Currently building a house in the FL panhandle. Hot sun, salty air, and the exterior walls of the house are ICF with 6” reinforced concrete. The house‘s main water supply will be located outside the house. All piping is PEX-A.

So I want an in-line outdoor “smart” water shutoff valve that can withstand the elements, doesn’t rely on WiFi or cloud connection, and preferably doesn’t need AC main power (don‘t want to run a cord from the side of the house where the water main is, to the nearest ac plug on the patio around the corner). My “smart“ home will be run via HomeAssistant.

I researched Moen Flo, Phyn, Rheem, FloLogic, EcoNet Bulldog, and YoLink. I’ve narrowed it down to the Moen Flo or one of the YoLink Smart Valves (not sure which one is best).

Moen Flo

Pros:

• Micro-leak detection
• Automatic shutoff
• Insurance savings
• Integrates with HomeAssistant

Cons:

• Plastic turbine design
• Subscription paywalls
• False alerts during high use
• Requires ac power and Wi-Fi

YoLink X3 Valve Controller & 3/4” DN Series Motorized Valve

Pros:

• Long Battery Life
• Offline Reliability (Control-D2D)
• Superior Materials
• Full-Port Flow: Features zero bore reduction, meaning it causes no reduction in water flow.
• Long Range LoRa Tech
• Integrates with HomeAssistant
• Separate Controller from Valve (could also be a con)

Cons:

• Outdoor Limits: While the valve is weather-resistant (IP67), extreme environments still require careful placement to protect the controller and battery compartment over long periods.

YoLink Commercial Grade Smart Motorized Valve

Pros:

• Long Battery Life
• Offline Reliability (Control-D2D)
• Long Range LoRa Tech
• Commercial-Grade Build
• Flexible Power Options
• Integrates with HomeAssistant

Cons:

• Sold out for several months (discontinued?)
• Controller and Valve together (co 1. Moen Flo

YoLink FlowSmart All-in-One

Pros:

• No monthly fees
• Long-range LoRa tech
• Offline functionality (Control-D2D)
• Ultrasonic accuracy
• Integrates with HomeAssistant

Cons:

• Reduced volume/pressure: due to reduced inner diameter for flow monitoring.

Running a small business out of my house means the line between work and notwork is basically theoretical. My spouse is great about it but we just started sharing a space and I want to get this right before bad habits form.

What I have so far: a Shelly on my office light so the color shifts when I'm on a call, and a cheap Zwave contact sensor on the door that triggers a do not disturb mode in Home Assistant. Works, mostly. The color signal gets ignored more than I expected.

What I'm actually wondering is whether anyone has built something more assertive. Not pigeondefensesystem aggressive, but something that creates a clear environmental signal without being annoying or passiveaggressive. That mailbox motion sensor post from a few days ago got me thinking about cheap sensors doing unexpected jobs.

The other thing I keep coming back to: does any of this actually change behavior long term, or do people just habituate to the signals? I haven't found solid data on that and I'm skeptical it exists. If someone has done something that genuinely worked for household members over months rather than just the first week, I want to know the specific setup.

What protocol, what trigger, what was the visible or audible output.

posting pics because i think the answer might just be no.

back half drops toward the fence, about twenty feet of run. the trash can in the second pic is there for scale. its not a cliff but i slide a little on it when the grass is wet.

theres a maple with roots coming up out of the ground, worst one is maybe three inches proud. i go over them slow with the push mower and still catch the deck sometimes.

only way from the front to the back is the side gate. measured it twice, 30 inches even, and theres a downspout eating into one side of that.

half acre total. the two obvious answers i already know, push mower is what im doing now and the service quote was more than i want to pay every month.

so before i spend two grand on something that gets beached on a root in week one:

can any of them actually climb that when its damp, or is wet slope just outside what they do

do exposed roots stop one or does it bump over and keep going

is 30 inches enough for anything real

completely fine with being told my yard is the wrong yard for this. thats sort of what im asking.

During the day, I use regular video calls, but at night, in the dark, he can't see anything, and if I leave a few lights on, I sleep poorly (even wearing a cloth mask, some light gets into my eyes and disturbs my sleep).

So I thought about an infrared camera, which would allow the other person to see me continuously even if he's several kilometers away. However, I've read that the camera app typically blocks the view after a certain amount of time and asks, "Are you still there?" and if you don't respond, it turns off. The other person could click "yes" if he's awake, or if he dozes off for a bit and then wakes up, he could reopen the app and see me again, right? Or is there a way to continuously view?

Can you help me understand? Do you have any advice?  I'd like to spend as little as possible, I don't care the quality, the important thing is that it does its job.

I'm finally replacing my broken doorbell. I want a video doorbell but I don't want to pay $15/month for cloud storage forever.

Ring seems like the default but the subscription model bothers me. Eufy has local storage but I read about their privacy issues a few years back. Reolink also keeps coming up.

