notorious to send smoke into my living room when firing up or adding firewood. I have a smoke extracting fan at the top of my chimney, but it was hard to remember to turn it on.
Solution:
Added micro switch in the door handle of my wood stove. When I unlock, it starts the smoke extraction fan for 20 minutes, and the fume extractor fan in the kitchen is blocked/turned off while door handle is unlocked.
Really pleased with the result, has never been smoke in my living room since, not even when the wife fired up 😅
Justin.hair === null;
It took me more than a few takes to get that out without laughing.
@@TheHookUp can't ever forget that explanation ;)
Btw. both Justin.hair and Rob.tshirt_brand are contants, not variables.
Yes, HA HA HA, brilliant,
@@miklossurjan Hair is very variable. It is constantly decreasing in volume and changing color.
Automation idea: I have setup an alert system using node-red, alexas, and dexcom/sugarmate for our T1d (Type 1 diabetic) I wanted to take some lights or led strips around the house and have them turn red or flash red when she is low and urgently low however when she goes back into range that it would put the lights back to original brightness and color before the alert.
MY wife uses a Medtronic pump and gets a notification from the Carelink App on her phone when going low, so do you think I can look out for the app notifications to build an automation on, or do you use an integration for Dexcom?
@@davidjohnson2782 I actually get the data from sugarmate using json data. If medtronic works with sugarmate then that would work. I am actually just starting a series on how I built the system with full instruction. (Sorry for the plug but always looking out for t1d community). Does your wife have a cgm? We don't have a pump yet but I will use the cgm to look if she is higher than she should be to alert us, I don't actually interface with the pump.
@@davidjohnson2782 if there is a way to interface with pump, I will be looking into if I can grab data. With covid and insurance, it has taken way to long to get a pump. We are hoping for the tandem x2 since it will loop with the dexcom.
Automation idea: I have motion sensors throughout the house. I use nodered to turn lights on and switch on the time of day (sunset for example) to specify intensity. For example the hallway and landing between 6am to sunset is 100% bright. Between sunset to 11pm is 60% and between 11pm till 6am is 1%. No more blinding light when getting a late night glass of water!
I also have the lights turn off after x period without motion using the trigger node. Initial trigger nothing, then after x trigger to turn off lights. Also set the trigger node to reset on receiving true, then I add BOTH outputs from the motion sensor to the trigger node. That way the motion sensor sets up the lights turning off and resets the trigger if more motion is detected!
Happy to share a flow if you wanna see it.
I have an automation for my kids' bed time routine. I used a light-schedule to start and stop bed time each night and I also have a switch in Home Assistant that I can use to manually turn it on or off. When activated, it turns their RGB lamp to red (don't get out of bed), starts playing a playlist on Volumio (so I don't have to listen to the same song on the noise machine all night), and turns on the fan.
I also have a motion sensor pointed at the door to let me know if they are out of bed. To avoid unnecessary notifications, it only sends notifications if bed time is active.
In the morning, bed time turns off which sets the RGB lamp to yellow, telling the kids they can get up but can't come out of their room yet. Then after 15 minutes, the light turns to green and they are free to come out of their room and the music stops.
This is one of my favorite automations and has really helped our bedtime routine.
Great video, thanks, as always. My creative and useful automation that I would like to see... When I have a teams meeting scheduled (teams status turns busy) it sets my rgb status light on my door to red, Alexa announces “dad is on a call” and puts Alexa in DND. Teams status change to ‘available’ reverses to green. As a bonus, saying ‘Alexa I’m busy’ pushes the status to teams. Would be useful to have teams, zoom, meet, slack all coordinate status updates from a single point of truth as well.
{Tagging this for later}
Automation Idea: Leve some home machines (washing machine, dish washer and maybe others) in standby in the morning and don't turn them on until solar production is above the actual consumption, then trigger on those appliances. If it is past xx time, turn them on, since I want them to be done by the time I get home.
This channel is gold! I for one have a regular coffee routine (morning and evening) so here's an automation idea for you: A connected kettle combined with a connected water spout. When system realizes you've woken up/got up from desk at evening coffee time/manual trigger it will automatically fill up the kettle with the right amount of water, then boil it for you!
