Rob went from 15 Apps to One Smart Home With Home Assistant

0:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Hello and welcome to the home Mrs. Podcasts. [SPEAKER_00]: My name is Phil and join me. [SPEAKER_00]: I usually work on with me. [SPEAKER_00]: How are you doing, mate? [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, good, how are you? [SPEAKER_00]: We're good, thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: And today from New Zealand, we're joined by Rob.

0:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks joining us. [SPEAKER_00]: Before we get started, here's a quick word from our sponsor, home Mrs. and Cloud by Nebuchadse. [SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever tried to set remote access, the hard way, leading dynamic DNS, reverse proxies, self-signed certificates, Nebuchadse is the easy button.

0:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Sign up, flip a switch, and you're done. [SPEAKER_00]: And you can access your home Mrs. and from anywhere. [SPEAKER_00]: What's more, you also get secure off-site backups, voice with the Amazon Echo or Google Home devices, and the ability to supercharge your DIY voice assistant. [SPEAKER_00]: And here's the part we love.

0:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Your subscription pays the developers behind home assistant, ESP home, and the open home foundation. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the best food dollars a month you'll spend on your smart home. [SPEAKER_00]: Start your 31-day trial today, just open your home assistant settings, go to the cloud page, or sign up at nabukasa.com.

1:08 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a link in the show description. [SPEAKER_00]: This episode is also sponsored by our friends at Apollo Automation, makers of open-source smart home sensors built for the home assistant ecosystem. [SPEAKER_00]: They're an official open-home foundation commercial partner, and their devices are built with a local control, privacy, and reliability in mind.

1:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Almost everything they offer is works with home assistant and made for is behind certified, giving you full control and flexibility right out of the box. [SPEAKER_00]: And the best part, they build in the open, working directly with the community to create sensors that people actually need.

1:43 [SPEAKER_00]: If you're deep into home assistant or just getting started, definitely check them out at ApolloAutomation.com. [SPEAKER_00]: Rob, thank you so much for joining us today. [SPEAKER_00]: You sent a really long email back to us when you reached out. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm really stoked to have you on today.

2:01 [SPEAKER_00]: But before we get down into the weeds, I want to give us a bit of a high level on who you are and how you got into home automation. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, okay. [SPEAKER_02]: I live in Auckland, New Zealand, and it's been time and other parts of the world as well, but it's been time. [SPEAKER_02]: How I got into our home automation, I think, was probably around the point at which I had about 15 different apps on my phone.

2:22 [SPEAKER_02]: And six or seven different remote controllers and getting to the point where I was getting just overloaded with, where's there for this, where's there for that, et cetera, et cetera. [SPEAKER_02]: And around the same time, we're, [SPEAKER_02]: we were kind of getting a bit tired of huge powerballs and we've gone down the solar route etc and we've got a house that choose electricity and I was looking for a way to bring all of that together and give ourselves one platform that we could run the house through pretty much.

2:51 [SPEAKER_02]: I've got a background on IT. [SPEAKER_02]: I've got a background on IT. [SPEAKER_02]: I've got a background on IT. [SPEAKER_02]: I've been everything from my DBA in relational databases back in the day through running, growing and starting and founding IT services companies in particular.

3:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I started a bit of a technical bit from way back, interested in giving things working together, running integration company for 10 years, around integration from an IT perspective. [SPEAKER_02]: had a rough idea of what was possible, so started on the journey. [SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome.

3:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Was there anything that sort of, you mentioned they're like 15 apps on your phone? [SPEAKER_00]: Was it a slow creep to get all those apps on your phone? [SPEAKER_00]: Or did they all just come at once? [SPEAKER_02]: No, it was a bit of a slow creep really. [SPEAKER_02]: So things like upgrading our our ducked and heat pump system, [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we had a new app for that.

3:41 [SPEAKER_02]: We went down the solar route, had an app for that. [SPEAKER_02]: Started to buy things. [SPEAKER_02]: I've been invested in some meter of appliances a while ago, and they were all Wi-Fi enabled, et cetera, et cetera. [SPEAKER_02]: It was all pretty interherent. [SPEAKER_02]: All sorts of bits and pieces of technology.

3:55 [SPEAKER_02]: things like, you know, old school alarm systems and all sorts of bits and pieces. [SPEAKER_02]: So it was it was just getting worse and worse and worse, I think. [SPEAKER_02]: And listen, it's useful, I suppose. [SPEAKER_02]: And my integration mind, given that I've done it professionally, said, this got to be an easy way.

4:12 [SPEAKER_02]: This has got to have APIs for God's sake. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, absolutely, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And did you already know her, Mrs. and existed? [SPEAKER_00]: Or when you realize I need to integrate all these apps. [SPEAKER_00]: So like, I need to go hunting. [SPEAKER_02]: No, I started off, I'm like, I've got Apple everything, so I'm inside the wall garden and I started off with Apple home and kind of got pretty frustrated, pretty quick.

4:32 [SPEAKER_02]: They are used a couple of eve type devices, but a thread and a matter and all the rest of it makes them none of it was... [SPEAKER_02]: not only particularly reliable, but also there was a bit of an issue in terms of, I couldn't do what I wanted, it was all too basic. [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I'm used to and it worked context being able to push the envelope and pull them to part and you get to a fairly low level and get exactly what I want and [SPEAKER_02]: but until point we can do what I want to do specifically.

5:03 [SPEAKER_02]: So I went hunting, I probably got into Jetty, BT and seeing what is out there and stumbled across the system and thought, yeah, this sounds like it. [SPEAKER_00]: Did you consider any other home automation platforms before home, this is all home, this was [SPEAKER_02]: Um, there was, you know, Samsung stuff around the time, this was, uh, kind of late 2023.

5:21 [SPEAKER_02]: So a few years ago now and, you know, just, just getting that flavor of stuff that was, you know, proprietary around a particular brand. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, okay, put a bit in the Samsung kind of infrastructure, that sort of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And then home assistant just sort of stuck out straight away as, you know, here's something that is, [SPEAKER_02]: so much more open.

5:42 [SPEAKER_02]: And has probably got the ability for me to exercise my, you know, my part time coding skills and all that type of thing as well and really get into it and create something that's cast them. [SPEAKER_02]: So it was a no brainer once I discovered it and once I got underway, just began a bit of a snowball.

5:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, went straight for it. [SPEAKER_00]: What was your first impressions of home misses that when you fired it up? [SPEAKER_02]: They're really positive actually, you know, love-laced with a thing then. [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, it's not not going back too far. [SPEAKER_02]: Just the effect, the ease of integration, you know, turn it on and then suddenly discover all these devices, with some of which had an app somewhere in my phone, I probably hadn't eaten touch for six months.

6:21 [SPEAKER_02]: And just straight away, you've got something that's really usable. [SPEAKER_02]: That was probably the thing that's like, you know, turn the button on. [SPEAKER_02]: Something that can then has got quite complex. [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, from a startup point of view, it was really, really good.

6:34 [SPEAKER_02]: The whole discovery piece was great. [SPEAKER_02]: So, from my point of view, I had something up and useful to the point, you know, and a couple hours type thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And I went down the home assistant green track to start with, and, you know, that was a really easy entry point.

6:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, this bit of a story about we're ended up in all of that, which we'll talk about later probably, but um, but yeah, that was like, by by home assistant Green, plug it in, power it up, stick a monster on it and see what's going on and, wow, it's great. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's already amazing.

7:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: How much stuff that finds, uh, and you're like, oh, I can, I can integrate that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So what was the first automation that you got in home assistant? [SPEAKER_00]: So you've got all these devices to discover what was the first thing you wanted to automate?

