Brain dump incoming…. overall, our family prefers using voice control (or scene switches) over automation for many of the multi-step scripts that switch the house across various modes.

1. I did the doorbell notification too – delay before notifying if the front door opens first. We do a little bit longer than 1 minute, for the mailbox.
2. I like your faster garage open notification – I'll have to pick that one up – mine is still at 15 minutes.
3. I disabled my camera notifications, and instead use Home Assistant to notify, and gave the notifications a set of actions to snooze the camera for different time periods – so when someone is working on the house, or we're having a party, I can just snooze the notification so that I don't keep getting notified. Both my wife and I have separate unique snooze timers, which are independent for each camera. This one was quite a bit of work to set up, but we love it.
4. I also have the dinner script, but I just use voice control – 'Hey Google, dinnertime' turns off the TV and starts playing a cocktail jazz playlist. When my kids get older, I'll give them some smart home speakers so they hear an announcement in their room.
5. For my camera notifications – I only enable some of my cameras when the house is armed, so I don't get notifications about the backyard when we're home and the kids or dogs might be playing.
6. I stay up quite a bit later than the rest of my family, so when they go to bed, and I retire to the TV room or theater, and say 'Hey Google, chill', and the house arms and shuts down, except for a few key lights for late night TV watching.
7. After I say 'chill', but before the morning… when ESPresence detects my phone is near my nightstand (really short distance limit), and charging, then HA fully shuts down the house and starts the robot vacuums. This is similar to your sensor mat, but I like this one a bit better since it won't accidentally trigger if I sit down on the bed temporarily, or if my wife sits on my side… I only plug my phone in when I'm actually going to bed.
8. When we have guests over, the robot vacuums can annoy the guests. So when the guest bedroom lights turn on, I get an actionable notification that says 'are guests here?'. This turns off a few automations that would annoy guests… and later… when I say 'chill', it asks me if guests are still here… and asks me if I want to skip vacuuming the part of the house that guests occupy – then when I plug my phone in for the night, the robot vacuum only cleans parts of the house that won't annoy guests.
9. I haven't done this one yet, but sometimes the playroom doesn't get picked up. When I say 'chill', I want a notification that asks me if I want to skip vacuuming the playroom. I've been going into the app and restarting the vacuum to skip the playroom when I go to bed, but that's a bit of a hassle.
10. You should look into getting custom-engraved Lutron Caseta pico 2 and 4-button keypads. We have them scattered across the house. 'Home/Away' in the garage, 'Morning/Goodnight' in the master bedroom, and a bunch of 'Bright/Entertain/Relax/Off' that sets almost all of the lighting in the house to suit our mood/desire. I haven't finished my theater yet, but that will get one too. The engravings are a nice touch for the family and guests.
11. The family room TV is muted when music starts playing on our whole-house speakers. When the TV turns on, stops any music playing on our whole-house speakers. This means we get to skip the step of having to stop the music, or mute the TV when switching vibes between playing background music and watching TV.
12. Flash the lights in the garage when the garage doors are open, and the door into the garage opens – I do this to warn me that our young kids might be in the garage, so I don't accidentally close a door on them, or so they don't wander out to the front of the house without adult supervision.
13. When the garage door starts opening, and no car is in the bay, then turn on the overhead garage lights. No dimly lit garage anymore.
13. When the security system is armed, and the door from the garage opens, turn on all the nearby lights. No dark house anymore when coming back home.
14. Various phrases trigger various blinds scenes. At first I set this up based on sun azimuth and position, but I found this was a bit annoying, and switching to voice control was better for our family.
15. Saying 'Hey Google, louder' or 'Hey Google, quieter' jumps between preset volumes customized for each speaker group in our whole-house audio system. I used an SPL meter to level match the speakers to the volume levels that our family prefers to jump between.
16. I created a few virtual switches for 'House TV', 'Kitchen TV', and 'Party TV', which allows us to play audio from the the family room TV across all our whole-house speaker groups. Good for sports games, so you never miss hearing key moments. The 'Kitchen TV' automatically turns on when the family room TV turns on – this was huge for my wife.
17. I also have an 'Emergency' script, but I don't run it automatically. When the alarm goes off, I get an actionable notification that can trigger the 'Emergency' script. That way, it doesn't get triggered if we accidentally set off the alarm.