Here's another interesting automation: set up your screen (whatever you're watching) to follow you around the house so that you don't have to turn it up or pause it (heaven forbid forget to pause, then get random spoilers and have to manually scroll back to find the last point you were actually paying visual attention). This is provided you have a screen with audio already set up in each of the rooms of your house. A cheap solution for this is just to ask friends and family if they have any old Android phone that they wouldn't otherwise be able to sell or use. Easily get a bunch of phones this way, you'd be surprised how many people have these just lying around and most are too old to sell or use. A good tip would be to set them up on a wall with plug, but leave a gap so that you can also automate the flashlight if you want it to serve as a pilot light or more depending on your room and reflecting surface.
6:00 SHOTS FIRED, I repeat SHOTS FIRED! :)
Can’t wait to see DrZzs retort on this...
Great video rob.
My favourite and quite complex automation is as follows;
Node red starts a sequence when our door to the lounge is opened between 5am and 9am (usually that's when someone will head downstairs for the first time in the morning).
It then goes through a gate node which closes and re opens itself after 6 hours (so the automation can't be triggered twice).
It then announces hello and good morning through my downstairs Google mini and starts a few automations
It turns on a lamp and the kitchen lights and I also have it start the downstairs heating on the radiators to 22 degrees.
It checks the outside temp and if it's below 6 degrees c then it starts the heating on my EV and then announces it did that over Google too.
The sequence also checks if our EV is still plugged in (and as our EV plug goes under our gate that can only be opened from the back garden side when you get to the front it can be annoying) it reminds whoever (via Google mini again) that the car is still connected and needs to be unplugged. This saves my wife from going out the front and finding my car still plugged in and she has to go back in through the house again, into the back garden and unplug the car (or worse she sometimes climbed the gate).
All from just opening the lounge door when we go downstairs.
She loves never having to scrape frost off a car in the winter (UK).
Thanks Rob as you helped me no end with your videos!
You still drive places? My car has a flat battery and tyre. Haven't moved it in a month 🤣
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@@Kosh42EFG haha. Yes. My wife works for the NHS so drives in each day and I work with animals at an aquarium so neither of us can work from home 😣
How are you triggering announcements from your Google devices?
@@donny_bahama using a switch node for the information and the the cast node for the function.
You Rock Man! I did a automation in 10 min in node-red. I was trying it for months in HA without succeeding completely! YES, I like more node-red!
Automation challenge:
I want to implement your smart horizontal blinds in my bedroom. Have them open at sunrise, close at sunset, the usual. BUT! My wife is worried they will open while someone is changing clothes leading to the neighbors seeing. I'd like you to use NodeRed to delay opening the blinds if someone is changing. Obviously, this shouldn't be done with cameras. That's pervy.
Bonus challenge:
Have NodeRed automatically close the blinds when someone starts to change clothes. Then reopen when they are done. - We have a baby and changing clothes (due to spit-up) is, unfortunately, a regular part of her day.
Note: senors on the closet door (open==changing) don't work, as the door gets left open all the time. Or could be left closed while changing into something already out of the closet.
Cool, now I can set up a automated house defense system. I call it "Project Kevin".
Great, now we have to worry about Titans?
Automation Idea, have Alexa ask me when I get up if I am going to work today and what car am I taking. The car would automatically be started and ready to go when I am ready to leave.
Awesome video! Looking forward to the next part. My automation idea for tuning on/off a light using an input boolean for turning the timer on/off and setting the on/off time from the HA dashboard.
I use a mix of an Aquaris door contact, two motion detectors, and a wall AC plug in the hallway leading to my wife's studio. One motion detector is down low and at an angle, so it is activated just as you get to the studio door and the second one is up higher aimed at chest height and above. What it does is, if her studio door is opened and only the lower motion detector is activated, it means that one of the pets is approaching the door, which then turns on the wall plug, which just so happens to have a small but powerful AC powered "blow-up bed" air pump plugged in and is just inside the door aimed at pet face level.
If both the lower and upper motion detectors are triggered, chances are good it is a person approaching, so it doesn't kick the air pump on. Then of course, if the door contact detects the door is closed, it doesn't do anything.
