5 Home Assistant things I NEVER knew I needed…

[@reedssmarthome]

Hopefully this had some helpful tips! Don't miss my full video showing the automation ideas: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oHa8h6Kcisyah6M

[@chocomilkfps1264]

cracking up over the m&m feeder lmao

[@spusuf]

For the random light to make it look like there's someone home, there's actually a community integration called "presence simulation" which records your ACTUAL light behaviour and then offsets it by a week or two depending on how you set it up. So all your dining room lights go on at dinner time, bedroom lights at bed time, etc

[@PatrickBulteel]

I think it actually uses the history of the lights over the past week(s) to do it.

[@ShaneCreates]

Love the creativity of using the Aqara pet feeder for candy! I’ve been using it for my dog for a while now and it’s great. Just set it and forget it. It’s so funny watching her stare at it waiting for food or jumping up with excitement when she hears that food drop! Your automations with the Apple TV are awesome. Almost makes me want to jump into HA.

[@jamesmonahan7872]

Love these behind the scenes videos that show what it takes to create. I find these extremely helpful understanding my own setup better and pushing the boundaries further. Thank you for being such a great inspiration.

[@JesseKaufman]

One I never thought I needed until I got it setup is my auto mower! Picked up a Husqvarna 115h with 4G and it integrates nicely with Home Assistant! I can even see its approximate location in my yard and where it's been recently on my main Command Center dashboard. I've been waiting for this day since I was a kid and saw a Donald Duck cartoon with robot mowers! lol .. I've been mowing since I could push a mower-now at 44, I'm over it! lol

[@rickoneill4343]

Next Up On Reeds Smart Home : How to fully automate your kids with just this one line of script! 😂

[@jfreeddo]

We have 2 of the pet feeders for our dogs and it took me a couple weeks to figure out the schedule thing, they were both feeding at 3 am and 1 pm or something like that, but did what you did by changing from man to sched then back, but I had to do it 2-3 times on each one before it fixed it. have been using since Jan 2023 and love them, my wife's favorite smart home product.

[@joshmaday1462]

As far as devices vs entities: I'm not sure why media players seem to have issues, and I'm hoping someone else can explain it. However, in general, it's better to use entities whenever you can. The reason for that is because if you ever replace something in your setup, you can re-name the entities of the new device to match the old one, and any automations that use that entity ID will continue to work, because they link by the entity ID. Meanwhile, devices identify by a randomly-generated unique identifier, which will be different for every device (I believe even if you re-pair the same device again, it'll get a new ID), so any automations using that device will have to be re-pointed to the new device.

[@ZainTechSavvy]

Wow! That's amazing!! From what I understand if you do not have a compatible smart tv but have an apple tv you still can't do this and change the sourse

[@Dorff_Meister]

That Aqara Pet Feeder is so temping... Although we have non-connected automatic feeder that works great for us, so as tempting as it is, I guess I'll stay with the non-connected one for our cats. I did setup Frigate with a Wyze Cam V3 (with RTSP firmware) pointing at our cats water and food dish because I didn't think one of the cats was drinking. I configured Frigate to watch for "cat" and marked two zones ("water" and "food") and get notifications with clips from Home Assistant when one is eating or drinking. I verified the one wasn't drinking. I replaced the water dish. And now have verified he is drinking again. Home Assistant (well, Frigate) to the rescue! I'm now playing with more Frigate stuff for other things. With it's pretty reliable object detection, I've used it for a presence sensor in one of my rooms, configuring to not keep recordings or events. The detection has been pretty spot on.

[@bgoncal]

In zigbee2mqtt the schedule mode now works, sometimes the configuration glitches, but after you setup it works rock solid

[@quilterbme]

This guy is so smart!! I love his videos! So precise and informative!!

