My clothes drier is natural gas not electric. I just put a smart plug that can monitor electric usage. Was easy to figure out thresholds on energy usage and have Home Assistant send alerts.

After considering options for my outdoor propane tank appliances (grill, fire pit, heaters) I went with a mechanical timer/valve that simply closes the valve when the timer runs out. Have to set the timer (3 hour max on the timer valves I went with) if you want gas.

A mechanical timer valve for your propane devices is smart, even if it will never integrate into your SmartHome system.

Another way to detect the dryer finishing is to check the power being drawn by the appliance. I have my clothes dryer on a smart plug so I can turn it off automatically when cheap rate electricity finishes, can also use this to detect the power consumption dropping off

You think coin cells are wasteful but you like AAA?? AAA cost the same thing as AA, but the AA cells have 4x the capacity! Can you say, "Rip off" ?

Do any of those work with Apple Home? Great video.

You could use the wall-powered version of the freezer sensor to detect that there’s power to the freezer too! That’s what I did with a smart outlet on my freezer, after tripping the breaker that the freezer is on with my garage air compressor.

I like that some of these sensors are moving to AAA batteries. These are a lot cheaper, and a lot easier to get in both standard and rechargable style. How do you find the battery life reporting working with rechargables? Often rechargables have lower voltage than standard ones 🙂
I've been using a deriviative helper for humidity for a long time for the bathroom fan, along with an Aqara Temp/Humidity sensor. This has served me well and I think in 4 years I've replaced the battery once. Maybe I've been lucky with battery life. I haven't felt the need to replace it as it just works 🙂

I really need to mess with mm wave

For washer and (gas) drier I've found using TP-Link EP25 smart plugs work well, especially with Home Assistant. I have an automation that detects when power goes to zero for 30 seconds, and then alerts me "Washing machine has finished", "Drier has finished". They're really cheap these days (under $10 each). And it's interesting to see the power load during the wash/dry cycle.

But for exercise work outs… does this actually work? Or was it a joke? I was thinking of using some magnetic reed sensors to detect every time a pedal goes round (need one on both sides to prevent cheating) and an ESP8266 to monitor/report to MQTT. But if these vibration sensors work… that might be an easier solution!

For temperature, I know you hate coin cells, but the Xiaomi Mijia stuff when flashed with PVVX (hmm, I did this 3 years ago; I dunno if the current batch is still hackable!) works well. Yes it's bluetooth but an ESP32 with a simple sketch can publish to MQTT (I have 3 ESP32s in my house for full coverage). I just had to replace a couple of batteries in the Mijias; they were Panasonic brand which I don't think I bought so maybe they were original with the device, so lasted 3 years? I've not put them in a fridge/freezer though 'cos I know low temperatures really impact battery life; the one in my garage definitely shows reduced capacity when overnight temperatures drop to freezing!!

Fed up with your home assistant moronic comments

how many of these sensors are cloud?

Thank brother you always come through. My aqara vibration sensor did not work either for the dryer. Buying the one you suggested.

Rechargeables are fine if the item is not sensitive to the lower voltage. I used to have so many problems with my portable radios shutting down because it thought the battery was dead due to the voltage sensing since the rechargeables are .3 volts lower than a standard alkaline. Or just incessant low battery warnings when there was plenty of juice left.

Great video yet again, having
withdrawal symptoms waiting for a new one to drop but definitely worth the wait. I have the third reality leak sensor under my main kitchen sink and tbh it’s helped out more times than I thought possible. Only downside is if it goes off and won’t stop beeping as you have to remove the three screws to get to the battery and they’re very small slotted screws which do not help when your trying to take it to pieces with it beeping in your hands.

I've been losing a prolonged game of hide and seek with one of those 3rd reality leak sensors for over a year. No idea where it is. I think the drywall crew sealed it in somewhere during a project. I know it's here somewhere because it still reports a battery level every day to the hub. I just hope it will chirp when the battery gets low, but that could still be a couple years out.

Hey @smartHomeSolver in reference to monitoring your dryer, have you ever looked into something like the Emporia Vue energy monitoring system? I installed one in my main electrical box and it integrated into HA really well and you can even flash it with ESPhome. Works great for monitoring things like your dryer or dish washer's power and use it in automations. 😁

For washer and dryer I use an inline voltage sensor and when it falls below a specific value for X amount of time I trigger an announcement.

so an add for Apollo and Third Reality :), but I agree.

Why use a vibration sensor for a dryer? you have beefy smart switches from sonoff that also measure the power.. and they are wifi so they are fast.

I was looking for a better sensor for my dryer, so this video came at just the right time. My current method uses temprature and is ridiculously slow. I did try vibration before, but the aqura sensor i was using has too long of a cooldown such that opening and closing the dryer door triggered it (cause it also senses tilt), and by the time the cooldown expired, the next event would be when the dryer finished, bypassing the reason i have it there. So thank you for your perfect timing!

I look forward to your upcoming video about the personalized notifications, something else ive been meaning to implement.

I use the TP-Link Matter power reader plug you recommended for my dryer. Once it registers no power being used, I get an alert that the dryer is done.

I use SmartThings multifunction sensors outdoors for notifications/automations related to gates and the mailbox opening/closing, but the coin cells are a nightmare. Inevitably they die multiple times every winter when temps are dipping into the teens. Since they're all inside waterproof enclosures, I ended up soldering on separate battery holders that take 2 AA's instead and they've been fantastic ever since.

I liked the video as soon as you emphatically said you hate coin cell batteries.

I do something similar with the dryer vibration sensor, but I also have a door sensor on the dryer door. If the door is open the vibration sensor gets ignored, so loading and unloading don't trigger any routines. The door sensor also tells me if the dryer cycle is done and the door hasn't been opened after a while, which sends me a snippy reminder to my phone and a conditional card on my dashboard.

For water leak sensor, the IKEA Badring is fantastic. Single AAA battery, cheap, zigbee, and sound alarm. Basically everything the ThirdReality does sans the custom probes.

I've been using yolink temp sensor in my freezer for a year and it's amazing