7:24 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm probably like many people that was like, we'll talk quickly about the WA for a minute as well. [SPEAKER_02]: Which probably turned the lights on my office. [SPEAKER_02]: That was the first thing. [SPEAKER_02]: Open the door and the lights come on. [SPEAKER_02]: And that was, you know, that was a plumbing a shallie.

7:41 [SPEAKER_02]: And I get that working. [SPEAKER_02]: And then kind of go in the IR sensor and then go on even a minute away, as well, etc, etc. [SPEAKER_02]: And then it was like, I've got a weather station, it tells me how bright it is outside, so let's make it work to get in on our brightful lighting, as the lighting can click on during the sun goes down to cloud.

8:00 [SPEAKER_02]: So, and the idea about the white and safety things, we agreed to things to start with. [SPEAKER_02]: The first was that if I died, so you could unplug or anything, it could cable in, suddenly the house would carry on running. [SPEAKER_02]: By those 18 apps or whatever light switches and things are in place and also that in my office I could do whatever I want So any automation I want in this in this room This is my I can do what I like and she's happy with that so so yeah, it was it was the lights and then on from there And then it's got more and more ambitious and started looking at things like another heat pump.

8:31 [SPEAKER_02]: It's got a [SPEAKER_02]: Wi-Fi card and thinking, hmm, that's the interface is terrible. [SPEAKER_02]: We had two apps, the two air conditioning systems from FoodJitsu, and I wanted to make them operate as one. [SPEAKER_02]: One has got an integration for it, the other doesn't. [SPEAKER_02]: Back in Geneva, the API and the rest of it, data that are one of their kind of stuff, and it's going to drop deeper and deeper into it.

8:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. [SPEAKER_00]: So, did you then when you had to start going down or I want to automate the lights in the office? [SPEAKER_00]: Did you, you said that you got millimeter wave IR sensors? [SPEAKER_00]: Did you have an idea on that if you wanted to stay on Wi-Fi? [SPEAKER_00]: Had you wanted, did you want to explore some other protocols like that?

9:11 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's an interesting christening. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So I've gone down the Wi-Fi route so I have about 170 different devices on the network and I kind of like, I suppose I was a little bit biased against three to matter because I found it really unreliable initially.

9:31 [SPEAKER_02]: It's improved a lot and so but I've just kind of stuck to the whole Wi-Fi thing from the purpose of if I can find an IP address. [SPEAKER_02]: you know, I can do a reasonable amount with it anyway, I've got some basically with some skills that type of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: So I've just gone down, you know, things like, um, TP-lin, Contapo and that kind of stuff.

9:47 [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of that kind of gear, which is cheap and pretty disposable, spears in the jaw type thing, that type of thing, and just keep it pretty straightforward from that point of view. [SPEAKER_02]: And a little bit of, um, I think there's some Z-wave around some door sensors and put some pieces and I've got a hub so that my rack and that kind [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was gonna say with the door sensors are hard, particularly like how hungry, the power hungry Wi-Fi devices are.

10:15 [SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I buy AA batteries and AAA batteries in the 50 packs. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm going for another one. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, and I have a thing sitting beside me, it's not my turn. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just thinking that it's my recycling with a hundred batteries another after a year that goes to the local hardly store to put them to the recycling done months and a while.

10:38 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the hungry from that point of view. [SPEAKER_02]: So nowadays it's more of it's got a pair of ethernet. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, go for it. [SPEAKER_01]: Do you use rechargeable batteries or just straight up? [SPEAKER_02]: W's or AAA's, whatever that you cycle through and I'd say, I'd say this, I'd say we have at least one hybrid car in the family, we generate solar images, so we're doing okay, but not pretty much just by a bunch of, you know, energized batteries from the local hardware store and the one special [SPEAKER_02]: and not really usually charged with a couple of devices that have got with the stations got to, you put rechargeable batteries in there and there that'll solar around and keep some going, that type of thing, but no, no, I should be.

11:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, strange. [SPEAKER_00]: I've gone down the rechargeable battery route for some of my devices that need it. [SPEAKER_00]: I find that they tend to not last as long as if you would got like a, a non disposable battery, but yeah, I think for me, the biggest thing I was able to get away from was the infrared motion sensor that would triple A batteries.

11:47 [SPEAKER_00]: I had a whole bunch of them around the house. [SPEAKER_00]: and once moving over to millimeter wave, which originally was the FP ones were plugged in with USB, I was replacing batteries like half the time, because everything else was the wave in Zigbee, is so much more energy efficient.

12:05 [SPEAKER_00]: And even now, the newer present sensors I've got, which I had boxes right on my desk, two seconds ago, like the FP, what I laid at P [SPEAKER_00]: 300s or whatever from the current now. [SPEAKER_00]: They are so energy efficient, right? [SPEAKER_00]: I think they claim like three years battery life.

12:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, their button cell batteries, but yeah, they're really good stick them anywhere you want. [SPEAKER_00]: Zigby, away they go. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and it's probably the one thing I think about what's next is going around and tidying some of that stuff up because there's a lot of those, you know, three AAA batteries in the device for the last four months.

12:43 [SPEAKER_02]: And the only thing with the high hours that for lights and things they seem to be a bit more responsive, so you get that immediate response. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: and all the stuff about muckery around with, you know, trying to keep the lights on so they don't go out in a bit of a conversation like this, for example, work well with someone on the other side of the world type thing and all of that.

13:02 [SPEAKER_02]: So I've got past all that now. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I mean, there's the hybrid ones now that have the infrared as well as a millimeter wave redness. [SPEAKER_01]: Again, I don't have any of those, but I have heard good things. [SPEAKER_00]: I believe the FB300, which I was starting it before, does do that.

13:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Everything in presence of one, I think it was the first that I know of, that sort of did start with that, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like I would say, let's put in your thread for that quick detection and then switch over to the millimeter wave. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so they're certainly out there.

13:36 [SPEAKER_02]: There's other tricky things like when a robot vacuum cleaner comes into the room at 4 o'clock in the morning and the lights go on and stuff like that, trying to work all that out, it's been a bit of a challenge. [SPEAKER_02]: And the way for acceptance things is the only things I'm not allowed to lay around with are the robot vacuum cleaners.

13:52 [SPEAKER_02]: And of course, if we come and go into the devices, there is a sitting there with a robot rock sitting there wanting me to push it. [SPEAKER_02]: She won't give me the pass with. [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, those are the tools. [SPEAKER_02]: Not mine. [SPEAKER_00]: I like that. [SPEAKER_00]: Alright, well, so there's some badges that you're not allowed to cross, and you're not allowed to integrate the robot vacuum.

14:12 [SPEAKER_00]: I would ask though, like, what would you automate if you had access to that vacuum cleaner? [SPEAKER_02]: I think it would only just be the, it's really from my point of view, more just about my knees, the app and things like that, it just hasn't worked or not, that type of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: Or even, you know, things like in the land, I've had a millimeter wave sensor, took some movement up and as I do have a wide back into a paradox, along with long story.

14:41 [SPEAKER_02]: for your showings and things. [SPEAKER_02]: Just a bit of that like at the back end clean is running and someone tells often a bit to get a room. [SPEAKER_02]: Is that acceptable? [SPEAKER_02]: I'll look for other things adjacent to it as opposed to just a few minutes is an intruder or someone's took the dog in.

14:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so then you could say, okay, the robot has just entered this room and the motion sensor has just picked up motion in that room, don't turn the lights on because it's for you. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I get it. [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_00]: But as someone who has a pretty old robot rock now, like the S7 something, I still use the robot rock app.