Technically, the “Justin” object does have the “hair” attribute but the value is “null.”
Automation Idea: I want to know when the washer is done and send a notification.
Ha! My idea too, exactly!
Great videos and very useful. I am not a pro at this, and these videos are extremely useful.
Here is my automation challenge in Node Red.
I started with home automations a few years ago and was just using a basic connection from my DSC alarm system and a RasPi. When arming the system, a series of automations would be triggered, including turning off an insteon switch that control a water pump (my water comes from a well). This way, if there is any pipe damage, while I am away, the pump has no power and there is limited damage. All of this is through a python script. I recently made the jump (thanks to your videos) to Home Assistant and now Node Red.
The challenge was that sometimes we program the washer with a 7 hours delay, so that when we are back home, we only have to put the washed clothes into the dryer. For this, the water pump needs to be on. The script on my RasPi is triggered at regular time intervals and checks the status of the alarm system, if disarmed, the pump switch stays on (or is turned on), no matter what, if armed, it will checked the status of the Wemo Insight plug (my washer is connected to it) to determine if the washer draws power (it will draw approx. 800 mW if the delayed wash is programmed). In that case, the script will turn on the pump switch. Since the script is triggered regularly, once the washer has finished and the power draw goes back to close to 0 W, the pump switch is turned back off. This script still has its flaws. If the washer is on a delay, the pump will not turn off until the washer is done. So the pump may stay on all day for the 30 min wash, but at least it works.
I think Node Red would improve this. I was thinking of starting with an Event state node that would be triggered if the power consumption was above 10,000mW (which is when the washer actually starts the wash cycle), at that point, it would check the status of the pump switch and turn it on if it was off. It would then wait until (not sure if this is the right node to use here) the state of the washer goes back to below 10W, at which point it would turn off the pump. Since my alarm system is currently not linked to Home Assistant, there is no way of checking the status (away or not). This is why I was hoping that through the process of Node Red, it would know if the pump was turned on and would turn it off again. But if it was already on, it would not proceed and not try to turn it off.
Sorry for the long message, but this is not so simple to explain.
Node-RED is the best automation tool.
I've worked through: Hue, SmartThings, ST WebDriver, Home Assistant (2015), New home assistant, python scripts, lua, and Node-RED. None are as easy to scale out, debug, or build out than Node-RED. Node-RED makes it simple to integrate with DIY devices via API. It's the best.
Or how about a video explaining each node (properly series of videos since there are so many) and a DETAILED explanation of how to set it up and the different configurations
Asking for automaton ideas suggests he's already going down this road. Using meaningful examples keeps it interesting and sparks ideas. Droning on about each node in detail would be worse than watching paint dry.
@@pmaccas3925 I was once told, if you don't have anything constructive to say don't say anything at all.... Trolling through 5 days of comments...Says a lot... 🤔 Seems like you have plenty of time on your hands to watch 10 videos on each node...
@@davidw9791 get over yourself. It was a constructive comment, just cause i don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm trolling. I've got a different opinion and would prefer something a little different than you that's all. Your idea sounded dull to me, sorry that upset you so much.
@@pmaccas3925 @p maccas dude... Seriously... Where/how was your post CONSTRUCTIVE in any way? Maybe Google the definition... 🤔 😂
You are the one criticizing others posts and suggestions that are days old... Get over yourself troll... This is enough... Some of us have to work and don't sit in mommy's basement all day, trolling CZcams comments to try to make yourself sound cool. ✌️
@@davidw9791 I only watched the video last night, when am I supposed to comment?! You have a spare time machine? I didn't realise comments had an expiry date; a few days and ur crying. You're a sensitive soul snowflake. Someone with a different opinion isn't a troll.
He asked for comments, I read through and replied to a few I was interested in. You're the one who keeps replying and whinning. In fact, you're trolling me!! So give it a rest and jog on.
There is a dislike, probably by Justin )
Hahahaha
Hi Rob! One automation idea for your next video: If your house has just one person in it, every time you turn on one light, all others turn off...
Automation Idea :
- chores organization:
* based on a calendar of trash pickup, send notification to the one which is supposed to get the trash out.
* Presence detection during the night to turn on the lights not too bright when people are going to the restroom.
