Home Automation

[mbhforum]

I am very big into IOT/Home Automation. I use Smartthings as my brains, but have a ton of other integrations. I've done some searching around to see if anyone has integrated Tesla with any other platform, and I haven't found much othan than Eve via IFTTT and I found a github repo for Smartthings. Any Smartthings users out there have integration with their Tesla?

 

[K-MTG]

I am a SmartThings user and previously used smarttiles on the Tesla web browser but now it required a login that the browser doesn't remember

 

[WannabeOwner]

We have Home Automation here (using Elan). Apart from being able to control Heat and TV-anywhere type stuff it also provides integration between systems - e.g. if the alarm goes off during the night it turns on all the lights in the house. One thing I have considered is having a bedside switch turn on Car Climate etc. When leaving for work early in the morning that would be more convenient than getting the phone APP out ...

... but for me, personally, I think things like "Prepare the car for a long trip tomorrow leaving at 7AM" might be better handled by something like Amazon Echo / Alexa (there are related threads on this forum)

I'm struggling a bit to think of useful HA functions in a Tesla context - maybe I just haven't got my mind around it? I would be interested to hear what sort of functions folk envisage

 

[mbhforum]

I think some of the things I would be interested in are:

1) Voice control from Alexa
2) My car being detected as a presence device
3) The ability to trigger the car to start/heat based on certain actions in my home

 

[OCRyan]

Enjoy, Alexa & Tesla: Better with Mosaic

 

[mbhforum]

Enjoy, Alexa & Tesla: Better with Mosaic

Thanks. I did see there was some skills for the Tesla which is cool. My main problem with the Skills is it's tough to remember the exact language. I am using so many integration between Smartthings, IFTTT, Harmony, etc. Doesn't look like you can issue a summons command through Alexa though?

 

[Gremlin]

I am very big into IOT/Home Automation. I use Smartthings as my brains, but have a ton of other integrations. I've done some searching around to see if anyone has integrated Tesla with any other platform, and I haven't found much othan than Eve via IFTTT and I found a github repo for Smartthings. Any Smartthings users out there have integration with their Tesla?

See my post regarding Amazon Echo. Once I find the IFTTT code from Amazon Echo video I'll post it. You can Google it. I saw a few skill for Amazon for the Tesla while setting up the new Echo but I'm not going to use it for security conerns liked to my local Tesla account.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Enjoy, Alexa & Tesla: Better with Mosaic

"You will need:

• Tesla!
• ..."

2) My car being detected as a presence device

Sorry, but I'm not putting two-and-two" together on that. Is that so that, when the car is at home, you can e.g. be prompted to plug it in (if it needs charging) ... or something completely different perhaps?

 

[WannabeOwner]

Hmmm .. this maybe?

House = Unoccupied
Car = currently heading for house
Activate: "Welcome home" program - house temperature, lighting, etc.

 

[mbhforum]

Hmmm .. this maybe?

House = Unoccupied
Car = currently heading for house
Activate: "Welcome home" program - house temperature, lighting, etc.

Exactly. I do this now with my mobile phone as a presence sensor with Smartthings. it would be nice to have the Tesla also be a presence device to automating things as well. IFTTT would accomplish this since it has integration with Smartthings.

 

[boonedocks]

EVE For Tesla | Premier Dashboard Experience For Your Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, Tesla Model III | Powered by Evolved Vehicle Environments

 

[mbhforum]

EVE For Tesla | Premier Dashboard Experience For Your Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X, Tesla Model III | Powered by Evolved Vehicle Environments

I saw Eve, but I read some unflattering things on the forum about them not being responsive to people cancelling their memberships.

 

[boonedocks]

I would email them and ask for a 1 month premium membership to test it out. If they say no then I would stay away.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I do this now with my mobile phone as a presence sensor with Smartthings.

I'm curious as to what sort of things people have their HA "Welcome home" program do?

I can understand "climate", although we have Passive House, so temperature stays constant for very long periods (go away in Winter with temperature in the 0C overnight to 5C day range, and the house loses maybe 1C per day if we were to turn everything off). Lighting is part of HA so although I don't have it come on automatically (nor do I bother to do that from phone when near home, even thought I have phone APP etc) there's a switch inside the door for "Pathway" (e.g. all lights on throughout hallway and corridors and in the kitchen area etc), and that also turns off "Away mode" (which does fake-occupancy of lighting), so I'm interested in whether there are other things "Welcome home", or similar could do. Maybe not go to DefCon-1 when CCTV see a car entering the drive?

Perhaps I should head off to a HA forum and see what people are up to ... we've got a fair amount of stuff installed here, but we aren't heavily into that kit doing things for us in anticipation of what we might want. Don't want to hijack your thread, but for context Wifee and I discussed long and hard why we needed controlled lighting even. We were used to wandering down the corridor turning on lights and making sure the light in the Loo was on before we had guests, that type of thing ... we didn't think that having a Party button was A Big Deal. Don't regret doing it, but we are probably a poor case for fun-stuff (absolutely the biggest gain for us was the ability to change [i.e. "tune"] what-did-what after the fact; for example if guests found it hard to figure out how to do something; original brief was that "Aged mother-in-law must be able to turn the telly on and find some tennis to watch and not be sitting in the dark" !!)

 

[AWDtsla]

https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge-tesla

 

[K-MTG]

@ohmman also has a neat hoa system, perhaps he can provide some insight.

I am currently using HomeKit, SmartThings, Kuna, Sighthound, Rachio, Nest, Hue, EnegeryVue, and Harmony. Everything except for Rachio, Kuna, and Sighthound is intergrated with SmartThings which I unofficially integrated with HomeKit.