15:16 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we've got one of those too. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I still use the app. [SPEAKER_00]: Even though it is connected to my immune system, I only because I don't think the using it via home immune system is still a bit clunky. [SPEAKER_00]: I prefer to schedule rooms, I still haven't worked out for rooms properly.

15:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you get a bit more feedback from the app, so I don't think you're missing out on much there unless you want to work out. [SPEAKER_02]: Good. [SPEAKER_00]: The coolest automation I did have for a while there with the rubber rock was, I'm so I have automated blinds and so I could have when the rubber rock went into a room and the blinds were closed it would just lift up the blinds ever so slightly so that the vacuum cleaner could get under them and then when the suitors vacuum cleaner left the room it would drop them back down [SPEAKER_01]: Did you, did you have to do like a room mapping or anything like that fill when you said when you brought it into all the system because I know you were saying that it's

16:16 [SPEAKER_01]: the rooms aren't really. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, great. [SPEAKER_01]: And there. [SPEAKER_01]: I did. [SPEAKER_01]: I did. [SPEAKER_00]: I did. [SPEAKER_00]: I did. [SPEAKER_00]: And then this was a long time ago and then home business changed it. [SPEAKER_00]: I just, I just haven't had luck or I haven't I'm a bit gumshy now from trying to use it.

16:35 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just, it's sort of been like, I'm, I'm, [SPEAKER_00]: I'm stuck in the way of the app now, right? [SPEAKER_00]: We don't have it run on a regular enough like automation schedule anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it to be honest, it's probably true for a replacement and it's not cleaning as well as it used to.

16:48 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just a cup of bothered to do it anymore. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and so it's so much even with place on those things as well. [SPEAKER_02]: I think the one we've got a bit of a Franklin Stion that you know, might have an outer case, but it's had a new light, our central sort of stuff put into it.

17:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, really, yes. [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I went down the track and doing all that, but yeah, I think it's just about on some last weeks. [SPEAKER_02]: I think so. [SPEAKER_02]: Got a new one. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I guess I've run you on. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, you've got home assistants set up, you're on the green.

17:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Did you, and you've got like how many devices you've got a whole bunch of Wi-Fi devices? [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm assuming that you're not running a standard from your ISP Wi-Fi router. [SPEAKER_00]: You've probably got something a bit more custom to run such a large Wi-Fi network. [SPEAKER_02]: I bought a Unified UDM-SC, which I'll wire back, which is, um, [SPEAKER_02]: are just been fantastic.

17:42 [SPEAKER_02]: So the ISP modem went out a little pretty quickly, once I figured I had a configure it and put it up on access points and so it's been quite a lot of time and effort and money on getting the Wi-Fi and infrastructure really good. [SPEAKER_02]: So we've got a property that's maybe acre and a half, something like that and pretty much anywhere on the property you've got some form of Wi-Fi coverage and [SPEAKER_02]: got a gigabit ether, I'm sorry, I'm piping connection in the door and all that type of stuff as well.

18:09 [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, that's having that really strong wipe-eye and power-break ethernet type of structure has really been, that was a great investment getting all that right in the first place. [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, the networks really good and nice and secure and all that sort of stuff.

18:26 [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, that was kind of probably the biggest investment of the lot. [SPEAKER_02]: And the green was fine until about halfway through last year. [SPEAKER_02]: And I come from from relational database land used to work for Oracle and I've had consultant companies and stuff like that around it.

18:42 [SPEAKER_02]: So to me, having two years of data is not a luxury. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a must. [SPEAKER_02]: So I tend to live a go and live a run. [SPEAKER_02]: And it was getting to the point on the green where I was not only running out of space, but it was incredibly slow on all the rest of it. [SPEAKER_02]: So I went down the track, the buying, some second-hand Dell Opti Plyxas.

19:02 [SPEAKER_02]: 7,000 series, which mountain ice center rack and all that type of stuff, and I've got on a 12-core machine with 32-core memory, which is really good. [SPEAKER_02]: Lots and lots of assist there on it, and I used to say my 8-8-8 green was at times it would slow right down and I'd see a load average of about 150, this thing takes a long about 2 on a bad day.

19:28 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, really good. [SPEAKER_02]: That was a good amusement as well. [SPEAKER_00]: What's the energy difference there though? [SPEAKER_00]: Like our home business and green is sort of advertised as a very power efficient system. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm assuming that is not the power efficient system now.

19:42 [SPEAKER_02]: I do notice because I do have a plug with my system parent. [SPEAKER_02]: It's about 130 watts continuous. [SPEAKER_02]: for the UDM, for let's go power of Ethan at Switch and I'll want to pick up two deli-up of the plexus and a couple of bits and pieces. [SPEAKER_02]: So in the scheme of things, when we've got a house that can do a hundred kilowatts in a day, it's not really too much for an issue.

20:08 [SPEAKER_02]: It might be a couple of a scene, something like that. [SPEAKER_01]: I know you said you were from a power perspective, [SPEAKER_01]: How do you, how do you bring this into there? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And how do you, like, do you, do you separate out? [SPEAKER_01]: this kind of stuff like your HA infrastructure and your network infrastructure and all of that stuff do you separate out all of that stuff for?

20:34 [SPEAKER_02]: I haven't got down the B lane track, I say that's kind of on my list as well at some stage given I've got so many devices as well, but I haven't inverted from a kind of equal to somewhere and it's got two interfaces to it, it's got a dongle for a Wi-Fi dongle for the app that gives you some basic information and it has an Ethernet portal and it runs more bus.

20:54 [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a guy, I think Michael Kaiser, who wrote an integration for it, a while back and I've kind of taken that as a starting point and this is part of the AI journey and built into something that's a little more custom for what I want, but pretty much anything you can do around configuration on.

21:12 [SPEAKER_02]: on my inverter and my battery, and I understand what's happening in my power system is all surfaced with an HA and controlled with an HA, so you know I'm doing things like what's a solar forecast, what's it where to be like today, how much it would be putting into my battery vs. [SPEAKER_02]: how much should I export to the grid, all that type of thing?

21:31 [SPEAKER_02]: So all of that's kind of rolled into something that's pretty custom but it's really robust and solid. [SPEAKER_02]: So for me it's how I for long story but how do I get the maximum amount of out of my panels without what's called clipping? [SPEAKER_02]: How do I always make sure my batteries in the right state so if this is storm coming keep more in the battery all of that so I think all of that's been automated over time.

21:54 [SPEAKER_02]: from experience and just what's gone on. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's kind of at the moment in the state that I would say I suppose it's almost hard-wired based upon where I'm going, what I've experienced so far and what I'm thinking and all of that type of thing and maybe throwing some ideas around and I'm just starting to move towards something that is much more intelligent and dynamic [SPEAKER_02]: and pushing the boundaries with AI a little bit around, having it sort of makes some of those decisions and particularly when we move from season to season.

22:24 [SPEAKER_02]: So right now, for example, today, we yesterday, anyway, we've got about, out of my panels, I've got about 60 kilowatts. [SPEAKER_02]: five weeks ago was more like 30. [SPEAKER_02]: So we're just kind of coming out of winter and into spring. [SPEAKER_02]: Trees that are in the way and all the rest of it are in longer and plagues and the sun's higher and all that sort of stuff.

22:41 [SPEAKER_02]: So I spent a lot of time on that because it was a big investment to put the solar in aim. [SPEAKER_02]: We hit those big power bolts that are sanded for a little bit like 10,000 bucks a year. [SPEAKER_02]: and now we're up to 20% last year, so it's probably 12 with $30,000 with a power and bills that come in at about two and a half, three grand a year now based upon all that.

