Always surprises me when I go to do something in HA and realize that I can't figure out how.

This time its lights, specifically making sure that they don't get left on.

Until now I've simply been creating an automation for each light switch so that if it changes state from Off to On and when it's 30 minutes after sunrise it's starts a 15 minute wait and then changes the state of the switch to off.

This approach mostly works but it's less than ideal.

First I'm having to create an automation for each device. How do I do it by Area, or list / group of devices, instead?

Second if a device is turned on too early there's no state change for the automation to catch and it never fires. I could fix this by creating another automation that checks for it but then I'll have even more of them to manage.

Third this doesn't work very well if you want different things to happen on the weekends as opposed to during the weekday. For instance on a Saturday I may WANT that closet light to stay on longer because I'm putting away clothes.

It'd be really nice if I could program HA like this 'On a weekday if you see any device on this list turn on 30 minutes after Sunrise I want you to turn whichever one(s) it was off again 15 minutes later.'.

I'm must be missing something here because surely HA can do this, right?

Shortly after the ratGDO v2.5 was released I ordered one and a couple of days later I ordered a case from Etsy to go with it.

Two days later the Etsy seller messages me asking if have the v2.5 or v2.5i because the cases are different. WTF? There's already a new version?! I tell the seller to make it the v2.5i because that's probably what I'll get.

So last week I received a very nice red case from the Etsy Seller HighTower3D out of the North Carolina. Seriously, this thing is nice. The build quality is high, it has magnets in the bottom for mounting, comes with allen screws (and the allen wrench you need) and a couple of little zip ties.

So this week my ratGDO shows up and...it's v2.52i! A quick check of the website shows that there's now a v2.53 and that makes four revisions in the last month!

You can't make this stuff up so all I can do is laugh...and give away the v2.5i case that I spent $26 on and doesn't fit the ratGDO version I ended up with.

I have no use for this case so I'm giving it away to someone who can; make sure you have a v2.5i though because this call will NOT fit any other version.

If you are in the United States and can use this case then leave a reply below. 😊

I ordered some sidewalk heating mats from HeatTrak and I want to automate them with HA so that they come on when it makes sense to do so based on the data from my Tempest Weather Station.

According to HeatTrack my mats will have a combined resistive load of 5A which is well within the spec of the Zooz ZEN05 or ZEN14, both rated for 15A resistive loads, but when I asked them about it they did not recommend using either of them with heated mats. They couldn't, or wouldn't, explain why and it doesn't make sense to me why this wouldn't work.

My next thought was to simply swap the outlet to something smart but this is an outdoor outlet so it needs to be GFCI and there's essentially no Z-Wave GFCI outlets made.

Do I really need to use something like an Enbrighten Z-Wave Plus 40-Amp contactor for this or am I missing something here?

I have an automation that turns my driveway lights on when motion is detected. It normally works fairly well but it was windy last night and that caused the automation to trip endlessly as my trees and bushes were whipping around. Lights would come on, shut off 10 minutes later, then turn right back on again. It basically did this all night until I disabled the automation.

I'll do some fine tuning of the motion sensors which will help and I'm considering adding a condition to the automation where it won't trip if the wind speed is above a certain level but how can I add some kind of cool down timer to the automation to prevent it from endlessly engaging?

First the layout. My garage is setup similar to this one, although mine is attached, has three light fixtures, and my driveway is 4 cars wide.

The wife wants me to replace the three basic on / off fixtures that we have (they're getting rusty) and keep them all matching. If I'm going to do this I want to add a camera to the setup.

Functionally I'd like the lights to have or work like they have dual bright capability where they come on full bright at sunset then after a couple of hours they dim down unless they detect motion. If they detect motion then they come back to full bright for a period of time then dim back down again. They do this for a set period of hours, say 4, then they turn off completely unless they detect motion.

My current lights are already automated for on / off (but not dimming or motion) through the use of HA and a z-wave switch.

Where I'm getting stuck is that I can see at least three ways to do this but none of them are perfect.

1. Replace my dumb carriage fixtures with new dumb fixtures then change the switch to a dimming version plus add a motion sensor and camera out front. Then setup HA for the functionality I want. The upside of doing it this way is that it's very easy to get matching fixtures. The downside is that the motion sensor and camera will not be well integrated visually.

2. Replace my dumb fixtures with ones that have dual bright built in. It's easy to do, and I could even keep the HA Automation I have setup now, but again the camera setup is not going to integrate well visually. I'm also concerned that three motion sensors controlling three lights will cause trouble for the camera (or each other) because they will react to different things and turn themselves on and off independently.

3. Replace my dumb fixtures with smarter ones. In the center position I'd use one that has an integrated motion sensor and camera. This Reolink seems like it would work pretty well. However RL doesn't make any fixtures that match it, which means my center fixture would look different than the other two.

I may just have to deal with mismatched fixtures but does anyone have any suggestions? Am I missing an option?

The next step in my HA journey is adding cameras; indoor, outdoor, and doorbell so I've been exploring my options. I had originally intended to do a Frigate setup, I even have a Coral module and PC to do it with, but then I discovered Reolink.

Without having any experience with them they look nearly ideal. They seem to have tight integration with HA 2023.3 or later and their pricing and functionality look good.

They seem like a no brainer but I've noticed that they're often NOT the first recommendation in the HA Community. Why is that and why shouldn't I use them?