- Backup :
* Get small metrics about last status of an windows backup using Powershell to grab the exit code
- Theater Mode :
* One click to rules them all, closing the curtains, turning the light on a smooth mode ( an easy one right ;) )
- Car Intergration :
* As few car interaction are possible like the BMW, would be nice to have a reminder sent when the gas is getting close to the end
- Health Interaction
* As we are overcover by apps for each brand of bathroom scale, would be nice to found one which can be integrated to Home-assistant to track weight easily
- Paperless Management
* Using Paperless-NG (for example) have metrics about how much pdf need to be organized and classified as a reminder #paperless
- Cats litter Monitoring
* views few some projects to rise reminder depending on how often the litter have been visited.
jusin.hair=null lol
A simple automation I am working on that others might find useful - I dont like leaving garage door openers in my vehicles for security reasons. When I arrive home, I have home assistant send me an actionable notification that asks if I want to open my garage door.
There are probably a hundred different ways to accomplish this, but it is something that touches on a bunch of different topics in Node Red.
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You could just put an NFC tag in the car abs scan it like as garage door opener. That’s what I’ve done. It’s super cheap and intuitive. It is also less reliant on device trackers that aren’t always timely.
Automation Idea: Use Node Red to monitor Charge Controllers for Tesla Reclaimed Model S and Model 3 Batteries and divert excess solar to chargers, watermakers (desalination), cooling (aircon), irrigation and dehumidifiers.
I have a Cay in the Bahamas that runs on reclaimed Tesla Model 3 and Model S batteries. I recently setup Home Assistant and it is now doing some amazing stuff for me using Shelly devices to trigger relays. There is one flaw though, the charge controllers communicate packets in UDP - so I need a way to ready the packets on port 6550 which in turn will tell me the Max, Min, Average Volts of the cells, the total power in/out of the pack (in Watts) and many other cool things. I have the full specs on the UDP Packet.
You have been an absolute savior for me - I spent my Saturday reconfiguring my networks to split everything into lhiot, lhnot, lhcameras, etc. I only got into Home Assistant 4 weeks ago and really love it. Had been doing everything before through a mix of Alexa and Smartthings. Built the first full reclaimed Tesla Model 3 as a 75kWh solar storage system for the island a year ago.
Ive used home assistant for a few years now and have got into node red through your videos. Home assistant and node red go well together, Im currently working on a heating flow to control the heating around our home using the node 'ramp-thermostat' and setting automations and GUI on home assistant for triggering various temperature profiles depending on presence and the different times and days of the week.
Hi,
Because of your channel and other HA channels I’m able to move slowly away from my old Homey system to HA, the only thing stopping me now to completely move is a important flow that manages a lot of things that are not so easy for a non developer to accomplish to be honest, hopefully this is something you can help with.
So here it goes ;-)
On Sunday @ 20h00 we (my wife and I) receive a message (Notification on our phones) with the message if it’s a school week, we have then 3 options in the message, option 1: yes that means the whole week is enabled as a school week, option 2: tomorrow that means only the next day is enabled as a school day, if we choose this then we receive every day of the work week the message again (used if there is a holiday in the week) option 3 then no action.
If nobody reacts on this message then activated automatically a school week
Based on this I have different flows;
School week, day: @ 21h15 TTS message on the Google hub speaker that it’s a school day and that’s time for bed.
21h20 playing a tooth brushing song (Google music) on the Sonos speaker in the bathroom (2 min) @ 21h22 turn on the light in the kids bedroom, @ 21h30 TTS the kids calendar list (Google) for tomorrow and the coming birthdays, family events also Google calendars (for the next day) turn of the lights and check if his Tv is on, music is playing on the Sonos if so turn it all of.
If it’s a school week, day, set and alarm @ 07h15 in the morning, play playlist (google music) on the Sonos, and turn on slowly the lights in the room to 100% (wake up light) TTS the day events of the kids calendar en the birthdays, family events of the day.
Do the same in the parents bathroom, only different playlist (radio channel for the news) and TTS calendar events (parents) and birthdays, family events of the day.
@ 07h18 turn on the lights in the bathroom, play playlist on the bathroom speaker (Sonos) turn on the lights in the living room, play radio station on the Sonos speaker, cast dashboard to the google hub of the living room.
