Student Techlife Student Techlife
  • Categories
    • Student Life
    • Technology
    • Home Assistant
    • 3D Printing
    • DIY
  • My House
  • My Projects
    • Home Assistant Glow
    • NIPKaart
    • Teddy Bear Hunting
    • NFC Scanner
  • Who am I?
  • Media
  • Contact
0
862 Followers
177 Followers
Student Techlife Student Techlife Student Techlife
  • Categories
    • Student Life
    • Technology
    • Home Assistant
    • 3D Printing
    • DIY
  • My House
  • My Projects
    • Home Assistant Glow
    • NIPKaart
    • Teddy Bear Hunting
    • NFC Scanner
  • Who am I?
  • Media
  • Contact
Green light in the bathroom
  • Home Assistant
  • Student Life

How I save water while showering🚿

  • December 25, 2020
  • Klaas Schoute

Hey hello, there I’m again with an update! In this blog I will come up with a number of updates that I’ve made in Home Assistant / my house, such as new hardware and I will show you a great idea how you could possibly save water while showering. But first, Blueprints!

📘 Blueprints

Recently it’s now possible to make blueprints in Home Assistant, with this you can create a pre-made automation that contains all the logic and others can easily import and use them as a basis for their automation.

  • An old pencil drawing of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza sitting on their horses, by Wilhelm Marstrand.
    Aqara opple – 6 way remote
  • An old pencil drawing of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza sitting on their horses, by Wilhelm Marstrand.
    Aqara D1 – 1 way remote
Open your Home Assistant instance and show the blueprint import dialog with a specific blueprint pre-filled.
Open your Home Assistant instance and show the blueprint import dialog with a specific blueprint pre-filled.

For the above devices I made a blueprint, the Opple 6 way is to control lights, with also dim and max / min brightness options. You can use the D1 to operate curtains, click on the name link to see all the details.

Neural TTS voices

Previously, Nabu Casa only supported a few languages through the TTS service tts.cloud_say, but that has changed since the release 2020.12. Due to some adjustments I made, it now supports all (at that time known) neural voices that are available via the Microsoft Azure platform.

Did you still use the standard Google TTS? Then it is definitely recommended to try the neural voices, because it really sounds much better!

🏠 My Home Assistant config

A lot has changed in my studio! I will list the coolest things for you 😉

Be aware of your water consumption while showering

Lately I had a lot of things in my head about how you could save on gas / water / power and that’s why I now come up with a nice little idea that I’ve worked out to save water while showering.

On average: people shower for 9 minutes and in monetary terms, you spend about 50 cents on water at a time, but what if we shorten the time to 5 minutes from now on?

Part 1: when is someone taking a shower?

To begin with, I had to figure out a way to detect someone in the shower. I previously solved this with a water leak sensor in the shower tray, but that’s actually not user-friendly at all. That’s why I now have a Xiaomi temperature / humidity sensor stuck quite high in my bathroom, based on a high humidity I could determine that someone is taking a shower.

Fortunately, I also have the advantage that when I leave the door open after a shower, the value drops again very quickly so the binary sensor status can be quite accurate.

Part 2: make yourself visually aware of how long you shower

  • RGB E27 light
    The new light
  • Red light district 😜

The next step is to indicate how long you are in the shower, for that I have chosen to replace my existing TRADFRI E27 lamp with an RGB light. Then I made 2 automations:

  • Show green light after 5 minutes of shower.
  • Warn me with a red light when I shower for 10 minutes.

For both options, the color is only displayed for 10 seconds, then the light returns to the previous situation. You can find the code here. Let it inspire you to new ideas and do share them with me.

Xiaomi Mijia light sensors

Recently I also received some new sensors and this time it’s the Xioami Mijia light sensors that I bought. Previously I used the sun position to switch the lights in the evening, to fine-tune that even more I now want to use these light sensors as a trigger for automations.

Currently I’ve built an option where the lights automatically switch on and off (source code) based on the LUX value, but if I temporarily don’t want this, for example when I’m asleep or away from home, this function will be automatically switched off or I can switch this manual via lovelace.


I wish everyone a merry christmas! 🎄🎅

Share
Tweet
Share
Klaas Schoute

Interaction technology (UX/UI) student who loves home automation, drones, open source projects and likes to take you on his adventure to the perfect smart student house.

Related Topics
  • bathroom
  • blueprints
  • Home Assistant
  • Lights
  • sensors
  • shower
Previous Article
  • Home Assistant
  • Student Life
  • Technology

Is this going to be the future?

  • November 4, 2020
  • Klaas Schoute
View Post
Next Article
  • DIY
  • Home Assistant

Blitzwolf LT11 with ESPHome

  • March 11, 2021
  • Klaas Schoute
View Post
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Home Assistant
  • Integration

easyEnergy market prices with new integration in Home Assistant

  • Klaas Schoute
  • February 26, 2023
View Post
  • Home Assistant
  • Integration

EnergyZero market prices with new integration in Home Assistant

  • Klaas Schoute
  • January 11, 2023
View Post
  • Projects
  • Student Life

🅿️ NIPKaart project update

  • Klaas Schoute
  • August 22, 2022
View Post
  • College
  • Home Assistant
  • Student Life

It’s a long time ago

  • Klaas Schoute
  • June 3, 2022
View Post
  • Home Assistant

First integration in Home Assistant!

  • Klaas Schoute
  • June 2, 2021
View Post
  • DIY
  • Home Assistant

Blitzwolf LT11 with ESPHome

  • Klaas Schoute
  • March 11, 2021
View Post
  • Home Assistant
  • Student Life
  • Technology

Is this going to be the future?

  • Klaas Schoute
  • November 4, 2020
View Post
  • College
  • Student Life

Back to school! 🎓

  • Klaas Schoute
  • September 18, 2020

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Author
Klaas Schoute
Interaction technology (UX/UI) student who loves home automation, drones, open source projects and likes to take you on his adventure to the perfect smart student house.
Recent Posts
  • Copier template for python packages June 14, 2023
  • easyEnergy market prices with new integration in Home Assistant February 26, 2023
  • EnergyZero market prices with new integration in Home Assistant January 11, 2023
  • Let’s contribute! Hacktoberfest 2022 October 2, 2022
  • 🅿️ NIPKaart project update August 22, 2022
Instagram


Student Techlife Student Techlife
  • Categories
  • My House
  • My Projects
  • Who am I?
  • Media
  • Contact
Make a student life smarter

Input your search keywords and press Enter.