 

[WannabeOwner]

HomeKit, SmartThings, Kuna, Sighthound, Rachio, Nest, Hue, EnegeryVue, and Harmony

Blimey! Does all that lot play nicely with each other? The "Harmony" bit sounds important!

We have Elan over-arching everything else. Lutron for lighting, something-or-other that distributes the TV and a cupboard full of Sonos boxes.

My biggest gripe is the way that Climate works. Standard "intelligent" Heatmiser-brand thermostats [in each room]. Supposedly this means you can just touch a thermostat if you want bit more heat, in practice I don't think it provides a human-useful solution. I didn't understand, at the outset, why I needed thermostats at all. The Thermostats talk to the valves that provide hot water to the room heaters (under floor etc.). Elan then "reprograms" the thermostats when it wants to change program. So if Elan et al all fail then the thermostats will be independently operational; I get that, but the thermostats are expensive (got lots of them!) and, in practice, have failed fairly regularly so I'd prefer to live with the total-failure risk instead. It feels to me that I would much prefer JUST a temperature sensor in each room, and the central HA decide what to do and open/close the valves; I keep threatening to get my soldering iron out, and some Raspberry Pi and a bucket full of 1-wire sensors ; we've got a ridiculous number of CAT5 sockets in every room ... how hard can it be?

 

[ohmman]

I use Indigo 7 for Mac and run it on an old Mini. It integrates a lot of my devices across the following product lines:

• Lutron RadioRA (v1)
• Lutron Caseta
• Z-Wave (Thermostat, lighting, dry contacts, window/door sensors, smoke/CO detectors, temperature/humidity sensors, etc)
• Philips Hue
• Sonos
• Davis Weather Station
• and, indirectly, my Axis Network Cameras

It's very extensible using Python. I've considered integrating the Tesla API as a plugin, but have also struggled to figure out the benefits of doing so. Sure, I could start climate control in the cars in the morning. That has some level of convenience. But what else?

As far as my "come home" action groups, it depends on time of day and daylight (so time of year matters). In the winter, when my gate opens, it triggers occupancy for the house and the heat kicks back on. If it's dark, the lights come on in "Welcome" mode. Really, nothing too exciting.

Some unique (potentially useless?) actions I have set up are:

• Hall light, if turned on with the switch in the morning (my kids do this early) will only brighten to 15% dimness. The light shines under the door of our bedroom and is very bright otherwise.
• My son takes a while in the shower, and forgets he's in there. I have a Sonos action that reminds him on the bathroom speaker after 5 and 10 minutes that he should be wrapping up. After 15 minutes, it says I'm coming back to check and I get an alert on my phone to do so. Helpful when I'm busy making dinner.
• Kids' light switches send Pushover alerts to my phone when they turn them on in the morning. Nothing critical, but sometimes it's nice to know how early they were up.
• When the house is in vacation mode, any anomalous action (motion sensed, door/window opened, etc.) will send me a Pushover alert, start recording my Axis Cameras off-site, and send a Sonos alert at full volume house-wide that the intruder is being monitored. I've had a couple false alarms. I'm sure the birds in the area freaked out.

 

[mbhforum]

I use Smartthings as my brains, but also incorporate Harmony, Echo, Hue, Blink, Ring, SimpliSafe, Nest Sonos, Rachio, IFTTT, Yonomi, Rheem (Hot Water Heater). Needless to say, I am well invested into HA. I have hundreds of rules and control everything from locks, alarm, lights, blinds, music, tv, thermostats, etc. Tesla would just be one more thing to bring into my world. For example, every day it would be nice to have my car via summon automatically open garage doors and pull my car into my driveway when it's NOT raining or snowing WHEN I walk past a certain motion sensor after 6:45am during the week.

 

[K-MTG]

I use Indigo 7 for Mac and run it on an old Mini. It integrates a lot of my devices across the following product lines:

• Lutron RadioRA (v1)
• Lutron Caseta
• Z-Wave (Thermostat, lighting, dry contacts, window/door sensors, smoke/CO detectors, temperature/humidity sensors, etc)
• Philips Hue
• Sonos
• Davis Weather Station
• and, indirectly, my Axis Network Cameras

It's very extensible using Python. I've considered integrating the Tesla API as a plugin, but have also struggled to figure out the benefits of doing so. Sure, I could start climate control in the cars in the morning. That has some level of convenience. But what else?

As far as my "come home" action groups, it depends on time of day and daylight (so time of year matters). In the winter, when my gate opens, it triggers occupancy for the house and the heat kicks back on. If it's dark, the lights come on in "Welcome" mode. Really, nothing too exciting.

Some unique (potentially useless?) actions I have set up are:

• Hall light, if turned on with the switch in the morning (my kids do this early) will only brighten to 15% dimness. The light shines under the door of our bedroom and is very bright otherwise.
• My son takes a while in the shower, and forgets he's in there. I have a Sonos action that reminds him on the bathroom speaker after 5 and 10 minutes that he should be wrapping up. After 15 minutes, it says I'm coming back to check and I get an alert on my phone to do so. Helpful when I'm busy making dinner.
• Kids' light switches send Pushover alerts to my phone when they turn them on in the morning. Nothing critical, but sometimes it's nice to know how early they were up.
• When the house is in vacation mode, any anomalous action (motion sensed, door/window opened, etc.) will send me a Pushover alert, start recording my Axis Cameras off-site, and send a Sonos alert at full volume house-wide that the intruder is being monitored. I've had a couple false alarms. I'm sure the birds in the area freaked out.

Do you have any recommendations for cellular and power outage backups? I am using a Mini currently for Plex, OSX Server, Sighthound, and homebridge. I have a UPS on it but it will only last an hour or so.