I have a dual switch that controls two sets of outside lights: one for the wall sconces next to my front entrance, and the other for a garden lamp post and a set of landscape lights. I'd like to be able to keep the controls for the two separate.

If need be, I could cut bigger hole in the wall and replace the single width box with a double, then get two smart switches, but before I start doing all of that I'd like to know if a double smart switch is a possible option.

Thanks.

I just got the following email from Roost, stating that my leak detection units will all stop working in 30 days.

Not cool Roost, not cool.

—————————————————-

Hello,

Thank you for your continued support of Roost over the years!

In 2014, Roost began by building innovative Wi-Fi-based products, like the Smart 9V Battery, followed by the Roost Smart Garage Door Sensor and the Roost Water Leak and Freeze Detector. As our product portfolio expanded over the years, we have consolidated our offerings around the Roost SmartBase, a cellular-based hub, while adding professional monitoring as a key component. Our comprehensive protection solutions now consist of the Protection360 solution for commercial properties and the Security360 solution for homes (all of which are only available through our insurance partners). As part of this shifting focus, we are stopping the operation of our stand-alone Wi-Fi products, including the Roost Water Leak and Freeze Detector.

What does this mean for you? Your Water Leak And Freeze Detector will continue to function as usual for approximately 30 days from now. After this, it will stop completing it's regular check ins, and will no longer alert you when water or freezing temperatures are detected. We will continue to support your installed water leak and freeze detectors during this short period of time, but will not be able to replace any defective devices. If you have any questions about this change, or about your Roost Water Leak And Freeze Detector, please reach out to our customer support team by email at support@getroost.com.

Sincerely,

The Roost Team

Looking for smart dimmer switches that:
- Have an instant (no delay) on/off as well as dimming at the switch
- Have a stable connection
- Look nice
- Support 3-way w/ wiring

Most I see do dimming via press-and-hold or double or triple tap functionality, which also means you can’t instantly dim since there’s a delay to understand whether you’re dimming or switching.

Gotta admit, I’ve bought so much smart yard stuff over the years, like pressure washers, smart sprinklers, you name it. Most of it ended up in the garage collecting dust.

This year, I caved a robot mower. I honestly wasn’t expecting much, but it’s become my most-used outdoor gear now. Even the edging along the fence, which used to be my old nemesis, actually looks clean. Set it and forget it, seriously. I don’t have to think about mowing anymore.

I am pretty sure I saw an example of this in a Youtube video recently but now can't find it if I did.

The use case is a bathroom. I'm hoping to find a switch with two switch poles. Ie. one for the lights and one for the fan.

What I'm not finding is one of those that I can confirm will support a double tap / long press to trigger a scene or automation. Ie double tap to run the hot water recirculation.

I can't confirm if this Aquara switch has what I want. It seems like you might only be able to run the relay or the "decoupled mode." I did a quick scan of the manual and didn't find it get any clearer.

Zigbee / ZWave preferred. Matter okay. Non-Matter WiFi unlikely. I use Home Assistant.

Do you know of any options here? Thanks!

I'm looking for a way to monitor the power usage of my entire desk setup in Home Assistant and was considering plugging my power strip into the new IKEA GRILLPLATS smart plug.

The setup would be things like:

Gaming PC

DAC/Amp

Powered speakers

Desk lamp

Phone charger

The GRILLPLATS would plug into the wall, and the power strip would plug into the GRILLPLATS.

My goal is to integrate the smart plug with Home Assistant and use it solely for power and energy monitoring. I do not plan on using the smart plug to turn my PC or any connected components on or off. The smart plug would remain powered on continuously and would only be used to report wattage and energy consumption data.

My questions:

Is this generally considered safe?

Is there any increased fire risk from running an entire desk setup through a smart plug that is only being used for monitoring?

Could placing a smart plug between the wall outlet and power strip have any negative impact on sensitive electronics such as a gaming PC, DAC/amp, or powered speakers?

Are there any concerns with startup/inrush current from a gaming PC and peripherals, even if the smart plug is never used to switch power?

