Hi! I’m new to home assistant and I’m wondering what would be worth the cost. A lot of the “smart” appliances seem overly expensive and automating them would only save me a handful of minutes each day. I live in canada where power is cheap, so things that save power aren’t particulary useful. A way to open/close the windows and doors sounds useful and would save me the most time, but costs thousands. A way to keep track of what is in the fridge and propose recipes to avoid food waste would be nice but I’m not entirely sure how I would setup such a system.

Does anyone have ideas of worthwhile things I could setup that would be worth the cost?

  • @[email protected]English
    1•1 year ago
    • I am sure you have at least a couple of instances in a week where you go “damn, I forgot to switch the lights”.
    • You are tired on your sofa and wanna watch a movie but the lights are too bright.
    • You want to simulate someone is home so you don’t get robbed.
    • meeting mode: warning them with a red bulb in the living room, and lowering the TVs volume all in just a click, while ensuring that your robot vacuum stops cleaning and resumes later.
    • get a warning that your room’s humidity level is high, and directly offering a button for launching AC.

    All those things I have not done, yet. I don’t even have the Zigbee dongle. But surely through the following months and years I will find little things that I could do that sum up to a lot of comfort and saving time.

    Also, relay switches and sensors are so cheap it can simply be a fun hobby.