@ 07h25 turn of the lights in the bedrooms (kids, parents)
@ 07h50 play TTS message that’s time to leave for school, check of all the lights, devices are turned of in the bedroom, if not turn everything off in the bedrooms, this can be overruled with a switch in the bedrooms.
@17h00 check if all the variables are set for the next flow cycle if overruled by the switch reset everything for this to work again.
I know that’s quite a complex flow, but you asked for it ;-) and to be honest this is really a show stopper for me now to move completely to HA, so hoping you can support here?
Thanks in advance and thanks for your clear and understanding way of explaining the world of HA to this non developer!
So far my most useful is adding a smart outlet to the washing machine and the dishwasher that can capture power and then using node red go through a few cycles then when a load it started it is broadcast in the public areas of the house and when a load is complete the system broadcasts that a load is done to the public areas (using google home minis and specifying specific nodes) of the house. Having the house let us know a load is done helps us get through laundry a lot faster and I added a reminder every five minutes to help encourage the child that has been assigned that chore to get it done.
The one I am still working on is for the summer months. I have a large 36" fan that I can put in one of the windows (at one end) of our house and then I close all of the other windows except one at the other end of the house. Then based on temperature to turn the fan on or off to cool off the house. Getting the when to turn on and when to turn off based on the average of the temperatures in the house compared to the temperature outside kind of works. However I believe my issue is getting it to work while taking into account is the temperature in either area going up or down.
After setting playback speed to .5, at my old age I understood most of it! Thanks for the video. Very helpful for a beginner.
[Automation Idea]
Idea: Monitor outdoor humidity and temp for your furnace by automatically turning off the furnace if it reaches a certain temp and receive a notification that it would be nice to open the windows. Likewise, if the windows are open, the temp rises above a certain temp, and the humidity is high, send a notification to close windows and AC will turn on or dismiss to continue as is. If the humidity is low, suggest turning the furnace's fan on instead. If windows are open and the temp drops, suggest that windows be closed and if cold enough automatically turn on the furnace. If the temp drops below a certain temp outside and the windows are closed start the furnace. If it's raining notify to shut windows that are open.
Requirements:
• Aeotec multisensor
• GoControl Z-Wave thermostat
• Z-Wave window sensor (reed switch)
• HA weather service configured
Also, I grew up in an HVAC family business so I can say that the best practice is to only use the AC when temps are above 65F. Also depending on the thermostat you're using you need to be sure you can't run both heat and cool at the same time. Most thermostats won't let this happen but I've seen a few people wire relays in place of the thermostat and using sensors throughout the house for determining temp, running both at the same time is the equivalent to stomping on both the gas and the brake in your car, one of them will give out.
dude, honestly I just want to have my coffee automated in the morning. My espresso machine has WiFI - it's useless. I can start it from the bed, sure, but it cleans itself directly in my cup. If the cup isn't there then the coffee goes to waste. You automate that somehow, you'll be my hero
I've done that with tasmota. You'll want to get a 4 switch relay to simulate the button presses and an automation for the button sequence
Another automation I recently finished is that HA reads my work calendar.
If I have "vacation" as a meeting tomorrow and I have an alarm set on my phone I get a notification on the phone to remove the alarm.
And the other way around also, If tomorrow does not have vacation but there is no alarm it sends a notification.
And on Sundays it sends a notification what my upcoming events is for the week.
It has already saved me a few times.
a defcon [1-5] mode something that flashes the blinds and lights in a sos pattern, cranks the speakers to do a text to speech. trigger based on a health device?
secondarily a mode where the house air con / heater turns off, until it predicts you will be home (and it will predict how much time it will take to bring the house / specific rooms to temperature / humidity) perhaps using location tracking/occupancy polling, it may tell the rumba's to go to their recharging locations, do a systems check on all sensors and actuators, awakens the home assistants, turns off the lawn watering, opens the front gate, rolls up the garage door, plays a specific persons welcome chime (as a random rendition in a different musical style)
Have a very basic HA setup, this will certainly make it more advanced.
Automation idea: Chore list for multiple people, that will auto notify (parent) of completed chores at a certain time and reset the chore list for the next day.
