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  • Showing only topics in ~tech with the tag "automation". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Any Tasker users around?

      I just recently joined Tildes (absolutely loving it so far, by the way) and also recently left Reddit. r/Tasker will probably be the hardest for me to let go of since I'm an avid Tasker fan/user,...

      I just recently joined Tildes (absolutely loving it so far, by the way) and also recently left Reddit.

      r/Tasker will probably be the hardest for me to let go of since I'm an avid Tasker fan/user, so I'm just trying to gauge the audience for that type of discussion and topics here on Tildes.

      I'm not as big of a power user in phone automation as I would like to become but I'm fairly savvy and am learning more all the time.

      15 votes
    2. What's your smart home setup?

      Does anyone else here have a smart home setup? I've been building mine over the 7 or 8 years now in fits and starts. At first, it was smart lights in an apartment and then grew to include smart...

      Does anyone else here have a smart home setup?

      I've been building mine over the 7 or 8 years now in fits and starts. At first, it was smart lights in an apartment and then grew to include smart door locks. I bought a house and it now remotes, motion/door sensors, light switches, and more.

      After trying all of the platforms you can think of (Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Homekit, Homekit + Homebridge, Home Assistant, and more), I settled on Home Assistant earlier this year. As I've bought stuff over the years, I've tried to get things that support more than just one platform to avoid being too locked in to one ecosystem. Apple's Home platform is nice, but I can't use it if I want to switch to an Android phone.

      Like many of us, I've had some free time during the pandemic, so I put some work into getting Home Assistant up and running. It's definitely not for the average consumer. It requires quite a bit of manual editing of code to get it working perfectly but I've spent the past few months learning how to customize it and get things working just how I want them.

      I've also been working toward replacing the few components that rely on cloud services with equivalents that can work locally, so I'm not beholden to a cloud service that could disappear eventually.

      I also started automating more and more things:

      • I added a Zigbee controller and a bunch of motion sensors to automatically turn lights on and off as people enter/leave rooms.
      • Turn on the lights for my dogs if no one is home at dusk.
      • A very nice bedtime routine that turns off all the lights in the house, turns on the bedroom TV, arms the security system and then turns on the bedroom lights and slowly fades them out over the next half hour. That last one has been great for helping me get to sleep.
      • My favorite is an NFC tag hidden under the living room coffee table that I can scan. It turns on the TV and receiver, switches to the correct inputs and turns on the light strips I have around the living room. If my wife isn't home, it also turns off all the other lights in the house.

      I'd love to hear what other people have been doing.

      10 votes
    3. Tech people of Tildes, what have you automated in your life?

      Talk about anything you have "automated" in your life. No restrictions on the tools or things to automate. You have a simple "silence your phone at work" thing? Great job! Do you have a complex...

      Talk about anything you have "automated" in your life. No restrictions on the tools or things to automate. You have a simple "silence your phone at work" thing? Great job! Do you have a complex thing with hundreds of lines of custom code? Wonderful! All are welcome!


      I myself have automated a bit of stuff, and am constantly looking for more (that's why this thread exists):

      Home:

      • 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)
      • I can send "loff", "lon" or, "lauto" through XMPP to turn my lights off, on, or toggle the automatic mode mentioned above from anywhere. I am blocking internet connections from my smart light hub so I had to re-implement that manually

      Computer:

      • Copying any YouTube links (or Invidious links, which get translated into YouTube) will automatically prompt me about opening them under MPV

      Phone:

      This is where I do the bulk of my automation, as Tasker is a very convenient way to automate stuff.

      • Toggle full brightness and/or auto rotation on specific apps (Gallery, NewPipe, etc.)
      • A couple of Android "Share" targets for
        • Uploading dumb images to my webserver
        • Adding links to Miniflux (abusing it's bookmarklet functionality)
        • youtube-dl through Termux
      • And some (mostly gimmicky) text-to-speech notifications for calls and XMPP messages

      Planned:

      • Miniflux notifier over XMPP. My last attempt failed because Node-RED apparently doesn't reconnect over to XMPP when its connection drops :(
      26 votes
    4. Phone automation - Share your workflows!

      I recently switched operating systems on my phone and lost some of the automated workflows I had during the transition. While I've rebuilt some of it, but it sometimes feels like I'm missing...

      I recently switched operating systems on my phone and lost some of the automated workflows I had during the transition. While I've rebuilt some of it, but it sometimes feels like I'm missing something or that I could do more, I just don't know what exactly. I'd like to hear from others here and see if they can inspire me to implement what works for them. I'm using an android phone with automate and here's the workflows that I got:

      • When plugging in the phone, set it to do not disturb and enable Bluetooth. This is for when I go to sleep so that I don't get woken up by notifications and I can listen to podcasts on my headband.
      • If at work (Based on cell towers, not GPS) set phone to vibrate, when leaving it set it to ring. I actually lost this one but haven't rebuilt it since I've not been to the office in a while.
      • Learn location. For a set time, grabs the cell towers around and stores them in a JSON file.

      What kind of automation have you implemented on your phone?

      18 votes