23:01 [SPEAKER_02]: So, a lot of money is spent on it, putting it in place and a lot of optimization going on. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a good kind of like experimentation thing. [SPEAKER_02]: One of the other things for me is I actually do quite a bit of this sort of stuff in a way it work from involved with businesses and doing this stuff.

23:16 [SPEAKER_02]: And so the home lab kind of like H.A. [SPEAKER_02]: IoT stuff is like great. [SPEAKER_02]: I come home and justify the reason why I'm not in my office for three hours because I'm working. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: That happens too. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a good proving ground or a test bed.

23:30 [SPEAKER_00]: All right, like to. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I do want to touch on the AI, um, there, you, how, like, so you, before you're on, um, you're current set up and you're on the, on the green, were you using AI with home business at then and were you finding it?

23:48 [SPEAKER_02]: a struggle or I was using, because I was using a little bit for work and creating custom GPT and stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: I was using chat GPT for quite a while and I would give it like he's a chunk of YMO, take this, make it do this instead type thing, that type of stuff and getting it to kind of co-all the things along the way so that was kind of a starting point.

24:09 [SPEAKER_02]: And I probably went down their track for, I suppose, six months into my home system experience, I started to apply it, it was quite useful. [SPEAKER_02]: It was kind of unreliable, I was spotting it, it simply takes here as almost that type of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And then, actually it was late last year.

24:28 [SPEAKER_02]: I have lots of friends in the IT industry and one of my mates is someone who is a, [SPEAKER_02]: He's really an infrastructure specialist, he knows this stuff inside out and so, you know, he came over and spent some time with us around new years and we're sitting down and he's saying, I'll show him what you're doing and he's going well.

24:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Why isn't it some good? [SPEAKER_02]: Why haven't you using VS code for this? [SPEAKER_02]: Why aren't you integrating in codeics, right, et cetera, et cetera? [SPEAKER_02]: And so we set down for a better day and implemented the author please start rid of the green, change the whole process, I've tidied it all up and strengthened it up a lot and integrated codeics in the VS code.

25:09 [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're doing something about to the stage where, okay, so we're going to talk directly to the database, we're going to call APIs for this. [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to do this there in the other et cetera and get into an environment that is a lot, a lot more orientated. [SPEAKER_02]: That was kind of the starting point if you like.

25:25 [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, so we started there, got that going. [SPEAKER_02]: He's since gone and put an H.A. [SPEAKER_02]: Green in amongst them a bunch of raspberry pies and then he's got a home, so he's talking about it previously. [SPEAKER_02]: And then on the way along the track from a work perspective I got, I started having these, I haven't, but wanting to use cord a lot more and pull code.

25:48 [SPEAKER_02]: So then it was okay, I think it's in the great cordon to this as well and have both codeics and cool we can alongside each other and we got into the peer review type thing and all that sort of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: So where it sits now is go in and I've got at the moment two, Jim and I's coming next and I'll find me deep sequence, something and the better go as well.

26:08 [SPEAKER_02]: I put all there into my VS code environment and I'm working directly on my conference files and my you know, automations.gml etc. [SPEAKER_02]: Conversationally, some of the reason you are any more, I'm not really editing any yell anymore, it's just going through with our eye tools and generating the coding going through it.

26:28 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm using it for things like a little while ago I started with, give me a rating of my H.A. [SPEAKER_02]: environment and even else I've got from the security perspective from our, you know, clarity and performance perspective and give me some ratings out of 10. [SPEAKER_02]: And then again, yeah, six on something and I said, okay, well, it's focused on that and tidy that up in that type of thing.

26:47 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's now this kind of living beast thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And [SPEAKER_02]: Things like that, little things like document every automation with the standard of what was the routine, what the dependencies, what are that sort of thing and give me an odd school revision history and that sort of thing in the notes and good as well.

27:08 [SPEAKER_02]: And then just recently, obviously, well, looking at what you've got here, you've got something that's really human readable. [SPEAKER_02]: But me as a human doesn't really very often, how about we take that documentation and turn to something that's easier for AI to interpret it and use and flip it around the other way and all that sort of thing.

27:23 [SPEAKER_02]: So all that's got to happen and it's got to the point where I'll sit down now and I've also done other things like trying to... [SPEAKER_02]: extend out what I do, HA has become like the automation engine, the dashboard engine, but I'm starting to use some of the tech for other things around cameras, not just forget going a little bit beyond that type of thing as well.

27:46 [SPEAKER_02]: And then it's going to go all together and I've got AI. [SPEAKER_02]: some agents but, you know, conversational enterprises across all of that. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of like really parallel to what I'm doing at work, my interest is changing a lot, you know, you guys know that coding has become a very different concept than applying it to something that I do during the day as well.

28:07 [SPEAKER_02]: And I really like that push the boundary, push the envelope, it's work out whether this stuff is going to work or not, so that in my work environment I can now, I can now [SPEAKER_02]: Work on things with confidence or my team is working on things with some confidence and what it's actually possible So I can prove things before we get in and have an experience in mistake with the customer and I have a little bit of a I have a little bit of a they I suppose [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a little bit of a nature, a little bit of a risk taker.

28:35 [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to go to the living age, but just see what's possible. [SPEAKER_02]: When the worst cases, I've got to pick up a backup and reinstall it or fire up an H.A. [SPEAKER_02]: Green or something or take another OptiPix and read a portal and it might cost me a day that it's not life and death.

28:52 [SPEAKER_02]: So from that point of view, I'd rather get in and see what's possible and push the envelope. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this this this this morning, um, one thing that I was talking to my my treat full of the guy who's the, uh, who's the tick and saying, you know, what's your view on MCPs? [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm, and I'm going, well, why haven't I implemented the H.A.

29:11 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm so sorry to ask. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So, okay. [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: So, I did about two hours ago. [SPEAKER_02]: Nice. [SPEAKER_02]: And I did a little bit of a controlled experiment and I said, okay, [SPEAKER_02]: implemented, et cetera, et cetera. [SPEAKER_02]: Now go and tell me this and I gave it a use case or a particular question.

29:29 [SPEAKER_02]: One going through the old API calls and everything I already had that working and talking to the database directly and went through the MCP and the MCP was slower and I got it to break. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm kind of like going, I'll go old school, go but close into the middle. [SPEAKER_02]: get it working, got something that's been in place for a while, and kind of like both the green and kind of just skip past the MCP at the stage, and it doesn't really add any value, because one is not necessarily any quicker, but also it's very contextual around H.A.

29:59 [SPEAKER_02]: and and in both our cases we get into the stage where it's more of a [SPEAKER_02]: not an IT, I suppose, but an operational infrastructure that goes a bit beyond just homosystem and dead environment. [SPEAKER_02]: So, it's just kind of standard grow a little bit now and get into other things which are quite interesting and, um, [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

30:20 [SPEAKER_00]: So how do you now with this setup with your AI setup? [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to create a new automation, like what's your interface to do that? [SPEAKER_00]: Are you going into VS Code? [SPEAKER_00]: Are you going into Cloud Code? [SPEAKER_00]: Where is that now living? [SPEAKER_02]: I'm using Cloud Code within VS Code and so we're telling what I want.

30:39 [SPEAKER_02]: and it's smart enough to know right. [SPEAKER_02]: So, for example, take these four different integrations around my duty that he pump, duck to the heat pump system, then have got contradictions and like, you know, spaghetti code and all the rest of it. [SPEAKER_02]: and change it to do this, like it might have been saying coming into winter, we're getting into the winter, I want you to behave in a different way.

