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.

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.

I look after the strategy team for the CISO of a financial services company. I do enjoy my job, but I’ve swapped debugging IT systems for debugging organisational systems, and there’s a frustrating amount of baggage (financial reporting, process reporting, people managment) that you have to carry to get to that table.

I feel this. I used to have a job that involved popping difficult problems off the ‘hard problem’ queue, solving them and moving on. No one bothered me, I knew the set up and all was good. But it didn’t pay well, and now I manage people who get to have all the fun while I chase 30 minutes of focus in an 8 hour day.

I like to take it a step further - make the act of getting ready for the task a separate task. Other folks might see a single job, but when I have some repair work needing done around the house, I need a job to check if I have what I need to fix it, another to work out what I need to do, another to move it all to right place etc.

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?

I suspect this is a rendering/process thing rather than an accuracy thing. Have you tested if the logic of the first one isn’t listening to the other fields?

Thinking it through, in an ‘and’ test, you do only have to watch for the the state of the first clause, because so long as that is false, it doesn’t matter what the rest say. In the ‘or’ clause, you need to watch for the value of all of them.

Anyone have a view on how this overlaps on the Azure platform? MS are pushing Bing Chat Enterprise alongside the API access.

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.