Automation Idea: I have multiple (about 10) exterior lights around the front of my house. If I replace them with multicolor smart bulbs I would like: to turn on at sundown and off at dawn. Here is the curve ball, have them change colors based on the date, normal days they are warm white but green on St Pattys day, pink on Valentines Day. Have them turn multiple primary colors (christmas themed) from Thanksgiving to New Years - bonus points if you can make them twinkle and dance in a sequence. In other words, Automated Festivity!
The automation that was most fun for me to write in YAML was the nap/bed time routine for my 1 year old son. It involves a LIFX+ bulb (RGB + IR) and a Sonos speaker.
When it's time to wind down, we push a button in Home Assistant that dims the lights to a dull orange at 30% brightness, bright enough that we can read a story. That button also sets a trigger for 20 minutes for the "sound machine" . If we turn off the light in HA within the time the trigger is set, the Sonos speaker will unjoin any groups it may be in, set the volume to 14%, and play a pink noise audio file. It also turns on the IR light so the night-vision on the baby monitor is a much higher quality.
When the light turns on above 10%, it will turn off the pink noise and IR light. This lets us turn on the light to it's lowest brightness if we need to sneak in without turning off the pink noise. It also does a check to see if it's the pink noise file that's playing so that it doesn't turn off the Sonos speaker when we're actually playing music from it.
Agree with the node red vs home assistant strengths completely.
I wouldn't call any of the below too complex but some ideas I've done..
I have a similar setup in node red for my bathroom lights ..
- 1st switch turns on one ceiling light and mirror at low brightness
- 2nd switch turns on all ceiling lights and mirror at mid brightness
- Both switches turn on all the lights and mirror at high brightness
another automation in node red which has helped me make maximum use of my Xiaomi Vacuum Robot is:
- If it's a decent hour and house is unoccupied (presence detection in node red) the robot cleans some designated rooms (most of the floor)
- Once done rather then going back to charge .. he goes and waits for me at the bin so I don't have to remember that he needs to be emptied.. (or too lazy to walk from the robot docking station to the bin and back haha)
- Bonus... he says "Hi I'm over here" as as soon as I arrive as well
Now I've changed all the lights in the house to smart CCT lights (both bulbs and switches) and will be looking at implementing circadian lighting and also brightness level depending on the hour of the day... using node red. Still need to see how I can set this up though
Hate it when I flick the switch and it's too white and bright in the morning
Funny, using Node-Red for many years, but this convinced me to try it out together with home-assistant.
Automation that causes the most questions are on my bathroom fans. When they are switched off normally, I wait 15 seconds and then turn them back on. They run for 15 minutes and then shut themselves off. This is for those individuals that turn the fan off when they leave rather than letting it air out. The 15 second lag is to give them enough time to leave so they don't get confused and stand there flipping them off repeatedly. I added a 10 second arming period in the event somebody hits the fan by mistake instead of the light. If it's turned off 10 seconds after turning on, it won't turn itself back on.
I also have a 30 min timer from when they turn on in the case they don't turn them off when they leave.
Finally, I have a double tap off bypass the timer (homeseer zwave) in the case I want to override it.
My goal is to automate things in a way that they work even if I don't explain them to someone.
Make use of double and triple tap quite a bit. During Christmas, double tap on or off on kids bedroom switch works the sonoff connected to their Christmas trees.
Excellent video to get started, thanks!
Can not wait for the next video on node red.
I’ve watched your previous NR videos but I wasn’t ready for it then. Now that I’ve got my HA instance up and running and it’s been stable for 6 months now, it’s time to try NR again. Here it goes!
You and me both! Good luck to us!
Again.. my head explode !!
You are the coolest dad I've ever seen!
Hehe
I'm buying it!! So I'll try this today.
The idea.. make my furnace smart a little more. (I live in Quebec so..winter = cold and cold = $$ hehe).
I want to put duct damper motorized with stepper. So each duct will have 3 positions : close, mid and open. And I want them to change their position depend on Where de are on the house (with sensor) .
If everyone are in kitchen and no one in bedroom.. the warm air Will blowing mostly in kitchen ^^
I want To add feature to change the warm air flow manually and with time (1 hour before go to bed for exemple.).