[@FedeHippo]

*BANG BANG BANG* "DAD THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!!" - Distraction 88 dispenses candy

[@reedssmarthome]

🤦‍♂️🤣

[@luispichardo374]

One of my favorite uses for Groups is combining light switches and setting an automation that when I press one main switch, it turns off the rest. This is helpful in the bathroom and 1st floor areas of my home so I only have to touch 1 single switch versus multiple. For the Device vs. Entities, I tend to prefer using the Device. It's been my experience that they behave slightly different when it comes to automations. For motion sensors, the State "to: Clear" when using an entity tends to only work when it goes from detected to clear. But when using the device, it gives you the option of "is not detecting motion", so it doesn't have to go from one state to the other, but rather the current state of it

[@chimeranzl9147]

Not quite that easy with devices vs entities. You can’t always just use the device. For example I have fibaro light switch relays that can control 2 light switches, I need to use entity other using device turns both lights on or off

[@nickiminajwannabe]

In the apple tv case it's because the entity is the dlna player which is used when you want to stream media from home assistant to it. The device itself is the only one with options to control it.

[@willardmoore7685]

There is so much you can do with scripting. My background is software and I am happy to help if needed. I haven’t really used HA yet, so I can’t speak reliably in terms of that yet, but I’ll try. One of the things I love passing into a script is the trigger. That way a script can act differently depending on what caused it to run. So maybe your pressure sensor under your bed can recognize the weight amount and not just time of day to prevent false positives of your kids or wife. Then it could do something different like, let you know your wife is in bed instead of setting the alarm. Or let you know your kids were in your room and to be aware a prank may be in progress. You mentioned nfc tags need set up on each iPhone, but that sounds weird. I would expect that you could use a url to the nfc which would give you device data when the url is hit. That gives you access to the trigger you were previously missing and again gives you freedom to make your script dynamic based on the trigger that called it. Another practical use for knowing the trigger is to control access for who can run a script, or how much runs. Ie, Babysitter scans an nfc that adds them to your wifi, then you get notified of guest and are asked if they are a babysitter. You approve, which updates unifi device record as babysitter. Then enable auto babysitter mode when babysitter shows up. I am excited to make it so that babysitter mode updates the kitchen dashboard calendar to show kid and animals routines for while we are away. There is too much with our house that babysitters have to learn right now. Chickens, dogs, tortoise, well water/snow. Can’t wait for the HA green to come so I can get started. Thanks for your content. ❤

[@artieartya]

Huge thumbs up! This video just made up for all those pointless mindless gamer room smart lights videos I’ve seen lately from other reviewers on pointless smart home tech. Awesome sick job on those routines! Seriously best video in a long time. Want more of this. Strategic and clever creativity.

[@Crisicus_01]

The schedule works like a charm with Z2M.

[@AtracBreezy]

The Pet feeder scheduled mode works in Z2M. You just have to remember that the times are in GMT, so you’ll have to do the math to match it to your time zone.

[@revx]

Groups look awesome! I've been trying to get Google to allow custom groups in Google Home for ages, it makes so much sense.

[@simonsayshomeassistant]

Great video Reed!

[@Weeem]

@06:50 I'm pretty sure someone created an automation (HACS?) that would learn the last n number of days of lights going off and on and then replay them for you when you were away so it would mimic the real use of them

[@Weeem]

@@Leonvolt28 Aye, that's the one :)

[@ahmedbachoo9112]

What is that automation or integration called in HACS?

[@ImTotallyTechy]

Hey Reed! I don't have an Apple TV... But for my roku-based one, the current active source was actually it's own entity inside the TV device instead of being tied to the TV entity itself. I think it may have been hidden by default too. But because of that I can run an automation that instead of using the media_player choose source option, it uses the "select" command on that drop down field. Maybe that'll help!

[@jakobh3718]

Wow that's amazing!

[@ArtofSmartUK]

Some Cool products for sure! great video!

[@ronm6585]

Nice! Thanks Reed.

