Tech people of Tildes, what have you automated in your life?

I often missed Zoom meetings, even though I am literally available, typing away at my computer. So, I made myself a "meeting auto joiner". It interfaces with my Google Calendar (via API), and for every calendar event that has a Zoom meeting link in it, it will announce the meeting (with OSX's text-to-speech), and then automatically join the Zoom meeting 1 minute before the meeting time. My Zoom settings are set up to have both audio and video off when joining, to prevent embarassing situations. I've never missed a meeting since I started using this, as long as I've been actually physically present at my computer.

Several years ago, I finally established a good (for me) daily and hourly automatic data backup routine, and learned how to use rsync and crontab (2 Linux tools) in the process.

Similarly, I've got my own NextCloud site, thru which I automatically sync and back up several shared folders of commonly-used files, phone pics, calendar and contacts and etc. I understand that many people who use Apple/Google phones get comparable sync/backup service at the click of a button, but I'm quite proud of having set up my own private services, w/o having to share my data with the FAANG Corps.

• Our Neato vacuum runs once a day on weekdays at 1:30pm. Sometimes it even makes it back to the base, haha. We have three dogs, so it keeps the hair tumbleweeds under control.
• I have my phone show a notification via Shortcuts when it reaches 100% battery. Useful because it also shows up on my watch.
• The light in the bedroom is on some circadian rhythm, so it's dimmer during dark hours and brighter during light hours. I turn it off by a switch when I go to sleep and back on when I wake up because I couldn't figure that bit out (and it's not too much of a hassle).

I got tired of setting the remote for my gas fireplace on the couch and then sitting in the recliner, or vice versa, so I chopped up a few TP-Link Kasa plugs and modded those into the fan and ignition control on it. Kasa plugs are super easy to turn into voice- or app-controlled relays that you can pop into just about any circuit. I really need to write up a tutorial for it.

Either way, now I just say "Alexa, turn on the fireplace," and like magic, fire heeds my call.

And don't worry, there's still a physical cutoff switch. I'm sure that won't stop many of you from recoiling at the idea of 1) having Alexa in the first place and 2) handing it control of a gas line, but hey, it's something!

Last year I wrote a script to scrape a government website to alert me when there's a free appointment to register my car. I literally couldn't register my car because every appointment was booked (They only allow booking 2 weeks in advance and everything was booked). So I checked regularly whether people would cancel. I got an appointment for a day or 2 later.

I've automated bill payment (through a combination of vendor's websites and my bank's online bill pay) so I never have to deal with paying a bill. I've automated the recordkeeping of my expenses through QuickBooks Online, bank and credit card data integration with QBO, and extensive expense categorization rules, so I can see exactly and in general what my wife and I have spent money on with minimal effort. At this point, as long as enough money is coming in, I don't have to put more than a few minutes a month into thinking about my finances.

I've automated checking up on the comics and web novels I read by having Feedly watch the RSS feeds. This way it doesn't matter if the comic only updates once a month or the story drops seven chapters once every three months, I see it without having to remember to check them individually.

I have a twilio account and a few lines of code I put at the end of long running scripts to text me whenever the script completes.

Great topic!

• There is a webcam somewhere in the city that tracks something I'm interested in, so I automated taking a shot every 5 mins and save it to my server, to make a video later. It's been a year and a half, so I have quite some photos already.
• I don't like having separate apps for RSS and calendar, also I don't need much from a calendar app, so I automated both with emails. I get an email every morning with my tasks for the day (if any), it supports weekly, monthly and yearly events too. I also get an email every 40 minutes if a certain website or forum I'm interested in has a new article or post.

I automated a digital version of the envelope budgeting system. My credit union offers unlimited no-fee savings accounts so I set up one for each recurring expense I have, and one for each category of my general budget (like "vacation fund", "clothing," "date night," "long-term savings," etc). I'm salaried with direct deposit, so after every pay period a swarm of scheduled transfers distributes my paycheck to those dozens of accounts. Whatever's left in the main general account afterward is my pocket money until the cycle repeats. When bills are due, each has its own transfer for the correct amount back into checking so auto-pay can deal with it. It was a pain to set up initially, but it's served me well for almost a decade at this point. It's liberating to never worry about insufficient funds; all the earmarked money is safely set aside until it's needed.

I set up a "goodnight" iOS shortcut that runs when I put my phone on the charger before bed. It checks a list of bedtime chores to see if they need to be done, and speaks the results. Right now those chores are centered around low overnight temperatures; it compares overnight dew point to the relative humidity in the room and lets me know if I need to run a dehumidifier to prevent window condensation. It also notifies me if the temp will drop below freezing so I can drip my sinks and avoid pipes bursting. And it tells me if it'll snow in the next 24 hours. I wrote these over the winter if you can't tell, but now that it's warming up I may expand it to do summerier things.

I have an electric kettle that I can start with a delay, but you have to specify the duration instead of the time you want it to go off. I like to have boiling water ready for my french press when I wake up, and it annoyed me to calculate the length of time every night. So I made another iOS shortcut to figure that out for me.

Those are probably my biggest three automations. As much as I like the idea of some smart home / IoT / Alexa-like things, I'm actively avoiding those because of the privacy and infosec implications. I've been watching the Mycroft project and if Mark II ever ships I'd like to pick up one.

My room will turn on the lights when it detects the brightness inside is going down, but will slowly do it relative to the current brightness so it doesn't suddenly turn on at once. (Tries to keep a certain brightness at certain times)

What's your setup for this? How do you track brightness?

I mostly don't have much of a smart home at the moment. I do have a Yale/August smart lock that automatically unlocks when I get home, which is more convenient than might at first be apparent, but that's about it (and it's not my own engineered automation).

f.lux on my phone and laptop to reduce blue light after sunset

My bedroom lights automatically turn on at around 10% brightness in the morning and ramp up before my morning alarm (usually the lights wake me up before the alarm)

I have a smart lock on my door which automatically locks after 3 minutes of being unlocked and the door closed (cannot be unlocked except by the pad or a physical key in case anyone was wondering or was going to speak up about security).

Not exactly automation but I have some smart lights and LED strips which have a variety of predefined settings for stuff like watching movies, mood lighting, trip lighting, etc.

I've automated security. I have an automatic light that stays on during night. I have a motion sensor camera that uploads photos to my hosted web server which purges photos after a few weeks.

Honestly not a lot....I tend to lean more towards Luddite, but mostly as I don't get a lot of technology. Automated bill payments and having an Echo Dot to remind me of things is pretty much as far as I've gotten. I keep getting tempted to buy one of those smart plugs so I can be like "Alexa, turn on the light" as I can be far too lazy.

I have a decent Siri Shortcuts script that I use every night. I like to listen to a book or podcast before bed. The script connects to my bedroom HomePod, starts my audiobook (in overcast), and sets a 30 minute timer. I have played around with many other shortcuts, but that is the only one I use regularly.

Absolutely nothing. The only exception is a monthly recurring transfer from my checking account into my savings account. Heck, before last month I was paying my electric bill through the mail.

I’m very anal about most of the things I do. So I would rather do it myself to make sure it’s done right. Beyond that, there is precious little that I find myself doing regularly enough to warrant the effort of automating it.