Portal and Azure CDN are down here in the SF Bay Area. Tenant azureedge.net DNS A queries are taking 2-6 seconds and most often return nothing. I got a couple successful A response in the last 10 minutes.
Edit: As of 9:19 AM Pacific time, I'm now getting successful A responses but they can take several seconds. The web server at that address is not responding.
I live with my wife. It’s important to do smart home things which work well for everyone in your space!
I don’t do a lot of fixed unchanging automation. I do a lot more ambient status and voice assistant integration.
It actually was really nice when my lady moved in after our wedding because my HomeKit things were able to work right away with her Google Home she was used to. :)
The webcam hall status light was to know when either of us are in a meeting. We are both working from home so it’s like a free/busy signal.
Yup, exactly this! I send custom documented Z-Wave commands to switch the wall switch dimmers LEDs into “status mode” and can then control each one with a custom color and blink.
I just send the same commands to all the dimmers so they all show the same thing.
It’s a few hours a month here and there over several years. I started with a few smart bulbs while renting and I have evolved the system as I moved to a new home and installed more things to solve a problem. I didn’t do all of this in a weekend!
What’s nice is the Home Assistant automations tend to stay working without major overhaul far longer than stuff I used in the past, such as SmartThings which I no longer use. Always better to use your own small server and code for things like this. IOT platforms and services change way too much and it’s a lot more work to maintain than local HA.
The UniFi Protect integration is awesome. Turn on outdoor lights on motion, disable loud doorbell ding when the dog is sleeping, change privacy zones, send critical notifications to bypass silent mode on iOS devices when a person is detected while away… really amazing stuff.
The HomeKit Controller integration is also neat. All kinds of HomeKit compatible devices can just work with Home Assistant. Honeywell Lyric is the best example: PIR sensors with local push for lighting automation or special alerts when gates open to prevent the dog from escaping the backyard.
Edit: More useful things!
I have my washer and dryer in a garage. Can’t hear the machines inside. The Z-Wave light switches around my house have status LEDs, so one LED is dedicated to the washer and dryer status based on power draw from the outlet. Works really well. The same status LEDs are shared for all light switches around the house, so
it’s a good ambient notification.
The Mac app can provide webcam or mic status as a sensor, which turns on a key light when I join video calls and turns on an LED on the light switch outside my office to signal when I’m on a call.
I also get a push notification on my computer and a LED light on the light switches when the Roomba is full. It fills up a few times during its typical run while I’m working.
I also have the door status (open/closed/locked) from the Lyric as LEDs on the light switches. Very easy to tell if something is unlocked or open at a glance while walking around the house.
Personal site, mostly knowledge updates while working on web applications