[@Neil1078]

I built a system for my kids, app is called Goaly, where they complete tasks and receive points based on the tasks they completed. They then save the points towards goals and spend it on their Goals, works well! I can maybe work the feeder into the system to spend points to get candy! Great idea you've got here 😆

[@jkk1337]

Are all of your lights zigbee bulbs? It seems like you have a lot of ceiling-light. Is there any slowdown because of the amount? I use zigbee2mqtt with about 50 devices and somethings are already slow, for example the device map

[@dudefromkeene]

can you make a video on how to play videos on Apple TV and chromecast?

[@titobogran]

Do u have a solution for monitoring power outages?!

[@26radowentravels]

How did you setup the automation with the shower

[@BrandonDoyleMN]

At first I thought you may have just staged the automations for the games, this is a great walkthrough. Interesting to see how the automations are made and the little struggles along the way

[@ottoernst6707]

Looks fun but I would love a larger version

[@Dorff_Meister]

Fun stuff as always. Thanks!

[@MrDexterSr]

Love these vids!

[@mikegadbois9856]

Is the code for these awesome automation posted anywhere?

[@barnabasnagy]

Has anyone tested the Aquara Pet Feeder with Sonoff Zigbee Bridge, flashed with Tasmota firmware? Thank you for your help! :)

[@masonspc7301]

Imagine making a review for the Pet feeder: "This product was soo cool for feeding my kids"

[@manicmods]

I use the same pet feeder, super reliable! Also, hey, you look familiar! 😉

[@davidedan1417]

You could always control multiple entities within a group, even when you had to declare them with yaml

[@Iamtheman325]

Ok I'll be real the food dispenser thing could also work if your someone trying to limit the amount of sweets you get lol

[@Crisis-1837]

You should do episodes for.. "best devices for alexa"...."best devices for home assistant"....etc...

[@cdarrigo]

Those lights came on and Went off so fast. You must be using local control and not Wi-Fi.What brand of ziggy or z wave lights are you using in your home?

[@galaxy-fly]

How does home assistant work?

[@kyleworrall]

You should share the home assistant code

[@r5bc]

Like like more this "behind the scenes" video instead of the final video on the primary channel

[@frankbee9831]

awkward! how proud he is that he can distract his daughter with a silly light and not have to play with her. and how proud he is of presenting this script that any 7 year old can write these days. I actually watched it to the end. omg, poor wife :)

[@luispichardo374]

You do know that part of the things he does in the videos IS for the videos. Doesn't mean he doesn't spend time with his kids lol. And although the script is simple, not everyone knows about them, so the information is still useful

[@roberthernandez7564]

Holy cow! I had no idea I could control the Apple TV from Home Assistant?! I always thought it wasn't possible!

[@reedssmarthome]

Same here! I tried it out recently and was blown away at how good the integration is.

[@roberthernandez7564]

@@reedssmarthome Any chance you could do a KZbin Short on how to turn on the Apple TV via Home Assistant? This is my biggest stumbling block.

[@PatrickBulteel]

My wife eats so much candy, I might have to get one of those.

[@PatrickBulteel]

By the way, maybe Aqara should change their marketing a little and provide a different "bowl" that is more candy dispenser-like... Then market it as "Kids get their candy when they complete a chore" ...

[@islandsnow]

Damn I wish I could control/automate Apple TV directly from HomeKit. I don’t use home assistant.

[@realAlexRodriguez]

Dude, forget scripts and automations. Your next video needs to show how you keep that house so organized!

[@liviumac222]

Rewarding kids with candy for doing normal stuff kids should do - that's what I call great parenting. Just fyi, this is also how they train circus animals to do tricks.

[@revotivo44]

The amount of time I spent here scratching my head where did all your videos go only to realize hours later this is a different channel then your main.

[@jester4761]

I only have Alexa powering my smart home, and I set up groups with my echo dot for each room and I grouped the rooms per floor of the house. I did this from the very beginning, so as I add devices to the rooms, they group automatically within the Alexa app. It actually looks like Alexa is more friendly to use for this function than your home assistant for a change. Lol

[@seantiz]

It appears that you have figured out how to automate your kids. 😅

[@palles1972]

How menny Apple TV you have

[@nix4644]

😵‍💫😴