this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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homeassistant

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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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my very first automation (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
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I used Home Assistant to create my very first automation today. It's really stupid simple, but I feel as though things will only get crazier from here.

Context: i have an old dumb window AC that has 2 physical dials. One turns fan- low, fan-high, cool-low, and cool- high while the other is labeled from 1 to 8 with 1 being warm and 8 being coldest. This AC is either on or its not. Even if the compressor is not running the fan runs 24/7 until it is physically switched off.

My current automation checks once per hour, and if the temperature is above 80 degrees, it will notify me to turn on the air conditioner.

I intend to buy one of the third reality smart plugs soon and switch the action from notify to "turn on the third reality plug for 10 minutes". Then I will just leave the unit itself on Cool High and let the plug manage the power.

Eventually, I think I will also buy a third-reality temperature sensor and set the trigger to if the temperature sensor says that the room itself is above 80 degrees instead of using the forecast.

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[–] nogooduser@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

For instance you can monitor when the compressor shuts off and use the plug to shut off the entire unit, then power it on when the room temperature rises to a set point.

That seems like you’re just replicating what the AC’s thermostat is doing. You’d only be saving the stand by power which doesn’t seem like it’ll be a huge saving to me.

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That seems like you’re just replicating what the AC’s thermostat is doing.

In my experience the thermostats of window units are crappy at regulating room temperature. Even so, did you miss this part of the post?:

Even if the compressor is not running the fan runs 24/7 until it is physically switched off.

The OP is planning on letting the unit run for 10 minutes and then turn it off, a much less effective solution than setting up a remote temperature sensor and power monitoring switch, and much better than having to control room temperature by adjusting knob that's "labeled from 1 to 8 with 1 being warm and 8 being coldest."

[–] nogooduser@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Yes, I did miss that bit, sorry.