Today I want to talk to you about the automation I’ve done so my kids can find out when someone knocks on the door and we’re not home, my wife and I.
Introduction of the Problem
Now I have told you many times that I have 4 children like 4 suns. The eldest is 16, the next is 12, then 11 and finally my Little princess He’s 9. When I was little the thing was different, my parents didn’t date much alone, they usually dated friends who also had children, so my brother and I were more or less entertaining. Today this has changed (come on, or at least it has changed from my point of view) and couples do more things alone than our parents do. I, for example, go out to dinner with my wife, the two of them alone every Saturday, that’s what we call the Get Ready With Me
by the movement that of Instagram where an influence is arranged for his appointment and while he’s fixing up he’s telling you a thousand things… Well, my wife and I go out to dinner on Saturdays and we call him. get ready with me. The weekend is for the kids to rest, the older ones usually have some paddle game, I have the running outings a little longer than I can afford every week, my wife and daughter get off for breakfast while we shower after doing all that and then we all get together in the snack or vermut on Saturday. So far so good.
Our ‘get ready with me’ are not a ‘good’ because I’m down for a drink down here and now we go up ‘, we do that every week, for example every Friday we stay with them in the park when they leave school and if it’s a good time we usually bite something in the park bars and we go home and have dinner, but the ‘get ready with me’ is another thing, implies a reservation somewhere more molon, sometimes buy the dress or some plugin… once, we went out to dinner on one of the terraces of the Gran Vía de Madrid and while we had time we passed by a store that my wife loved… and changed all her outfit before we got to dinner
. He got out of the tester, they cut our labels and took it on.
Well, serve all this as an introduction to my many Saturday afternoon children staying at home in charge of the major you can already imagine asking us for money in return. Sometimes they put on a movie and make popcorn, sometimes they’re each on their own or they organize to play something together.
The problem is that sometimes someone comes home, or some food delivery home, because it’s not a plan to put the major to make orange duck for his brothers, so we let them ask for dinner… or some of the parts of Amazon… or some of the old ones who go home for a while… and as they’re playing the raw or watching a movie at full volume or with their respective helmets watching something or playing some individual game, you don’t know how often the delivery calls me to tell me that they’re playing the portal or the doorbell but no one and no one is open. What I was doing before is sending all the HomePods in the city.
to an audio shitting in everything and running an environment called ‘Don’t know’ that made blink on the light lights of the house, that is, that made them blink 3 times in case they were wearing the helmets and the HomePod was not enough. The ‘Don’t Know’ environment is very easy to run because I just say ‘Hey Siri, don’t know‘and takes care of everything else.
Solution
What I’ve done now is automate this shit. With the Ring Intercom I have a part resolved, the notification when they touch down and the possibility of opening the portal. As you know, I have the Ring integrated into the Apple House app through Home Assistant, so when you detect that you have touched the portal, you run an advanced Controller for HomeKit notification of those that are ‘clickable’ that gives me 2 options, open the portal or run the Don’t know. That notification was received by my eldest son, my wife. the one who sweats a pi
And he’s never gonna do anything with that notification beyond protesting when he gets there.And me. It is clear that I can open the portal myself when I receive the notification (which by the way, to me only notifies me when I’m out of the house… and my eldest son only notifies him when I’m inside the house, all with a series of conditionals on the shortcut) (I’m thinking I could just make him notify my wife if we’re not together, for example if I’m on a trip or something, because when we’re getting ready with me I’m already gonna find out that they’re playing… I’ll give you a ride.) Well, with this, I have the issue of my older son who’s supposed to be the answer.
is able to find out when they touch the portal and can open from the mobile, from Siri or from the video doorman,
But What if they knock on the top door? And you’ll think.Man, if they knock on the top door, they’re gonna find out for sure, the doorbell sounds strong.‘. You’d be surprised at the times when they hit the top bell and nobody knows. My eldest son, the 16, spends 99% of his time between the bathroom and his room, in both places with the door closed and music between the regueton and the completely intelligible hiphop that I told you about last week. Sometimes it is the others who tell you that they have touched because the little ones cannot open the door, but in reality the most often happens is that No one hears what they’ve done.
At the door… Or if you hear it, you make a mistake.
A long time ago, in one of the HomePods software updates, Apple said they would be able to detect sound and launch an alarm. Sounds like a broken glass, a water leak, etc. Come on, ‘emergency’ sounds I’d recognize the HomePod and let you know. I don’t know if that shit’s not available in Europe, but I activated it as soon as the HomePods were on the line… and I can assure you that a glass has ever been broken (once the bathroom mirror was unhung alone) and it hasn’t told me anything. I would have liked to use that option for being more native, but for the moment it’s not possible or I haven’t found a way to do it.
So I did it is put a Aqara vibration sensor on top of the doorbell box. The bell box is just a resonance box and the bell works with an electromagnet, it’s a very simple thing, so I put the Aqara vibration sensor that is super cheap, I think it cost me 12 or 13 euros, it works with a button stack and you can also adjust the sensitivity of the detection. Keep in mind that the doorbell is next to the front door, so if in your house they are given to close the doors at once (I am remembering what fucked this up to my father, I believe
The more you get, the more you get fucked up, the more you get, the more your children close the door with a strong door, or you have air flow and sometimes it closes too strong, you’ll have to adjust the sensor’s sensitivity so that it’s not giving you strong positive. The truth is, all the examples of using this device on the Aqara web are very stupid… they say you can put one in a drawer you want to monitor when it opens, behind the box that covers the safe… I don’t know the people of Aqara what you’re thinking about. I have a friend who told me that I could put one in bed in case I vibrated too much while I was fu
It was home. Anyway, some of my friends have trust-based marriages, you see.
Also You may think that so that they can touch it up they have had to open it down, but that’s not always the case since a neighbor can enter or the door has not been closed well or that I have opened it since the Ring notification without any of my children having heard.
The advanced notification has several conditions, remember that the idea is not only that it makes the blink of the lights but that it is in everything for the HomePods of the house. Well, whoever says he’s fucking around, I mean make some sound and, above all, stop what’s ringing at that moment in case they’re watching a movie with the volume full. There is an album in Apple Music that simply has sounds, that if ambulances, that if ding-dong, that if alarms… I told you about it at the entrance how to make a ‘home alarm’ that sounds for the HomePods when
the door opens and we’re not home. What I’ve done is to choose two of those sounds, one for when they play down and the other for when they play up, which is what you hear from all the HomePods in the house when that happens. Another condition is that it is not executed if my wife or I are at home or, on the contrary, there is no one at home.
From Home Assistant you can do exactly the same but also I launch the TV notification and it comes out in the top right corner of the screen, this already explained to you how to do it a few months ago taking advantage that my LG TV is compatible with HomeKit and that it also has a notification service that can be used from Home Assistant. This is super-painted… but it’s actually your turn to get you up to open.
Some of you will have thought of the smart lock (by the way, I have a special about this that I will publish in the next few days because I am full of evidence, I will already tell you!), but it is not a plan to open the door automatically when someone touches and suddenly find a delivery man in the middle of the living room. Better that possibility of interacting with the lock is left only for the adults of the house.
Well, you see, with a simple vibration sensor and a few conditions within the advanced notification of Controller for Homekit, we can not only receive the notification only when we are out of the house and have the children know or open the portal, but we will get a Get Ready With Me something quieter without constant calls and notifications, that’s what the escape is all about.
