Share your Home Assistant ideas

Playground Hacks
#46

And anyone wanting to install smart switches or anything that involves working with AC home wiring, TURN OFF the power at the breaker.

Home AC power will kill you if you get a good enough contact with the wires ever for a very short time.

You also can cause a short if the hot and ground touch each other they can then weld them selves together and cause the whole wire run to heat up and melt causing a fire anywhere in the walls. This has happened to a friend of mine many years ago, and it cause severe damage to their home. Most homes do not have GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter) or AFCI (Arc Fault circuit interrupter) breakers. Those type of breakers only started being installed in very modern or high end homes only in recent years i read. Standard breakers only trip when there is a overload condition, when too many AMPs are being pulled than the breaker is rated for, which is different than a ground or arc fault.

#47

I’ve enjoyed your humor around here so I saw it for what it was. I was trying to come up with a good retort along the lines of “Then why are you speaking?” but I hadn’t thought of anything I was happy enough with to post yet. Lol

1 Like
#48

Thanks @Macnbaish. My comment was intended to be a good natured poke, not a full on “pot stir”. I’m glad my intent was not lost to everyone.

#49

Even when you have the power off, be careful and work as if it were hot, especially when working with the neutral wire. Neutral wires don’t usually carry voltage that is detectable by touch, but that isn’t always the case. One of the worst shocks I’ve ever had was from a neutral wire. Be careful and don’t be afraid to ask for help.

1 Like
#50

Although you don’t have a use case I wanted to leave this for others who might be interested: there is an excellent Homebridge-Pico plugin that achieves the same thing as the Home Assistant integration. HA is not necessary if you just want to trigger HomeKit accessories/scenes with a Pico.

For guests, a simple remote greatly simplifies things for my smart home. Instead of having them mess with Siri I just tell them “use arrows to dim and off button to turn off.”

#51

Has everyone on this board lost their sense of humor? So must testiness these days.

Assume no malice.

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Virtual Channel Rants
#52

You may change your mind after the first time you say something like “shut up, I’m trying to talk to Alexa” to your significant other. But maybe your SO is more understanding than mine :joy:

#53

That'd be a lot easier to do if the "joker" would stop private messaging me insults.

#54

What if Alexa IS my significant other? eh?
:laughing:

Alexa and I did not hit it off when we tried to be together for a short time and we had to break up.

Google Assistant has been in my life for nearly a decade and we are still going steady.

But recently, Siri has joined the relationship....so now it's a threesome. :kissing_heart:

:crazy_face:

3 Likes
#55

Too much information.

1 Like
#56

Thanks to @psperry for the help he gave me with understanding the general principles of electricity, the different wires / colors / and just general chat.

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I didn't feel like cutting the power though, it's football season. I wore several pairs of dish gloves until the shock was tolerable.

2 Likes
#57

I don’t what to be a reply guy, but I can’t suggest enough to just putting dimmers on all things.

It gives so much more freedom and also gets rid of any click sound that switches sometimes have.

I’m also incredibly pedantic about the brightness level in my rooms :joy: I don’t run 100% anywhere.

4 Likes
#58

I’m exactly the opposite. I installed a bunch of dimmers but always set them to 100% anyway. So as they wore out, I replaced them with switches. Plus I find the click sound quite satisfying. Different strokes. :grinning:

#59

Never ever going to your house :dark_sunglasses:

1 Like
#60

My house is generally under lit. I’ve used dimmers in my other houses. Once I finish upgrading the lighting, I will likely need dimmers again. But the older I get the more light I need. So who knows.

#61

The light I put the switch on is the porch light, so not dimmable, but im not sure I have dimmable lights anywhere, wouldn't there be a previous dimmer? Not sure I would have dimmable lights with a regular switch. What would happen if they weren't and I used a dimmer? Hell, maybe they are dimmable. Any way to tell other than pulling the light down?

#62

You need dimmable bulbs unless you're using incandescent. Dimmable bulbs are more expensive so it’s not likely someone would spring for them if they weren’t going to dim them. But you could get lucky.

#63

Electric shock effects the brain first. :joy:

1 Like
#64

Don’t you always wear sunglasses? Or is that false advertising?

#65

The switch is the dimmer. So you can make anything dimmable as long as you have a bulb that dims.

I put dimmers on all my outside lights so I can keep them on thoughtout the night without them being bright and obnoxious. It’s a nice hack.