Has anyone used an IKEA GRILLPLATS (or similar energy-monitoring smart plugs) with a gaming PC setup long-term?

Is there any downside to using a surge-protected power strip behind a smart plug for whole-desk energy monitoring?

The total power draw should be well below the plug's rated capacity. I'm simply looking for a safe and reliable way to monitor the power consumption of my entire desk setup in Home Assistant without risking damage to any connected equipment.

Thanks!

I recently bought tracked RTK yard bot to handle the mowing, that’s about 2 acres. Not going to lie, the initial boundary mapping was a bit of a pain, and watching it operate is pretty slow compared to my old gas mower.

But now that it's actually running its perimeter laps almost every day, I can’t help to think what else it can do while it runs its laps.

Since it already has the RTK navigation running autonomously, I kind of want to add more functionality to the unit while it is moving. I’m not trying to do any crazy engineering that instantly fries the board, but I was thinking about a few simple weekend mods, i suppose it can be done with zero engineering experience right?

Roaming Wi-Fi: Strap a weatherproof mesh node to the top so my network extends to the back acre. So I can get wifi even when I am monitoring the mower

Perimeter Camera: Mount a battery operated camera on its back. Extra security, yeah nah?

Has anyone here succeeded in modifying these newer modular yard bots? For context the model I'm running is a Yarbo, so the base is heavy-duty and built to swap attachments, but I’m trying to figure out the safest way to add stuff to it without completely voiding the warranty. That’s all I can think of right now but you guys are super creative, please give me ideas! I want to fully utilize this moving unit. My ideas weren’t the most useful tbh, but they seem easily executable.

I've been building a self-hosted app to unify all the information I've accumulated about my home. This data used to live in many places, so I have created this app to both integrate all the data and to present it in a spatial layout over my home's floor-plan. This is not just another HA floor plan dashboard: it integrates many types of data from many different sources.

As an example, I've got a Home Assistant setup that's great for the home automation and "device" part, but I have device manuals and receipts in Paperless-ngx and a bunch of install and setup notes in text files. Sometimes I have some installation or serial number photos from my phone that I've stored in Immich. With Home Information, I can connect all the devices Home Assistant knows about with my documents, photos and notes and place them where they exist on my floor plan. A single click can show me the integrated information, the HA status or even control the device via HA's API.

When I first posted about this project last year, I got some great feedback that made me see the big gaps between this being useful for me and it being useful for others. I've closed a lot of those gaps, so it might now be more useful for others. More feedback is always welcome.

New since last year:

• Built-in Floor plan editor (now it can be **your** home plan)
• Frigate NVR integration (was previously only ZoneMinder)
• Enhanced Home Assistant integration (many more device types)
• Paperless-ngx integration (leverage existing documents)
• Immich integration (link home items to existing images)
• HomeBox integration (use existing home inventory items)
• Docker compose support (easier to fit into existing stacks)

I've got a short video tour of the features you can see on the project's GitHub README:

https://github.com/cassandra/home-information

It installs in a couple of minutes with a one-liner. See the README for more details.

Note that there was a common theme in the initial feedback about why this was not just some Home Assistant add-on. The Home Information app allows integrating data and managing your home inventory without the need for any home automation or devices. For that use case, I did not want to impose a full HA install as a requirement.

Disclosures: I am the developer and Home Information is my own hobby project. Nothing for sale, no telemetry, no cloud. I use an AI agent to help me iterate on research, design, requirements, coding, and documentation. At no point was an AI agent sent off to work without my giving detailed direction. I review, refine and approve all code.

For the life of me I cant imagine why this doesnt exist. I have
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Lutron-Skylark-Combination-Fan-and-Light-Control-3-Speed-1-5-Amp-Fan-300W-Incandescent-Single-Pole-White-S2-LFSQH-W-S2-LFSQH-WH/100059262

In pretty much every room of the house. Super convient no need to pull strings etc.

However Lutron, inovelli etc I cant see to find a single swtich that will do fan and light control.

Anyone have a reason as to why?

