It’s got a nice component to go with it, so setting up is easier. I particularly use it for scheduling thermostats, and find it much more user friendly. Sure I could do it with automations, but I’d either have one, massively unwieldy one with lots of states and triggers, or lots of individual ones.

This custom component is what I use and love - https://github.com/nielsfaber/scheduler-component

I have this battle - I am great at routine but terrible at habit. My wife asks me why I do the same thing every day, and I can’t really explain that I have to do it every day or i’ll stop doing it completely.

Listen. Well done. Just because it’s simple, doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Now go and put away your laundry. /s

I can’t decide if I want this to have been written by an AI or not.

Part of the problem here I think relates to scale.

If I invite a load of friends over to my house for a party, they might be in different rooms having different conversations but they’re all my friends in my house. No one cares who I let in or kick out, certainly not either of the next groups.

Let’s say I’m part of the committee for the local community hall. We let our halls out to clubs. Some of the committee go to some of the clubs. I might not be interested in what it is, but if someone I trust says they are OK, I’m OK.

At the local University they have a lot of spaces, each managed by the respective school. Each school has a slightly different ethos. Some of them might let their space to groups that other schools wouldn’t, but it’s not their call. They share some resources but not decision making.

We’ve got this problem emerging. The decisions made by lemmyworld or other large instances are generally in service to their communities, whereas on smaller or more focused instances the instance level decisions are the same as community level decisions.

Better than that, if you are after more than one (and with GU10s, who isn’t?)

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/tradfri-remote-control-kit-smart-wireless-dimmable-white-spectrum-50517642/

This gives you 3 bulbs and a handy remote that also works with HA.

Great answer, thank you!

Got any project details for that? A BOM, or even a link to an enclosure on things or printables?

Without going to whole hog and hosting my own infrastructure, what are some good alternatives?

It does! They added it a while ago, you need to tick the restore check box when you create it and it will survive reboots. It’s very clever.

Nice tutorial! You used a date time helper. I did something similar using a timer helper instead.

You set the timer for your duration, then every time you turn on/off the boiler you ‘reset’ the timer. You can then have a trigger in your automation for when the timer reaches zero. Same solution but without the need to work with templates and other ‘codish’ things.

Timer Helper

You need Alexa Media Player

This integration will allow you to call a service that does TTS for whatever text you send it. I use it to announce when my wife gets home if I’m in the study at the back of the house. I mean, I say ‘announce’ but the message is “she’s home. Panic and tidy!”

Is this your site? If it is, thanks! It’s usually my go to for figuring out what is supported, links to what the pairing process is etc.

I’ve been using HA for a long time. I love that it is capable of aggregating all the data sources and orchestrating all the different sensors that are on the market. I haven’t used everything below, but I have used a lot of it and can give some pointers.

Instead of a Conbee II I would suggest the Sonoff Dongle. I reached a point when I had a lot of devices that the conbee couldn’t quite keep up.

I have smart bulbs from ikea, innr, linkind, Aldi. They all paired to the zigbee mesh pretty well. I also had some Osram ones that didn’t behave as relays so I took them out.

The BT sensors look nice, and I believe they integrate with HA well, but your HA needs to be in BT range for them to be able to communicate. You could also look at the Sonoff environment sensors. I use these tucked away in different rooms and they are great.

Cameras, the general advice is to make sure they support RTSP and ONVIF, with brands being Hikvision, Dahua or Amcrest. Everyone will say you should feed your cameras into a Network recorder first, with options often recommended being BlueIris, Frigate. I use Frigate.

Feel free to ask any follow up questions, I’ll do my best to guide.