We're a Google House, because I really love how the Google Cast speaker system works (Wiim or VSSL – take your pick), and how you can group speakers to create virtual speakers. 'Hey Google, play xyz on the house/party/backyard speakers'. No other system allows you to create these virtual speaker groups. I expose a lot of virtual switches and scenes to Google for voice-triggered automations.

I am pondering the dog/cat water situation too. I have the bowls with the gravity feed from a large bottle. But I want it to alert me when the water in the bottle is low, not empty. I was goint to try a float sensor inside the bottle but I haven't found an elegant soltion yet. The water leak sensor might be a good interim idea.

You're my favorite YouTuber man

"Now all my kids have to do is press the On button and the lights stay on." I… think you just overengineered a basic light switch 😂

Hey Reed Are you using ring alarm? if so Are you using Alarmo in HA?

You know one thing I would like to see prior to your move is I guess I wonder about automations I’ve made how many go with me how many of them do I turn apps and passwords over to? How does that all work? I think it would make a good video and I’m curious what your experience was.. from smart thermostats to smart lights that run on apps or run or certain programs. Be curious how you handle this.

Drill holes in the bottom of the water bowl, put a magnet or metal disc each hole and attach the wires to that. Seal the holes with silicon or epoxy on the bottom side.

Honestly the garage door isn't actually automated. I have a presence sensor in the garage. When we leave it first checks if the presence was active in the last 15 seconds, then closes the garage. presence stays inactive for 10 minutes, it closes the garage. If the garage is still open after 11 minutes it is obviously having issues, so then it sends me a notification.

Wouldn't a sensor collar with a remote lock release be better for the door? What's to stop the Coyote from stepping on the Mat?

Can you post the code for the scripts that are called by the automations you posted?

Wow that's a nice front door

Please make the video about the upgrate to the wired security system. I want to be able to link mine to Home Assistant. TIA

Reed, we love these videos and the smart home tours you do. Nothing is better. These give us ideas. With the how-to's you give us, we can do them too. thank you.

The dog watering thing is a bit overkill. You can just get dog bowls that have float valves in them that you plumb in. Much easier and you don't have to fill it up or change the battery ever.

Great video Reed, really look forward to getting a notification that you’ve yet another interesting and informative video to watch. Love the automation’s you show, can give me ideas that I haven’t thought of before. In regards to the vacuum, couldn’t you print off some sort of deflector to narrow the light beam down lower for night use so that it’s not as noticeable and stops lighting up the whole room?
Look forward to seeing your next instalment.

I don't have a wife or kids or pets and I live in a tent under a bridge. Got anything for me, as far as home automation?

250$ for a sensor really

The dog mat text to speech has a "that's what she said" joke in there somewhere… Insert Paul Hibbert clip

Great video Reed🫡 hope you're enjoying the new house

12:47 my fan turns on when either the heater or the dehumidifier runs, or when it's hotter than 25 degrees (78 bananas for you yankees out there).

that was an evil trick at the end 🙂

I recently saw an auto open door that open with the correct collar. Very slick.

What speaker models do you use for music vs home assistant voice? Or are they the same?

We had an automated dog food dispenser with our last dog; it was great until it wasn't. It programmed the dog to expect to be fed at certain times during the day; well, that works well at home, but when we took her on our RV trip from Michigan to Washington state, her internal timer would get off the more we traveled between time zones, and at the end of our trip, she wanted to be fed at 3 a.m.! Not a great experience for her human servants!

Holy W refresh pull