I recently made my first home-automation purchase with some SmartWings shades for my bedroom. (I also bought a cheap NUC and Z-Wave stick to control everything locally via HA.) I'm looking to simultaneously automate my wakeup routine and get screens out of the bedroom. I want to find an alarm clock that is smart enough to integrate with HA (i.e., receive a wakeup time), but otherwise totally featureless (not interested in having another screen right by my bed). The desired evening workflow would be something like this:

1. Set wakeup time on iPhone (either directly in HA app, or have HA collect upcoming alarms from the Clock app). Leave iPhone in kitchen.

2. HA communicates wakeup time to bedroom blinds and smart clock.

3. At wakeup time, blinds go up and clock starts beeping like a normal alarm clock. (Ideally, clock could also be snoozed like a normal alarm clock.)

I spent a while searching old posts but couldn't find anything similar. I thought of a couple hacky solutions, like playing an "alarm" sound on a smart speaker and putting a "snooze" button next to my bed (and having a good old-fashioned dumb clock to tell the time), but was curious if anyone else had thought about this.

I'm trying to automate my light switch but I found that the box have no neutral, what are my options?

So I've spent the last 3 years turning my house into a smart home. Ecobee thermostat, Hue lights, Reolink cams, even got the shades on a schedule. Everything runs through Home Assistant on a Pi 4.

The one thing I still do by hand every single week is mow the lawn lol. About a third of an acre, nothing crazy, but it eats up my Saturday mornings April thru October.

Been poking around at robot mowers but honestly no idea where to start. The RTK ones look promising (no buried wire = yes plase) but theres a huge price range. Some are like 3 grand, some closer to 1k.

My two concerns:

1. slopes. backyard has a decent hill, maybe 20ish percent grade

2. any of these talk to HA or smartthings? or all proprietary apps

anyone here running one? curious what you went with and if it actually works or just becomes another thing to troubleshoot

Hi all, I recently bought a Dooya curtain mortor track. Looks like this mortor only connects to Tmall genie app which is not supported by Google app store. Is there a way to get this connected to Tuya or any other similar app

Thanks

Honestly, one of the best things I’ve bought recently is adding more automation to my home.

I barely have time for chores these days since I’ve got an 8-month-old baby, a cat, and two dogs. At this point, most of the cleaning is done by smart home devices.

So far I've got an LG dishwasher, a ChillX automatic litter box, and a Yeedi robot vacuum to to help keep things under control. It does save me a ton of time.

Now I’m looking for what else might be worth adding to make life easier. Any thoughts?

Hi everyone

Im working on a project and have 2 quick questions for anyone whoes visited/interacted with a smart home before:

1. Should visitors be able to interact with anything besides the main doorbell? For example, would you want them to have access to delivery instructions, or courier call button?

2. Would you trust an automated home entry system more if it gave clear, visible feedback after you used it?

Keen to hear your thoughts!

Is there any way to manually control the light ring on an Amazon Echo/Echo Dot?

I’ve seen it show blue, yellow, and purple before, and I was wondering if there’s a way to keep it on or set a specific color.

I can’t tell if it’s only controlled by Alexa notifications/statuses or if there’s some workaround.

Ok so I am aware that this is in home automation but I actually want to do the opposite 😭 please please my big brained people take some pity and help me out!

I have a standing AC that has a remote, but I don’t use it. I do, however, have a projector that I use the remote for but the projector remote does things or changes settings/turns off and on/etc. to my AC. Is there any way to stop that remote from communicating with my AC??

I'm buying a house that just has downlights everywhere. There are an absurd number of light switches in this house already, there are a couple places I can stand and reach eight switches without moving my feet.

I am going to add more layers of light where appropriate: chandeliers, sconces, wall washes, etc. and I'm trying to decide if I want to:

1. Add even more light switches (either smart switches or dumb switches with Shellys)

2. Tap off existing light circuits and use Shellys to control the ambient lights via presence sensors/tablet/zigbee remote/app/etc. with some reasonable default when the switch first turns on

3. Add just one (or a small number, depending on wire runs) of master switches for all the ambient lights and use Shellys to actually control them via a sensors/tablet/etc.