31:01 [SPEAKER_02]: And then the next day just come back to it and say, hey, you know what time of year it is, you know how much, you know, you've got all the temperature sensors and light more or less, you know what's going on, you've got the weather forecast. [SPEAKER_02]: How about we come up with something that's a lot more dynamic than enables you to react and do things dynamically, based on me saying, well, this will be right for the next two or three months and getting to the shoulder season between seasons and all that kind of stuff.

31:26 [SPEAKER_02]: So just giving more and more to the scale around those type of things. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I say here, I'm not leaving this AI conversation just yet with Rob, but if you're looking to upgrade your smartphone, you really can't go past the suits. [SPEAKER_00]: Then you 800 series Z wave a long range motion dimmer, the Z12800 LR combined three smartphone devices into a single wall switch.

31:46 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a full featured Z wave dimmer with a built-in motion sensor and ambient light sensor, so your lights can automatically respond when someone enters the room while also taking the current light level into account. [SPEAKER_00]: that means you can create smart lighting automations without installing separate motion and lock sensors around the room.

32:04 [SPEAKER_00]: The XN12 also supports scene control using multi-taps, holds, and release actions, giving you plenty of ways to control lights and scenes directly from the switch. [SPEAKER_00]: And with smart bulb mode, you can also work with smart bulbs like Philips Hue without cutting [SPEAKER_00]: Zeus are also an official work with Homes and partner, and they've been helping Nabikasa test the Homes and connect ZWA2 radio by providing long-range devices so you know your products are designed to work with home-resistant users in mind.

32:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you need more control over your plug-in devices, Zeus also has the Zen 2800LR Zwave Long Range Power Strip, which turns a single outlet into multiple individually controllable smart sockets. [SPEAKER_00]: is perfect for under your desk, behind your TV, or in a server rack for controlling and monitoring network gear, charges, labs, game consoles, and all those other always on devices.

32:59 [SPEAKER_00]: These products are backed by US-based technical support and an extended 5-year warranty when you register your device within 30 days of purchase. [SPEAKER_00]: For the best prices on all Zeus products head over to the smartesthouse.com. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the smartesthouse.com. [SPEAKER_00]: Now Rob staying on the AI, I'm going to put something to you.

33:20 [SPEAKER_00]: We had a guest Richard was back in August and they had a, have you ever used open code before? [SPEAKER_00]: Or if you heard of open code? [SPEAKER_00]: No, I haven't. [SPEAKER_02]: OK. Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: So open code, I think I might have watched. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm going to see this.

33:36 [SPEAKER_00]: Open code is a harness around certain models. [SPEAKER_00]: And it has a whole interface. [SPEAKER_00]: Someone has created an add-on into home misses, which embeds open code. [SPEAKER_00]: And along with that, it integrates the MCP server. [SPEAKER_00]: and Paulus, who obviously created Home Assistant, has also created a bridge so that AI can interact with the UI layout of Home Assistant.

34:00 [SPEAKER_00]: So now, I think if you're using the MCP server, you're restricted to creating YAML automations will only be able to control entities, but with that bridge now, your AI agents can go in and add automations in the UI that can create dashboards in the UI not needing to only get them in YAML land.

34:17 [SPEAKER_00]: So there is an add-on out there that you can install. [SPEAKER_00]: And it basically gives you like a fully contained interface into home business. [SPEAKER_00]: You can choose your model. [SPEAKER_00]: You can have it, you know, Claude, OpenAI. [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever tokens you put behind OpenCode, you can use it.

34:33 [SPEAKER_00]: Is that something that you would consider using? [SPEAKER_00]: Like if you wanted to create a whole contained wafer home business to manage itself. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I suppose my husband will be this, if someone was saying to me, I'm going, I'm interested in going down the home assistant route.

34:49 [SPEAKER_02]: I would say I'd be pushing them down that route for sure. [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_02]: I think maybe I'll pass the point of no return a little bit and because I'm kind of one of those people that, and I'm not just other things as coder for a living and all the rest of it, I kind of like feel very comfortable in the environment I'm in, so I can, you know, I'm down to, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: having it to space me the yell that it's going to create or that type of thing and I've got a multi-purpose tool that does everything I want and because I'm creeping now beyond just stuff that is in the H.A.

35:21 [SPEAKER_02]: domain but in other domains as well. [SPEAKER_02]: So cameras are something I've got into recently. [SPEAKER_02]: It's probably not going to add a lot of value. [SPEAKER_02]: For me but I'm curious and I have to go and look [SPEAKER_02]: and give it a go. [SPEAKER_02]: So it was the same with the MCP server this afternoon.

35:36 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, I'm probably going to ask that question. [SPEAKER_02]: So maybe I'll just go and see what it's worth. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my conclusion works for me, right? [SPEAKER_02]: And it is very into the jaws that from my point of view, it's like I have an environment that is [SPEAKER_02]: I'm really custom, I guess some theories about my industry in terms of customers came in again, I think, because it's so much easier to build than it has been before, so I'm down at hands on kind of level.

36:02 [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it's an interesting thing. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that, you know, I think back when I got stuck into HA, [SPEAKER_02]: in 2024. [SPEAKER_02]: It was pretty mature and pretty stable by that stage and the UI was pretty good and all the rest of it. [SPEAKER_02]: That was my starting point.

36:21 [SPEAKER_02]: If I've gone back three or four years prior to that and got involved, it would have been a different story and now someone who comes into a new right now has got something that's more capable. [SPEAKER_02]: There's great features that come out every [SPEAKER_02]: kind of easier but also give me the ability to achieve more than you might have thought possible from a particular complex automation kind of aspect, right?

36:45 [SPEAKER_02]: I think I've got I've got code run through my veins or something and I've just kind of got the stage We're my comfort level. [SPEAKER_02]: I think yeah [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you've mentioned before that you've got the documentation downpacked, like you now got AI doing its own documentation.

37:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Have you added, or are you, like, how are you storing that documentation? [SPEAKER_00]: Is there, are you documenting your smart home so that you can read it yourself? [SPEAKER_00]: Like is there a human version that, you know, if you work on, oh, what's that device over there? [SPEAKER_02]: So what I, what I test that was, [SPEAKER_02]: Documenting an enlightenment in the YMO.

37:21 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's all just with an average single, every single automation that's got to hit out with a bunch of information in it, and recently we've gone and taken a massive automations.YMO, gone, split into components by coming to main and let up thing. [SPEAKER_02]: I got it to do all that for me.

37:37 [SPEAKER_02]: The coolest thing of all was, [SPEAKER_02]: I asked it to consider what my team was when I built that automation because I had in some cases no idea what the hell was I trying to achieve. [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, going through that and starting with and team, what is this all about, why is there some place?

37:59 [SPEAKER_02]: And then things like, you know, starting to go and look and see where, where there were ambiguity or, you know, things that were completely each other and all that type of thing and, and little bits of debugging about, why did they just do that and getting that kind of thing? [SPEAKER_02]: And then one of the things that's become an issue from a commercial perspective at work has been around, you know, talking to each other or the rest of it in the right model for the right scenario.

38:26 [SPEAKER_02]: So I took my 100 bucks with a fable and pulled away in about 10 minutes, that type of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: We've got all given some of them a meter by went to. [SPEAKER_02]: You start to get to the point where you've got, now you think about all those things as well. [SPEAKER_02]: So that's why I see it, okay, this is still a little experiment around running some stuff and understanding how many tokens you used.