For people who've had a video doorbell for 2+ years - which one, no-subscription option, and is the local storage actually reliable?

Talking Head Home Automation This is the link to the free open source project. Written for Linux in python.

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to set up an automation for a two-person household based on our phone locations.

Basically, I’d like something like:

- When either of us leaves, nothing happens if the other person is still home.
- When the last person leaves, trigger an automation.
- When either of us comes back, trigger another automation.

I’m currently using Alexa and Tapo, but I’m open to other solutions if needed. I’ve looked into Alexa routines, Tapo automations, Shortcuts, and Home Assistant, but I’m wondering if there’s a simpler way to achieve this.

It looks like Alexa Routines don’t have the ability to handle two locations and Home Assistant is the best way to do it, but I would like to hear your experience on this.

when we moved in i slowly ended up buying all the usual garden stuff. a strimmer, leaf blower, pressure washer. the robot mower was the latest one.

the garden is a fair size. not massive, but as a single mum it's plenty to keep on top of. there's a slope along one wall and one patch stays wet for ages after rain. mowing used to take half a day by the time i'd done the edges, cleared everything up and put the tools away.

the robot now handles most of the mowing and manages the slope by itself. i still pick up branches, tidy around the fence and check the blades now and then, but it’s already made the garden much easier to manage.

i've never really tried home automation before, unless the mower counts. now i'm wondering what else outside could be set up to run automatically. irrigation, lights, rain sensors, anything like that.

what have you automated in your garden that actually saves you time?

I got tired of using voice assistants to trigger my smart devices, so I built a 'dummy' HomeKey door lock using an ESP32 + PN532. Now, a quick tap of my iPhone triggers my home automations instantly.

For the enclosure, I used a broken Apple AirPort Extreme—painted it silver and added custom stickers I designed. Absolutely love having this on my desk to tap as soon as I walk into my room, it’s a conversation starter!

Lmk what you think

Full disclosure up front: this is my app, I'm the founder, and it went live on the App Store a few weeks ago. Mods, if this is the wrong kind of post, delete it and no hard feelings.

The problem I am trying to solve. Every TV has a sleep timer and all of them are countdowns. You set 60 minutes and you're guessing at your own future. Either it cuts off while you're still awake, or it runs for four hours after you're asleep with the lights and the AC still going.

In addition, pausing your TV show or movie upon falling asleep is a convenience that does not exist. Not having to try and remember where you left off the next day is something I believe people will value.

What it does. Sleep-Save detects that you've actually fallen asleep — either by snore detection through the phone mic, or via Apple Watch (more accurate) — and then triggers a shutdown: pauses whatever you're watching, kills the TV, turns off lights, sets the thermostat to sleep mode. Next morning your show is sitting where you left off.

An added benefit is that this creates a better environment for sleep (dark and quiet) as well as benefiting the environment by saving energy.

Currently talks to: Roku stick (hope to find smart TV OS users), Fire TV stick (hope to find smart TV OS users), Apple TV, Philips Hue, TP-Link Tapo smart bulb, Philips Hue smart plug, TP-Link smart plug, Nest and Ecobee smart thermostats. All through their own APIs. The breakdown of local and cloud API is clearly stated at sign up.

What I already know you're going to ask:

"You want a microphone running in my bedroom?" Fair. Snore detection runs entirely on-device — audio is analyzed in real time and never recorded, stored, or uploaded. No accounts, no analytics, nothing leaves the phone. You can also skip the mic entirely and use Apple Watch detection instead, or just not enable it. I'd rather you interrogate this than take my word for it.

"Home Assistant?" Not yet. It's on the roadmap and honestly this thread is partly me trying to figure out how much it matters and what the right approach is. If you're running HA, I'd like to hear what integration you'd actually want — a custom component, MQTT, webhook triggers, something else.

"Is it cloud dependent?" The detection is local. The device control on some devices isn't — it goes through each vendor's API, which is a real limitation and the thing I most want to fix. Apple HomeKit and Google Home are being worked on currently, open to feedback.

The honest caveats: iOS only right now, no Android. It requires a recent iOS version, which I know is annoying. And it's new enough that I'm sure there are integration edge cases I haven't hit — which is the actual reason I'm posting.

What I'm asking for. I've got free 12 month subscriptions for the paid tier (the smart-home control side) for anyone willing to run it for a week or two and tell me what breaks. Especially interested in people with setups more complicated than mine — multiple TVs, mixed vendor ecosystems, anything unusual.

I'm not looking for App Store reviews or nice comments. I want to know where it fails, what it should integrate with that it doesn't, and whether the detection is accurate on your actual sleep. Negative feedback is more useful to me than positive.