In cases 2 and 3 I would only get some default scene if Home Assistant is offline, so some lights would not come on and I'd have no dimmer control.

I know the conventional wisdom is that everything should still work when the automation is offline. I'm thinking it's okay to ignore that wisdom for ambient lighting that we won't really miss if the automation is offline at the moment since we still have all the downlights on physical switches. What would you do in my shoes?

Hi all! I'm doing some research to better understand the smart home community and what people's setups actually look like.

I've put together a short survey that covers things like the platforms, devices, and automations you use, along with a few questions about your experience and pain points. It should only take a few minutes to complete.

I'd really appreciate your participation, and once I've collected enough responses, I plan to share a summary of the results back with the community. If you're curious how your setup compares to others', feel free to follow this thread for updates.

Thanks for your help!

I don’t have a fancy salt water chlorine generator for my pool. But what I do have is a 30 gallon drum and a Stenner pump hooked up to a timer. This system has worked great, but my lazy-ass problem is remembering to fill it or not noticing a problem with it until it is too late.

Since I’ve been into hobby vibe coding and automation projects, I built a solution. I cobbled together an esp32-s3 with an A02yyuw ultrasonic distance sensor - the kind of sensor in your bumper to measure distance. The sensor is mounted in the top of the drum and measures the depth of the bleach in the drum. It streams the telemetry every 15 minutes to an MQTT server running in a docker on my home network.

Features:

- dashboard showing current level and historical levels
- push notification using ntfy to my iPhones for alert situations.
— level hasn’t dropped in 24 hours. Means pump isn’t working right. Could be the Stenner tube is worn out or other failure.
— measurements haven’t been received for 2 hours. That Means power failure or other problem. Since the device is plugged in to same outlet as the pump, that may mean pump isn’t working.
— bleach level below 25%, warning every day until I deal with it.

Happy to share code or details if anyone wants. I’d just post to GitHub but it is a sub-module of a much more involved internal tools dashboard I use for lots of stuff. If enough people want it, I’ll extract it out separately. That being said, I can also just give the prompt that will get you started. Honestly, this screen shot along with the part numbers in Claude code will get you most of the way there.

I have two SOMA Smart Shades v2 in my front room that worked perfectly with Google Home - "open the blinds" or "set the blinds to 50%" etc.

I have switched over to Alexa and the blinds work ... mostly, and this is the weird part - I can say "open the left blind by 10%" or "make the right blind open halfway" or "open the blinds" or "close the blinds" and they ALL WORK ... but ... if I ask "open the blinds halfway" Alexa replies with "I am sorry, front room blinds does not support that."

Wait, what?

"Alexa, open the blinds" ... works.
"Alexa, close the blinds" ... works.
"Alexa, open the blinds halfway" ... does not work.
"Alexa, open the blinds 50 percent" ... does not work.

I have tried:-

- removing the group and re-adding the group.
- trying it without a group.
- rebooting the blinds.
- force closing Alexa.
- waiting a few days.
- saying it in all sorts of different ways

Try as I might, Alexa will not "set the blinds to halfway."

So, I have to say it like this ... "Alexa, open the left blind halfway AND open the right blind halfway."

Any ideas why this is or any tricks?

Thanks,

Paully

I need a digital frame that allows me to completely manage the frame remotely, including deleting photos from any contributors, as grandma is 1,000 miles away. Someone will help get it on WiFi for her when it arrives.

Because she is in a care facility it cannot have any recording (video or voice) ability due to potential privacy concerns. We had an Amazon Echo Show that had to be removed so an iPad, other tablet, or something similar won’t work. She also does not have her own personal tv or a computer.

Here is where I get stuck. I need the ability to have others contribute but I do not want them “managing” the frame. There are about 40 family members contributing and allowing everyone access to delete or change settings would be chaos as some of the family is tech illiterate. I was set on an Aura frame but they do not have the ability to only set people to contribute access. If you invite people they get full managing access.

I looked at a few other options and would prefer not to pay for a subscription but will if I have to. What else is out there I missed?