Ok, this is a rabbit hole, you’ve been warned!
Alexa, Siri, Google Home… The popular ones, basic, easy to use, grandma can install
Home Assistant… One of the more DIY / hardcore enthusiast ones, beginners can get it working, more advanced geeks dive into custom components and integrations giving it even more power / control.
With all the smart devices out there today, a basic Home Assistant setup can tie in all of them (with few exceptions, and they get fewer by the day). Everything from lights to your fridge / washer / dryer can somehow be incorporated. Are we all gonna go out and drop $20k to update every device to a smart one? Hell no. But moving forward, I WILL be thinking about smart abilities when I need to replace one.
So. What do I have integrated into my Home Assistant installation here? Its actually kind of muddy now because Google Home integrates with it, bridgeing the gap for some things that Home Assistant can’t control on its own yet (no custom integration written for some things… yet… ). For example. on Prime day I got a sweet deal on a 4 pack of Wifi lights. At that moment, I didnt have google home, and home assistant couldn’t connect (not all smart devices are made to play with others, and this was a Linkind light set, only controllable thru their app at the time). Evidently, there IS an integration for Linkind within Google Home. By linking Google Home to my Home Assistant installation, all of a sudden I can control those lights in both GH and HA. Oh… And also by voice. or script / routine. or whatever I want such as a proximity sensor which will tell HA to turn on the porch lights when I get to the end of my street (geofence w/ GPS).
Other integrations are TP Link switches, ESP32 devices (CO2 monitor, VPD calculator with ambient AND leaf surface temps, RH and Temp monitors), Govee (temp / RH sensors), Wyze cams via RTSP, Google calendar, my Canon inkjet printer, the 2 Roombas, 12 instances of Octoprint (control the 12 x 3D printers, providing status, pause, resume, stop commands, and a cam on each printer bed), the PLEX media server in my NAS, my Netgear Nighthawk router, Raspberry Pi utilities for like 14 or 15 pi’s I use for all sorts of things, Google Home Minis (5), Chromecast, Samsung 7 Series 55" TV, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Sirius XM Radio, and I am sure I am forgetting or missing something.
Routines and scripts make this amazing tool 100x better. Being able to say “ok google, its bedtime” and have GH / HA turn off the porch lights, turn off the living room lights, turn on the bedroom lights for 15 mins, check to make sure the doors are closed (if I had smart locks could check if they are locked too), check AND tell me my battery level on my phone and remind me to plug it in, and read off a list of tomorrows events if need be. Can also have it play music / white background noise for a set time before bed as part of that script. That’s just 1 small idea really.
My gf is resistant to using voice commands, and its annoying to be asked “can you set the timer” when really, all she has to do is say “ok google, set timer for 15 mins” or “cancel timer, reset timer, how much time is remaining” etc. I use voice commands so far for the timer function, adding shit to my shopping list (which I also setup a proximity trigger to open my shopping list on my phone / send me a reminder when I am AT the grocery store automatically, never forget shit again as long as I added it to the list at home). And you can say multiple things “Ok google, add milk, eggs and bacon to the shopping list, turn off the living room lights and play alt nation on all speakers”. gets it ALL done.
I enjoy tech. And the ensuing frustrations. Worst things for a newbie is the whole “create an api” for some integrations to work (google home and spotify come to mind). But there are great tutorials to walk newbies thru it, and even guide old hands thru it (because, TBH, some of those steps arent intuitive even for a geek, GLAD they have how-to’s). But honestly, so far, it just works.
If you’re wondering how deep this rabbit hole goes… Just know this. I started playing with Home Assistant to be able to control my grow conditions. schedule lights, adjust fans, humidifier, dehumidifier based on conditions, and monitor those conditions to make adjustments. Use temp / RH to control some switches really. And its gone just plain crazy. The home lighting will be fun to create scenes. adding functionality to voice commands is gonna make it better as you go deeper into the whole ecosystem.
Oh, and I can measure, and estimate electrical consumption with certain devices, giving me a pretty accurate cost of what things are costing me to run (i.e. an entire tent, or a row of printers). THAT was an eye opener (my pond waterfall pump is a HOG).
My current dashboard:
Several of those “panels” are swipe-able. for example you can swip the center panel to go thru each printer. Or swipe the right printer to go from veg > flower > cure. Will be adding a basic home camera swipe showing each home cam on its own, with a swipe left / right to change cams (bottom center is where that will reside).
So how deep down this rabbit hole will you go?? LOL
(I apologize now for any unforseen purchases due to reading this)
edit: almost forgot. You really can’t change the “Ok Google” trigger word for something like “Computer” or “Jarvis”. But!!! there’s a secret alternate. Instead of “Hey Google”. try saying “Hey Booboo”. I say it like Yogi. “hey hey boo boo” ROFL. it works!
