Home automation is an extension of my Home Network hobby. I like being able to have a self-contained way to control and monitor my house. Like the home network I tend to make small changes or additions to the home automation over the holidays. That is why you may see different years in the titles of the articles in this section.
One cold winter, my gas furnace stopped working and the part that broke was destroyed beyond any temporary repair. Of course this happened on a Friday evening and I had to wait until the following Monday to make a service appointment. Luckily, someone was able to be dispatched that day to get things working again. […]
Automating Switching Between a Heat Pump and a Gas Furnace Read More »
In early 2017, I started playing with home automation. At the time, (and still to this day), a major goal has been to create an automation environment that did not need any sort of Internet connectivity to work, and was based on something that appeared to have a decent-sized community behind it hopefully leading to
Moving From OpenHAB to Home Assistant Read More »
I have found that running the exhaust fan in the bathroom drastically reduces the amount of discoloration of grout lines. When consistently using the fan when taking a shower and letting it continue to run for a while afterword, my need to scrub grout lines went from every couple of weeks to almost never. The
Automating Bathroom Fans Read More »
There have been a few incidents over the years where my basement (cellar) has incurred water damage. The worst time was when the sump pump stopped working and the basement floor was covered by several inches of groundwater. While the basement is not a finished area, it is a recreational, work, and storage space containing
Automating Flood Detection Read More »
I have multiple Logitech Harmony Hubs (which I will call “Hubs” with an uppercase “H”), devices in my house that act as remote control transceivers. In other words, the Hubs can receive commands from a select set of Logitech-branded physical remote control devices such as the Logitech Harmony 950 and then issue commands to other
Integrating Amazon Echo With Multiple Logitech Hubs Using openHAB Read More »
There have been a number of times in the past where the garage door has been left open all night or when no one was at home. This could be due to issues such as someone forgetting to close the garage door, or the door having problems closing without anyone noticing. I wanted to get
Automating Garage Door Monitoring Read More »
When I am getting ready to leave the house I like to be able to issue a single command such as “turn on leaving mode” and have the home automation perform the following actions: Then, after a certain period of time passes, do the following: When I am returning home through the garage, (meaning the
Automating Leaving or Returning to the House Read More »
As part of the changes to the Stein Home Network (see Stein Home Network – 2021 Edition), the core home automation server is being moved to a new virtual machine and a new version of the openHAB software I use. While it is the same software, it is a major change and it is recommended
Home Automation – 2021 Edition Read More »
In order to implement a cohesive way to control and monitor you home, you need some sort of controller to integrate with your devices. This can take the form of a “hub” hardware device (or multiple hubs) that you place in your home, or the use a third-party (or multiple third-parties) over the Internet. Since
Home Automation Controller – 2021 Edition Read More »