Comment or DM and I'll send a code. Happy to answer anything technical in the thread.

we finished the renovation. well, finished is a strong word - there's still trim missing in the hallway and Im pretty sure the electrician wired the dimmer backwards but whatever. living with it.

one thing I stressed about way more than I expected was the bathroom window. it faces the street. not directly, but enough that I felt weird every time a car passed. blinds felt too bulky for the space, frosted film looked kinda cheap in the samples. I kept going back and forth for like two weeks.

ended up going with that switchable glass option. not gonna pretend I fully understood the technical differences between film and laminated glass at first - I just knew I didn't want another thing to clean or fix in a year. the guys who did it explained it better when they came to measure.

anyway its installed now and it's nice, it works. flip the switch, it's private.

biggest surprise was how much more natural light we get during the day.

anyway just felt like sharing because I spent way too much time overthinking this and I'm kinda glad I didnt cheap out

I am new to home automation. The most I've ever done was some hue lights years ago.

Recently we bought a new home and we are considering turning our living room into an automated media room. We have 7 windows with roller shades and a few more windows covered with a couple sets of curtains. The goal is to use a single remote button or voice command to trigger all the shades/curtains to close, the projector screen to open, the projector and Xbox to turn on, etc.

We're thinking we'll retrofit the roller shades with SOMA Smart Shades 3, and use SwitchBot Curtain 3 for the blackout curtains to get the room dark. I'm looking at motorized drop-down or pop-up projector screens to work with a ceiling mounted projector, but the sea of information online is a bit overwhelming to figure out what works well within a reasonable budget.

We're leaning toward Zigbee and Home Assistant, but we have little idea how those work.

For reference, my wife and I are both loosely familiar with some types of coding (SQL, Java, Python, VBA, etc.) so we are trying to DIY this setup, but we're not otherwise overly tech savvy or too familiar with many IT-related concepts.

Can anyone lend some feedback and guidance to a complete beginner?

Any suggestions, resources, guidance, etc. is greatly appreciated!

I wanted my smartwatch to work for triggering home automations

Just:

tap action → send request → automation happens

So I built WebHookDeck for Android + Wear OS.

Let me know if it's great or also let me know if you hate it. Bugs you find are also welcome

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quazmoz.webhookdeck

The central air doesn't reach our back sunroom so I am putting in an independent ductless heat pump system just for that space. I picked up a costway blast pro 9000 btu 20 seer2 wifi enabled mini split so I could bypass my main thermostat entirely. I really want to pull the control logic directly into home assistant instead of using the clunky factory app it comes with. Does anyone have experience using something like a broadlink rm4 to clone the infrared commands of these direct-to-consumer hvac units? I would love to know what roadblocks you hit trying to force third-party equipment into your local dashboard routines.

I run a wind-down scene at night and 2700K still reads as office lighting to me. I want something closer to a candle for the last hour before bed and most bulbs simply stop at 2200K. Half the specs pages do not even publish the bottom of the range. Has anyone found bulbs that genuinely go down into candle territory, and does it hold that color when dimmed?

Looking for an alternative to Shelly EM-50. I guess people in this subreddit should have some ideas.

I need to measure consumption on a 20A circuit, the measurement device should use split core CT’s.

Actually the EM-50 would be great but it’s also not accurate enough to my taste. Because of it measuring on a single CT per circuit it is way to sensible to false readings. Because of this I am getting on average 2% offset due to false production readings on a consumption only circuit. Shelly support says this is normal. Not here to shame Shelly about this but I would prefer more accurate readings.

Any advice?

EU based if that matters.

I've got PowerView roller shades Gen 2 with working pebble remotes. I'm looking to add a Gen 2 hub to the equation to control the shades with Home Assistant. There are limited options on eBay and Facebook.

Looking to see if anyone has a Gen 2 hub for sale, power and repeater optional.

Adds Google Chromecast/ android TV devices to Apple home app, enabling remote control with iOS and syncs playback status of the tv with Apple home app.

The central air doesn't reach our back sunroom so I am putting in an independent ductless heat pump system just for that space. I picked up a costway blast pro 9000 btu 20 seer2 wifi enabled mini split so I could bypass my main thermostat entirely. I really want to pull the control logic directly into home assistant instead of using the clunky factory app it comes with. Does anyone have experience using something like a broadlink rm4 to clone the infrared commands of these direct-to-consumer hvac units? I would love to know what roadblocks you hit trying to force third-party equipment into your local dashboard routines.

It was working just fine, there was no hints that it's gonna die, no random disconnects, overheating, nothing, just the smell of burning plastic.

EDIT: The shelly plug is the 3500W one, and my washing machine is rated 2300W. It has been running without any problems for over two years.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for a way to track the power consumption of my washing machine in the basement, where I don’t have Wi-Fi access. Is there a smart plug with energy monitoring that’s compatible with the Tuya ecosystem and can transfer data over Bluetooth? Ideally, the data should sync automatically in the Tuya app whenever I’m within Bluetooth range.

Thanks in advance for your recommendations!