38:47 [SPEAKER_02]: And then looking the documentation around in a way that was more useful to the AR than it was to me. [SPEAKER_02]: and then looking and seeing what the performance improvement was, I've done database performance students, stuff in the past. [SPEAKER_02]: Half as many tokens to achieve the result, kind of outputs, that type of thing, is what I want to really, really interesting and then just make it enough, sensible enough so that I can still go and read it if I need to and understand what it's doing, but the more the trust grows, which is really happening and the more risk I want to take, [SPEAKER_02]: the better and better and better at skating.

39:19 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of an interesting piece of the puzzle as well. [SPEAKER_00]: I do like that you've asked it to document your intent and I think that will then in future help the other automations or you know so I have an example it actually happened a couple weeks ago. [SPEAKER_00]: I had some automations to close the shades when in the shoulder seasons there just seems to be the sun can come into the right angle over the neighbor's house and just blind you walking into the kitchen and I'm like okay let's automate those shades coming down so that you know when the sun is at an annoying angle it's [SPEAKER_00]: they'll come down.

39:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And I've spent, I've been in this house for four or five years and I've spent every, every year, you know, every six months, this comes around. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm constantly tweaking it. [SPEAKER_00]: And now that I have Hermes talking to him, Mrs. and I would just set it the other day. [SPEAKER_00]: The sun is annoying me, update the automation to pull down the shade and where we go.

40:18 [SPEAKER_00]: So it did that, that was fine. [SPEAKER_00]: But then as soon as the trigger the blind coming down, the blind went straight back up again because there was another automation that had a trigger that when the shade goes down and none of its conditions match, send the blind back up. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, so then I asked it like we have so many automations let's combine them all together and you know put them all into a single logic, but I think now what I really need to do is go back to the documentation later and document it's intent behind it so that when it is going to when I tell it to do something it can go and see what my intent was and what my intent is now and not conflict with them if that makes sense.

41:01 [SPEAKER_01]: I was going to ask, have you considered making like a graph or a map of these automations right how they like as part of that documentation so fill so maybe to avoid something that you situation like what you ran into right where it's like you do one thing changes and then the other one so it's like at least it's got a hate.

41:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Automation A affects automation, B, like that kind of thing, right, potentially? [SPEAKER_00]: That's something we get AI to do now, I mean, Rob says like, yeah, almost there, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I have, um, I haven't drawn a map, although I do get to create text kind of representations of things sometimes, but I've got in all every automation has got dependencies.

41:44 [SPEAKER_02]: between other automations and the things that are based around the same devices that type of thing, just to try and weed that out. [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, it's got instructions back in the ND files, that in between the creates and automation you need to go and look at the context of everything else that might be impacted or that kind of stuff as well.

42:01 [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, the thing I loved most of all was what on earth was I trying to achieve. [SPEAKER_02]: Why have I got 200 automations? [SPEAKER_02]: Let's tidy that up to, and 42% of them are disabled. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's go through that, see if there's anybody in there, color it all out, tidy it up and polish it up and then carry on from the starting point and it's been really successful.

42:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Really good. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that is great. [SPEAKER_00]: You just mentioned there, like 40% of automations off. [SPEAKER_00]: Another point you had in your email was for the partner acceptance factor in your home. [SPEAKER_00]: You wanted to have the ability that when you leave the home that the house just returns back to a dumb house, right?

42:40 [SPEAKER_00]: So, how did you implement your overarching disable automations trigger? [SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever looked at input, believe it up, or you just literally got an [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, it's more binary, it's like you see this password here, turn it off, so I started with that, it's kind of like an underlying philosophy on everything, is that you can turn off all the automations simply by turning this one box off and that's it and it was as simple as that, so my office has got no light switches but everything else has got light switches and all the [SPEAKER_02]: we came up with the deal where you can do whatever you want in there that's fine, I don't care, not a problem at all, and then our things just kind of creeper and get done over time.

43:30 [SPEAKER_02]: And so yeah, it was very much just the ability that, so two things one that, you know, if I'm [SPEAKER_02]: If I pass away, or whatever else happens, you want to know about us, or we want to move houses, which is, you know, Rohan, obviously, you're going through that right now. [SPEAKER_02]: All of that type of thing, what's an easy way to basically disable or just move on, right, without anything continues to work.

44:00 [SPEAKER_02]: And so when you're trying to integrate a lot of old school proprietary technology together, [SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, the ability for it couldn't to be able to continue to run by itself of any big buyer. [SPEAKER_02]: you know, an app or via, you know, physical switches, et cetera, has kind of been part of it all the way along.

44:18 [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, gate openings and stuff like that. [SPEAKER_02]: Right now, you drive up to the gate and looks at your number plate, literally, we're in open security for you all that type of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: The lights on top of the posts, for the gate posts, go different colors depending on what state they have to, if the gate's about the shut that starts flashing orange, stuff like that, all of that's just all cobbled together via a whole pile of different technologies.

44:39 [SPEAKER_02]: And it's all triggered by, [SPEAKER_02]: a shallow uni that just shorts a circuit and a control box sitting in the house type thing right so it's yeah so so I've gone with that. [SPEAKER_02]: do know how I suppose that kind of approach. [SPEAKER_00]: So that, okay, so that automation there of the gate opening, how critical is my assistant to that automation?

45:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Like if my assistant was taking out a loop there, is that I think so? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's really interesting because I went down there, I bought some real link cameras to play around with not particularly expensive ones and put one on the gate post. [SPEAKER_02]: and real in case, to tick the animal, to tick the vehicle, that's, but it won't, out of the box, tell you what the number play is, or check it using them.

45:28 [SPEAKER_02]: So, okay, we'll get it in the frigate. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, right, I'll install frigate on my HA box, and I'm about to show that. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I'll use the license plate recognition within that. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, if it's like 2 o'clock in the afternoon and I'm bright setting down we'll explain if it's 3 o'clock in the morning and you drive in with your headlights on full beam it doesn't work So the next stage is going down a track of going right.

45:51 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, there's got to be something else I could use and finding I think fast LAPR which is another utility They will look at an image and get a number plate out of it and it's really reliable and really good so working back I take a stream out of my real-en camera [SPEAKER_02]: there goes to my frigate server and there's a piece of custom code that takes the stream that's going to frigate and chops it into 200 millisecond chunks and when it has five chunks that all had the same nice and pretty recognition out of it it goes in sets a flag which then goes back to AJ and runs the automation.

46:28 [SPEAKER_02]: So there's a whole chunk of stuff that's outside AJ completely. [SPEAKER_02]: But without all the pieces of the puzzle, including HA, knowing to trigger it, and all that type of stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it does all sorts of cool stuff like the courier drive is just arrived. [SPEAKER_02]: Great, and it comes up on a home pod and tells me that, or on my phone.

46:48 [SPEAKER_02]: And we don't live a minute, but we go to the gate and put it to the page. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that type of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: So it gives you, like, there's no. [SPEAKER_02]: Or the family, what's your number plate, head to the list. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, when you come, when you turn up, now it's going to open for you, and then draw on lock and stuff like that.

47:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's, I've just, I had a quick Google fast LPR on GitHub looks very amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: Do you think this fast LPR library will be able to help you with the situation of three and with the headlights on? [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it does. [SPEAKER_02]: It does. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.

47:16 [SPEAKER_02]: So I think it all will expand. [SPEAKER_02]: That's fantastic. [SPEAKER_02]: But then there was like, you know, there was a, [SPEAKER_02]: Deep dive down and drain pipe for a couple of days, trying to sort it out. [SPEAKER_02]: Meaning many trips up the road and back and my car and stuff like that to see what we're working on.

