So what are your HomeKit automation setups?

[cynics]

I'm curious how people are using automation with HomeKit to see if I'm not thinking of a smarter/more optimum way of setting things up.

Here is what I have, bare in mind I live alone with 1 pet.

At sunset the porch light (Hue) turns on to 30%, at sunrise it shuts off.

At sunset the Living room lamps (hue) turn on but only when I'm not home (light for the pets).

At 6:00am the living room and kitchen light turn on during weekdays (while I get ready for work).

When I leave home the thermostat (Ecobee3) enters its "away" comfort setting.

When I leave home all the lights except the porch light (mixture of hue and Leviton dimmers/switches) turn off.

When I get home "only at night" the living room and kitchen lights (hue) turn on to 80%.

When I get home the thermostat (Ecobee3) resumes its schedule. This way if I stop by during the day for a minute the AC/Heat doesn't come on. But in the evening it will.

I use "scenes" somewhat sparingly to avoid conflicts. The Ecobee requires scenes for using the comfort settings and resume schedule features so that is the only device I have for Leave and Arrive home scenes then I manually add the other devices to the automation. I do have a Good Night scene though that turns off all the lights (except porch light).

This setup works great! Although I'm sure there is room for improvement although I don't mind I enjoy tinkering with all this stuff.

 

[gurase]

I don’t do my automations with HomeKit, but they can still be created there.

I have a motion sensor on my front porch and by my garage. When either one detects motion after sunset, the front porch light and garage flood light turn on to full brightness. 5 minutes after no motion is detected, the garage light turns off and the porch light changes to a random color (the random color part might not work with HomeKit).

I have 2 lights in my den. When the main light turns on, the floor lamp also turns on. When the main light turns off, the floor lamp turns off. The main light is Philips Hue and the floor lamp is plugged into a Lutron Caseta plug in dimmer, so this way it’s like my Hue dimmer controls both lights.

 

[cynics]

I don’t do my automations with HomeKit, but they can still be created there.

I have a motion sensor on my front porch and by my garage. When either one detects motion after sunset, the front porch light and garage flood light turn on to full brightness. 5 minutes after no motion is detected, the garage light turns off and the porch light changes to a random color (the random color part might not work with HomeKit).

I have 2 lights in my den. When the main light turns on, the floor lamp also turns on. When the main light turns off, the floor lamp turns off. The main light is Philips Hue and the floor lamp is plugged into a Lutron Caseta plug in dimmer, so this way it’s like my Hue dimmer controls both lights.

Thats exactly what I'm talking about! Having 1 light act as a trigger for another is a good idea and something I didn't think about because this can be used at specific times and be set to only work one way i.e turning on the kitchen light turns on the dining room but not vice versa.

I've been thinking about getting Eve door sensors to turn on all the lights on the doors when I'm not home. My security cameras have night vision but work better with light. Motion sensors are kind of out due to pets, unless i can adjust sensitivity.

 

[wesley96]

I'm a bit disappointed with HomeKit automation to not able to "poll" status of a device every minute or so. So as a workaround I made some automations that use temperature / humidity / luminosity change as a trigger.

 

[cdavis11]

I have a few -

When my back porch Schlage Sense is unlocked after sunset, the back porch light (lutron) turns on.

When the back porch door locks after sunset, the light turns off. AKA - letting the dog out.

at 11:45pm every day, all lights in the house are turned off, just in case.

When my garage door (chamberlain) opens, the entryway light (lutron) turns on, only after sunset.

When the last person leaves home after sunset, the front porch lights turn on.

When the last person leaves home any time, the ecobee goes into away mode.

When the first person arrives home any time, the ecobee resumes schedule.

That's it for now.

 

[whsbuss]

- 15 minutes before sunset, daily, when someone is at home: turn on family room lights
- Sunset, daily, when no one is at home: turn on a few lights on 1st floor for security reasons
- When first person arrives home: turn on family room lights & set ecobee4 to normal schedule
- When last person leaves home: turn on a few 1st floor lights & set ecobee4 to away mode

 

[cynics]

I'm a bit disappointed with HomeKit automation to not able to "poll" status of a device every minute or so. So as a workaround I made some automations that use temperature / humidity / luminosity change as a trigger.

Would you mind explaining what you mean by poll status every minute or so and the use case that this not happening causes a problem?

I'm not debating your problem just curious to learn the limitation you're talking about.


.....


Only issue I have is my living room light is set to turn on at sunset if no one is home. It doesn't. The porch light does but its not based on location but just time (sunset and sunrise). I have a feeling this is a conflict with my leave home automation turning off all the lights.

However my expectation is for all the lights to turn off when I leave during the day. If I'm not back before sunset turn on the living room light.

I think this might be a conflict because if I leave after sunset is it supposed to turn off or not.

I dealt with some silly conflict I had the other day with lights not turning on when I got home.

I think Home.app should put a (!) next to potential conflicts in your automations so you can easily address them. If I am dealing with a conflict it gets a little tricky dealing with it because I need to isolate a device.

 

[wesley96]

For an example, I would like a power outlet to turn itself off if it detects that the power consumption falls below a certain level. But there’s no HomeKit trigger for power consumption level changes. This could be worked around if the power consumption could be checked (polled) at a certain interval. But even that isn’t possible with HomeKit, so I’m using other triggers that are... triggered relatively frequently.

 

[Narked Diver]

I’m finding the Home Kit automation a bit hit and miss

I have 2 Hue lightbulbs set up (one for my wife and one for me) that are supposed to turn red when one of us leaves and turn green when one of us arrives home

They are supposed to switch off after a couple of minutes but randomly they will stay turned on - when I check in the Home app they are showing as off but the actual light is remaining on so I have to use the Home app to turn it ‘on’ before I can use the Home app to turn it off

 

[SCStevens04]

I don’t do my automations with HomeKit, but they can still be created there.

Can you explain?

I moved recently leaving my ZWave home & have tried going HomeKit in the new house but find the scenes lacking.

 

[gurase]

Can you explain?

I moved recently leaving my ZWave home & have tried going HomeKit in the new house but find the scenes lacking.

I run Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi. The automations are fantastic and I’ve barely scratched the surface with what’s possible. You can also get a USB Z-Wave stick to directly pair Z-Wave devices with Home Assistant. I use homebridge for HomeKit integration. I only use HomeKit for quick toggling from my watch or phone. Home Assistant does all the heavy lifting.

 

[Narked Diver]

I run Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi. The automations are fantastic and I’ve barely scratched the surface with what’s possible. You can also get a USB Z-Wave stick to directly pair Z-Wave devices with Home Assistant. I use homebridge for HomeKit integration. I only use HomeKit for quick toggling from my watch or phone. Home Assistant does all the heavy lifting.

How accurate is Home Assitant with determining the presence of an iPhone for arriving home / leaving home automations?

I’ve been thinking of switching from Homebridge to OpenHAB 2 but reading up on presence detection it seems iPhones can have issues

 

[gurase]

How accurate is Home Assitant with determining the presence of an iPhone for arriving home / leaving home automations?

I’ve been thinking of switching from Homebridge to OpenHAB 2 but reading up on presence detection it seems iPhones can have issues

I haven’t used presence detection at all so I can’t answer, but I want to at some point.