I think that, combine with ecobee and temp sensors.. we can save money and make the house more confortable.
Node-red seems to be the best way !!
Thanks!!
Automation idea: Mounting a door/window sensor on your showers door. If the door gets closed, turn on the ventilation and record the current humidity. After opening the door again, keep the ventilation on until the original humidity is reached again or a maximum timeout occurred. 😁
Thanks for going through Node-Red! Looking forward to the next video.
Automation Idea: My house, like others, has a zoning system for upstairs/downstairs zones. Mine worked terribly, so I ripped it out and installed a commercial controls system (which is my day job). Looking at your node red videos, and some of the Shelly devices, it seems like one could replicate (most) everything I did in Node Red. It would need to utilize the roller shutter feature of a 2.5, temp sensor add ons, PMs, etc. in order to work. Definitely a difficult task, considering the programming would all need to be custom. I added everything I did into Home Assistant through the Node-Red Contrib BACnet.
Here's an automation idea I'm currently working on. I'm trying to set up an automation to announce over various Echo Dots in my home that the washer or dryer has stopped running. It's fairly straight forward, but would need a lot of repetition if I wanted to have announcements in other automations as well. It's trivial to copy and paste in Node Red, but to try to keep things cleaner and in the interest of node reuse, I want to create a subflow to handle the announcements. The subflow will take in a list of Dots to make the announcement on, the message to be announced, a flag saying whether the announcement should be simple TTS or an announcement tone should be played first, and the volume to play the announcement. The subflow will need to store the original volume levels of the selected Dots, change the volumes to the announcement volume, play the announcement, and then change back to the original volumes of the Dots. It may be a little ambitious for me as a Node Red and Home Assistant newbie, but I'll keep pounding on it until I figure it out.
Thank you very much for the excellent content you produce!
I have 2 Node Red automations ideas on my todo list:
The first automation involves Node Red and AI Tool for Blue Iris (which I'm using thanks to your videos)
When detecting a person (only person, not dog, car, etc) in one of my external cameras for more than 3 consecutive minutes, I would like NodeRed to turn on one of the visible lights from outside the house (garage, garden or living room) at random and keep it on until it no longer detects the person (to simulate a presence)
The second automation is a little simpler, and involves a retractable roof that I have in my yard.
If my multi-sensor NodeMCU detects rain, and the roof is open, and it is during the time we are awake, Node red triggers the Nest Mini with a message that it is raining. But this message can speech "once per rain"
I haven't installed a motor yet to automate the roof closing, so for now I have to run and close it :)
Thank You!
Great topic. I would like to suggest adding face recognition using node red. I try to use it but face some errors. My suggestion is to have a doorbell with face recognition that anounce who is in the door using Alex (TTS). Great content!!
Very cool. Thanks for making this video.
Thanks for the videos. Automation I'm keen to get going is for leak detection (had our hose connector fail a while back (we are on water tanks), luckily came home short time later so didn't loose much water but got me thinking what would happen if we were away for the weekend). Even worse would be something failing inside house.
Thoughts so far are:
- Install shelly (via contactor) to turn water pump on and off.
- Use flow meter to work out if running or not.
- Detect when no one is at home (3 cellphones not on network, Unifi. Not sure if reliable enough but can implement away mode if needed)
- If pump is running but washing machine not turned on (probably using a shelly to monitor) turn off the pump and send notifications to our app. Bonus would be to have actionable notification so we can turn back on should we know something is running.
- On top of that, pressure can drop and pump will turn on for around 5 seconds every few hours so I don't want it shutting off until pump has been running for at least 10sec.
Automation #2: one I was going to try for myself was a "going to bed" trigger. So based on time (after 9pm say) and I dock my phone to recharge, I want it to:
1. Turn off house lights
2. Turn off any active TVs, stereos, Bluetooth speakers, etc
3. Put my computer into sleep mode
4. Set soft lighting in the bedroom
I want to have an umbrella holder near the door to my house such than when I leave, if it's going to rain that day, some assistant tells me "Don't forget your umbrella" and lights up a blue light inside the holder. Seems pretty hard, especially the detection of near the door with the intent of leaving. Let's see what you can do! Awesome videos by the way.