47:30 [SPEAKER_02]: I got it to work. [SPEAKER_02]: It was pretty frustrating, but without AI, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near there. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it wouldn't have been able to do it. [SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't have just given up completely, you know? [SPEAKER_00]: But that's fair. [SPEAKER_01]: Have you thought of taking that picture and then sending it out to you know whether it's a chat CBT or something like that or even a local island that you're running to actually do the recognition on that Instead of doing like the cut-up chunks and so on and so forth and that way it might just be [SPEAKER_01]: You know, less effort to maintain that code, right?

48:05 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's an interesting point. [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of, I've been down the track in this quite recent probably in the last month or so of getting it to work and like trying to manhandle into position and make it do what I want to do, which I've achieved. [SPEAKER_02]: And now it's like it's, it's so bad that I would have to edit a [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, the thing I just started on was, okay, now let's take this to the next level and actually have an agent going around and seeing what's going on and having more situation on awareness of what's happening.

48:45 [SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of got down the track a little bit and then you know, I got told. [SPEAKER_02]: How many tokens is going to cost me, and based upon what you want, that will cost you $4,000,000 a month to do. [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm going to go away and go back a little bit. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it's an interesting journey, Rohan, and one of the things for the future is one of the things that stand a taste of time and what are the things that [SPEAKER_02]: are really messy.

49:09 [SPEAKER_02]: So, wipe-except-in-factor thing, the other night, there was a documentary in the Zealant on television about cyber security, etc, etc. [SPEAKER_02]: And so she's given me a hard time about it and you've got these cameras and we get hacked and all the rest about it. [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, that's what I'm talking about about it.

49:25 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm scaring off to Claude Code, go, can you still quick review and tell me what I've missed? [SPEAKER_02]: And there are a couple of little things which are now fixed. [SPEAKER_02]: And then I've got Claude to wipe my wife and him up. [SPEAKER_02]: to explain why her husband was actually very responsible and done a great job with us.

49:40 [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, I don't know. [SPEAKER_00]: Again, it was get you around there. [SPEAKER_00]: I always do what it wants you to do, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So that's the right promise to take you away. [SPEAKER_02]: Even with my marriage. [SPEAKER_02]: It's mutual. [SPEAKER_00]: So in that case, then, when you set, when you ought to do that audit, I'm assuming Claude is now set up the Wi-Fi with VLANs and all that nice little, nice protection stuff.

50:02 [SPEAKER_02]: We haven't done the B-land here, it's coming back and saying to me, you need to consider it, and I'm going, you know, but just some other, you know, the logging and things like that, just a few bits and pieces like that, that weren't turned on by default, which now are on by default, and you know, and now if you see it, that kind of thing.

50:18 [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't too much, you know, it's, the whole UDM set up is, you know, [SPEAKER_02]: like out of the box are really good, you know, I'm using the Picasso and stuff like that for mod access, but I've got a few other things where I'm remote just stopping in for a while all that, whatever.

50:35 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there was one other thing that I did, which is kind of like about the bit about not being around, um, [SPEAKER_02]: I've got a couple of toggles, bouldians, just to say, where a way and there's no one in the house. [SPEAKER_02]: So if we don't do this or do that, etc., maybe tend some lights on, you know, in the evenings and things like that, just simulate someone being in the house, which is kind of an old school thing.

51:03 [SPEAKER_02]: And I have another one for guests, so we have a full bedroom house and my wife and I and it and half our house is not, you know, why would turn the tower rails on and the guest bathrooms when there's no one there and you're not going to get used stuff like that. [SPEAKER_02]: And again, that's just a ballroom, so we just press that and you know, more heat supply them to get a rooms and all that type of stuff as well.

51:24 [SPEAKER_02]: That's kind of useful and cool. [SPEAKER_02]: I could probably create one [SPEAKER_02]: return to normal place. [SPEAKER_02]: Yep, or something like that. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's an opportunity for normal operations. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I know for things like when we're away for extended period, I like the Alamo custom integration, because it has an archivocation mode.

51:44 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have an alarm panel at the house, but you know, the fact that there is a virtual alarm panel with those, just allows the house to have certain states and it's very clear. [SPEAKER_00]: both they are. [SPEAKER_00]: I find that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've gone down the Alamo track as well.

51:58 [SPEAKER_02]: It's one three quarter finished project I need to finish. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but what I kind of, you know, I had like an old paradox system that's been in the house for 20 years and every so often you've got to replace the sensors and all that type of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of, this whole bit about being able to take sensors and use them for multiple and sensors really cool.

52:15 [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I've got present sensors [SPEAKER_02]: using my alarm system and I've gone down the track I say I'm going to use the alarm mode but I need a provider that I can send a message to to say call someone out to call the security guard out and whatever and so I could have done it with the alarm mode completely et cetera and I've got this paradox system and I pay 20 bucks a month for the monitoring et cetera et cetera and so what I ended up doing was putting Shelley Unis on the paradox of [SPEAKER_02]: which I didn't fire based upon whatever I want to create in the home assistant.

52:54 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, when I'm really sure there's somebody, and all this paradox box does with anything it came all, it sends a signal to the monitoring coming in tells them to call it. [SPEAKER_02]: It's still there. [SPEAKER_02]: The old school alarm system is actually alarm the entire time, but it only [SPEAKER_02]: having quite a bunch of the guy with the who is doing the ATA installs, one of your guests a while ago, for mobile homes and stuff and camp events.

53:26 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's a really cool stuff around that present stuff right in and out, you know, all of that kind of thing. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of like a half-finish project around that as well trying to get that to be really reliable for me. [SPEAKER_02]: And then we'll not even have to worry about putting the alarm off and on this week, you know.

53:42 [SPEAKER_02]: because of my insurance. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah company is not watching but then it's a little more than it should. [SPEAKER_00]: Do you then have home assistant on a battery backup? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah well because because we've got that solar system in place we've got um uh 25 kilowatt battery.

53:57 [SPEAKER_02]: which acts as a good power. [SPEAKER_02]: So some of the circuits in the house, we have three phase power coming in, some of the circuits for the aunt and my office and the rack and the important things like the fridge is breezes and the TV, you know, all that sort of stuff and the bare fridge, things like that, the really important things in life are all backed up automatically, so only UPS.

54:21 [SPEAKER_02]: So I've got a big one, so it kind of works really well. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and it does mean that you go through power cuts and we're a little bit of a rural area. [SPEAKER_02]: So when this is storm, we might get a power cut. [SPEAKER_02]: We had won for three or four days at one stage.

54:34 [SPEAKER_02]: And you can run the most of the house successfully. [SPEAKER_02]: That's great. [SPEAKER_02]: Just great, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: It's been so weird doing it, but it was worth it. [SPEAKER_00]: So looking forward to the future now. [SPEAKER_00]: What are you looking forward to next? [SPEAKER_00]: What's on the horizon for Rob's smile home that you haven't tackled yet?

54:54 [SPEAKER_02]: getting my self-imposed rating past nine, Tianan just said whatever the AIs are telling me I should be doing things I haven't really got to. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot of hygiene type stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: I think going back and revisiting some of the old stuff to some of the senses and equipment we've got things like that, you know, I've got, [SPEAKER_02]: I think I'm just about running out of things to buy.

55:16 [SPEAKER_02]: I've got an eGradio and a sensor in here, which is interesting because it should have been interrupted to tell me the CO2 levels going up because I'm talking too much. [SPEAKER_02]: Just everything. [SPEAKER_02]: I say you mentioned a polo. [SPEAKER_02]: Yep. [SPEAKER_00]: There we go. [SPEAKER_02]: Yep.

55:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: All good stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: So I think there's a bit of like trying to tidy some of that stuff up and maybe work a bit on the present thing a little bit better around when we're coming and going that's sort of half done. [SPEAKER_02]: Get the alarm to this. [SPEAKER_02]: They just should be.

55:46 [SPEAKER_02]: I think I've run the dishcloth out pretty much around the whole human g thing now. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, things like, uh, [SPEAKER_02]: I've got an old tenant sound system that was sitting there unused, so you know, putting an Apple TV in front of that and, you know, worrying all that up and then maybe some of the streaming stuff from within the home assistant as well as Spotify and Apple music and stuff as well.

56:11 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just a little micro things I think are being done today most of it's. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I think you've got the main infrastructure there now it's the nice to have the cream on top essentially. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, just the odd thing that's a little bit unreliable.

56:28 [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, you go through that base where things seem to break in a regular basis and then try and get to the point where it's relatively stable or kind of there. [SPEAKER_02]: But every so often there's a little surprise that comes along. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, um, [SPEAKER_02]: And my kind of like professional hat is down the track of how can I start to use AI a little bit more in terms of being, you know, some of the age didn't exist often and really trying to make things a little more dynamic.

56:57 [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, for example things like your, um, [SPEAKER_02]: your blinds going up. [SPEAKER_02]: I've got things for my solar system that know about the elevation of the sun and the sky and all that kind of stuff and you know tells me I'm getting 99.6% efficiency out of my panels four years after they were bought stuff like that.

57:16 [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, there's all sort of, just a lot of the fact that you can take everything in, combine it together and, you know, take wherever you're imagination goes. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's, and that also comes down to it, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Where, where is the line?

57:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, there is always a possibility to automate something, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And it, maybe it would be apparent right now, but it's coming. [SPEAKER_00]: Have you asked AI what it would want to automate? [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: So, there was someone who created an AI as a suggestion integration a while ago.

57:45 [SPEAKER_02]: So, it was probably two or three years ago and it will come up every once a week where I often got it to run and give you some ideas about things and initially it was quite useful because the things will come out and thought of that and it will go there and then it kind of got to the point where it was a little bit of a re-gauge-tating the same stuff because I've pretty much done everything that's suggested.

58:04 [SPEAKER_02]: To be honest, I found [SPEAKER_02]: AI and it's ability to have an imagination, a little bit still to, you know, that kind of like we talk now in my industry about having people who are pilots of AI as opposed to devs and all the rest of it and then changing shape of all of that. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm still finding there's a place for a human because you have these, like, low bulbers go off once in a while and you know and I'm not finding that kind of creativity angle.

58:37 [SPEAKER_02]: Yep, I'm having to provide that. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's the problem. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's kind of interesting from that point of view, you know, you can do things that. [SPEAKER_02]: I love the fact that I can say, hey, I'll go down and check with this license plate thing. [SPEAKER_02]: I can't get us to work to a level that's good enough and useful enough.

58:51 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just going to take the cameras and just put them in a box and pick it about it in my box of regret, which I think you guys might have talked about something about that in the States, because I want to know. [SPEAKER_02]: And kind of get into the stage where, you know, ask to add and then just go, well, this is what I want to do.

59:09 [SPEAKER_02]: Go and find me something to do it. [SPEAKER_02]: And this is open source project. [SPEAKER_02]: That's just like, yeah, that looks pretty cool. [SPEAKER_02]: But how am I going to do this? [SPEAKER_02]: I will do this. [SPEAKER_02]: And then I'm telling you, no, do it every 200 milliseconds instead of every 500 milliseconds because I don't want to sit around for three seconds.

59:23 [SPEAKER_02]: I want to recognize the number plate and, you know, sub-seeking data. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm a real tuna, so I'm into that. [SPEAKER_02]: I do have one thing I want to do, because I can't grab as a kid doing all sorts of poultry and some part of the hell they would think, sit drink with it on cars and all that sort of thing.

59:45 [SPEAKER_02]: And what's called a westy, which is probably half as bad as a westy and suddenly maybe, but yeah, time to be a flavor of it, no offense. [SPEAKER_02]: OBD readers in cars, and I'm giving a telemetry around what's happening to my cars will be really cold, I like to do that. [SPEAKER_00]: There is a project to meet part of, but that looks really good.

1:00:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's obviously a sense, okay. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, take a look at that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's something that's definitely on my list of my brother and also some mechanic. [SPEAKER_02]: And [SPEAKER_02]: We both enjoy all the cars and stuff that's 15 or 20 years old and integrating with that and playing around with them and getting some life out of them so yeah [SPEAKER_02]: I'm also a bit of a, um, I like the idea of buying stuff that like these old audiobooks is which you can pick up for 400 bucks that are 12 core and with 30 to giga RAM that just run like a school of cat and you know, they're just not up to date.

1:00:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I, and I just mentioned Cisco, I, um, I literally went looking for a pair of ethernet switch of a decent standard and I found [SPEAKER_02]: Cosmic 35 bucks. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like thank you very much. [SPEAKER_02]: We've been sitting in someone's cabinet and they went bust and Basically there's a whole pile of them so I'll have one of those.

1:01:11 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's great. [SPEAKER_02]: Perfect. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm not sitting in my rack and just works Yeah, so it's good enough. [SPEAKER_02]: It's good enough, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and you know that whole angle of well way throw it out If you can use it, you know, do something with it.

1:01:24 [SPEAKER_01]: So I got a question. [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean [SPEAKER_01]: As you alluded to Robin and we've done some content around this as well around, you know, I've moved and the room not, you know, looking different and not being great. [SPEAKER_01]: I currently don't have a homelessness in setup because I've ripped everything out and I'm still, again, I've been in this house for less than a week at this point.

1:01:48 [SPEAKER_01]: So what? [SPEAKER_01]: advice do you have for me as I essentially build a mostly new home assistant instance do I you know how much AI do I integrate what what is a cool you know low-hanging print I know you don't know the aspects of my house specifically but [SPEAKER_01]: just if you had to give any advice to myself or somebody like myself or that be.

1:02:11 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I'll be able to pre-induce this building you asked from scratch. [SPEAKER_02]: And I sit in the first thing that's good to a, um, is good to a network infrastructure to a good stage just so that that background's really reliable and end in your power infrastructure. [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, with that might just be a small UPS, [SPEAKER_02]: If me, my approach would be, I would probably be to go, oh, go down the BS code route, because I'm happy with it, it's natural for me, but putting out the top of it and just plugging stuff in and going for it really needs a day.

1:02:51 [SPEAKER_02]: For me, like the whole. [SPEAKER_02]: start from scratch and then at a bullet he like something that might take weeks and weeks just using AIs and to give you the starting point and give you an environment where you're just conversational asking for what you want and the commitment to improving it over and over again and one of the things that I talked about quickly was the whole rate my installation tell me where the holes are that type of thing and just you know yeah it's nice to be able to [SPEAKER_02]: actually rely upon it, you know, and now it's not going to fall over because you've actually constructed ten times better than I would have done myself.

1:03:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that is my takeaway from today's chat, Rob, that I am going to ask you, I had to audit and grade my automation set up and and give you some feedback. [SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully, constructive feedback. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But Rob, thank you so much for joining us today.

1:03:44 [SPEAKER_00]: You're welcome. [SPEAKER_00]: We appreciate it. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_02]: Sure. [SPEAKER_02]: And look fun. [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, guys.