[dbm5]

While I understand your skepticism, there are a few use cases for which I use HA which would be either painful manually, or would require alternate devices such as timers/etc:

1 - outside lights - various lights which light our home's pathway or areas we prefer to have lit at night come on automatically at sundown and turn off at sun-up.

2 - scenes; with HA, we can click one button - a switch with scene control in our case - and have the lights in the room go to a specific set point, receiver come on, select sonos, and tune in to a particular station - an activity which would conventionally require several manual steps with various input devices.

3 - notifications; with HA, I get notifications when the front door or garage doors are opened/closed.

There are several things I plan to implement:

1 - using presence detection and adjusting temps/lights/etc based upon that

2 - fan control; we are heavy users of ceiling fans, and integrating them into home automation would be a significant upgrade. Haven't found a replacement for our Minka controllers which supports zwave (or anything else).

All of this has been possible for years - usually with single vendor solutions which are very costly; HA integrates nearly all automation platforms into a single system allowing each platform's features to work together relatively seamlessly. It's a moving target, but has become very stable/reliable with recent releases.

[alkonaut]

Tried to get a single outside light automated through a z-wave gaget hidden behind the switch. Endless hours later the thing is still either working intermittently or not at all. Even with the nodes in the network right next to each other the network is fragile as hell. I just can't believe how expensive z-wave things can be so much worse than the old 433mhz things that have been around for ages.

I finally gave up and now it's just on (or off) 24/7...

I'm considering giving it another try but I'm not to keen on investing in another tech only to see it fail as miserably as first gen z-wave

Is there no good standard that works over electric lines? Seems it could be so much more reliable and cheap. And every single device already has the wires.

Powerline Ethernet is sketchy with some wiring configurations but you'd think that these minimal bandwidths could be handled in nearly all wiring setups.

[iakh]

Z-wave is a mesh network, so the more devices you have the better the connectivity. If you only need a single device, try locating your hub as close to the switch as possible. Otherwise, ironically, the solution may be to invest in more light switches.

[alkonaut]

Yes. I considered the distance but before spending more money on switches I don't really need, I figured I'd try with the base next to the switch. Didn't work reliably there either. So I'm not going to dare buying more nodes.

Is there any standard that isnt mesh based? Hub and spoke with lots of power like wifi seems much smarter.

Seems like complete idiocy to use a fragile low power mesh network for something that a) has to have 99.9999 reliability (like lights) and also has unlimited power (2kW+ available at each node!!) like lights.

The reason I went with zwave was because of the need to work behind an existing switch. For sockets it would have been much easier with 433-plugs.

[stereo]

You’re probably using one of those cheap USB z-wave stick. Attaching it to a USB extension will improve reception significantly. You can also try changing the angle of the stick.

[alkonaut]

Definitely a regular z-stick yes. I don't think it's the problem though, because it reliably switches an external wall socket plug I use for testing. Just not the recessed switch I need it to manage...

I think the problem is that the switch itself is too weak in signal, and sits built into the wall. The z-stick doesn't reliably switch it even if I have it inches from the switch.

[cardmagic]

My Kuna security cameras turn lights on at night and off at sun-up. My Nest already has presence detection and adjusts temps based on that.

More importantly, I didn't buy a Kuna for lights on and off with the sun, nor a Nest for presence detection, so I still don't see these functions as killer apps for HA.

[ryukafalz]

Can you use the Nest's presence detection to turn your lights off when there's nobody home?

One of the "killer apps" for HA is connecting different silo'd smart devices.

[semi-extrinsic]

My $8 "dumb" LED outdoor bulbs have sunrise/sunset sensors built in...

[oh_sigh]

Can you have them turn on 30 mins before sunset?

[semi-extrinsic]

There is usually a screw to adjust at what light level they turn on. So I suppose you could hit the 30 min. mark with some trial and error. But why would you?

[lttlrck]

You can get an astronomical light switch that replaces the manual light switch that can do that and more based around actual sunrise/sunset time for $30 - it’s a little pricey but they just work.

[agentdrtran]

All of my Zigbee stuff 'just works' as well and is under $30/bulb for basic lights.

[brewdad]

Yes but I have 4 bulbs outdoors controlled by my $27 switch. Bulbs will fail over time, especially when exposed to the elements and seasonal temperature swings. I can set my lights to turn on off at a fixed time relative to sunset/rise or randomize it +- 30 mins. All with a switch that I bought at a big box store 10 years ago.

[zild3d]

that would definitely require them to not be "dumb" anymore.

A simple sunset/sunrise detector can be had from a cheap photo-resistor. 30 minutes prior to sunset sounds like it needs at least a micro controller with a real time clock and a lookup table with sunset times