ZigBee door sensor or proximity sensor on an ESP8266, limit switch in the base of the umbrella holder. LEDs on a relay.
@@Kosh42EFG Limit switch to detect umbrella presence?
I think a proximity sensor would get you almost all the way, though detecting when you are leaving vs when just passing by is tough. Especially if you want to consider the case when you leave in a car.
Maybe you could time slot the behaviour? Wouldn't really work when going out on a weird time... IDK. Good suggestions, though. Will look into them.
Nice {Tagging this for later}
Thanks for the video! This has got me started with Node-Red and to help me build my complex automation I want to do. My home automation idea is control my robot vacuum with my zwave switches. I already have a couple of automatic routines by time but I want to setup an automation by room so that a triple click on the light switch calls up the vacuum for that room. Also including a 5x click to cancel in case it was called in error.
This was exactly what I needed to get started. Much appreciated...! BTW - the LED on Amazon actually looks really nice. I might be ordering that one. /Kim
Automation#1: I have one a friend has requested - when their next door neighbour goes outside to have a cigarette, firstly, issue a notification (flash some lights) then trigger an action that "encourages" the neighbour to go elsewhere (suggestion was to turn on a sprinkler that sprays in his direction). The key activity being the smoking - it's ok if he's outside enjoying the sun, but once the smoking starts ...
We've considered everything from wifi ifttt smoke detectors (but we don't need an audible alarm) or air quality monitors (although I'm not sure the particulate will be high enough) but was considering something like a % change in PM2.5 values as a potential trigger.
I like the binary aspect of multiple switches, for say outdoor lights, if you have the type of switch you can tap or long press, I'd tie all your outdoor lights into say two switches per each exit door, maybe-
L: Tap, R: None - turns on the wired light.
L: Hold, R: H - turns all outdoor lights on/off.
L: H, R: T - Cycles through each light hardline visible from the switch location and then a R: H (while still holding L) changes the state of selected hardline.
Hey Rob - another great video - been playing with node red for a bit and almost find things easier cobbling together code in a function node - for an idea - using a hue dimmer control a shelly RGBW bulb (I have a couple gu10's)... so 1x "ON" click is on at previous state if state was above certain brightness (for white) or gain (for colour) otherwise turn on and set to a minimum level... use 2x "ON" to 100% white... use other keys or 3x on key to switch from white to colour... use "Dim UP" and "Dim DOWN" to dim increase/decrease (gain/brightness).. 2x click on say "Dim UP" to change colour.. etc. Not being able to get dim/gain status from the shelly app for these bulbs (only on and off) you need to do a status check via HTTP (what is quicker - HTTP or MQTT - HTTP was easier to use)
is there a way to create a flow that you can then use for numerous bulbs / rooms controlled via separate dimmers :-) ...... you asked :-)
Also maybe using "node-red-contrib-virtual-smart-home" to control devices in your NOT vlan (I cant get Alexa (on IOT vlan) to see these - I found this to be great
I have a lot of complicated automations in Home Assistant and never felt the need to use Node-Red. Every time I see you using it in videos it feels like unnecessarily complicated. My most complicated automation controls my (underfloor) heating in living room, office, man cave and VR room. All based on presence, day of the week and temperature sensors around the house. The scripts automate multiple pumps and valves that control the flow of heating water. All of this is done by combining 'Choose' actions and was quite easy to set up. As a programmer, I have a lot of experience with coding, so that might make it easier for me. I recently added a door sensor to my front door that resets my phone notifications about driveway movement and someone ringing the door bell when the kids are sleeping. This also prevents unnecessary alerts if motion is triggered after the door has been opened / closed (people leaving). Home Assistant has made my home smarter and my life so much easier. I owe a lot of my inspiration to you, thank you for that!
You hit the nail on the head I think. Node red makes things easier for those without a programming background.
@@TheHookUp I suspected that, but because so many people recommended Node-Red, I tried to understand why it has so many users. It might be worth mentioning in your next video that people with programming experience may be better at using Home Assistant automations and scripts. For them, Node-Red may be unnecessarily complicated and will only result in a long learning curve with no positive result.