Yeah, but part of the fun is in learning something new.
As I get older it seems that anytime I learn something new, something old seems to leave my memory. I think my brain has reached max capacity. Now I just delegate these tasks to the teenager in exchange for room, board, and being his personal chauffeur.
With it’s 1/4 mile range this would definitely do the trick from your car but it does require a hub. One of their hubs is all that is necessary for the myriad of devices they offer. Their stuff works great for me. https://www.amazon.com/FlexFob-4-Button-YoLink-Programmable-Functions/dp/B0978V4WQC/ref=sr_1_5?crid=9SK7NRVINCVT&keywords=yolink%2Bsmart%2Bfob&qid=1677185300&sprefix=yolink%2Bsmart%2Bfo%2Caps%2C128&sr=8-5&th=1
Whoohoo! One year later I may finally have a solution!
The Macrodroid macro didn’t pan out for me, so I had settled for just having the floodlights come on every time I came home, day or night. No big deal to tell Google to turn them back off as I walked through the garage.
But now…
Google invited me to use AI to Create custom routines. Here’s how.
On a computer, go to home.google.com, while signed into the Google account you have associated with your Google Home.
Click Automations on the left
You’ll see a list of your current automation. Click Add new in the lower right-hand corner.
(You may be prompted to join Public Preview)
On the right-hand side, enter a prompt for AI to turn into a script. Just type what you want Google Assistant to do, using natural language.
I used, “When I come home after dark, turn on the driveway lights.”
The script it came up with was:
metadata:
name: Turn on lights when home
description: Turn on driveway lights when I arrive after dark
automations:
- starters:
- type: home.state.HomePresence
state: HomePresenceMode
is: HOME
condition:
type: time.between
after: SUNSET
before: SUNRISE
actions:
- type: device.command.OnOff
devices:
- Floodlight 1 - Driveway
- Floodlight 2 - Driveway
on: true
Finally, the “between sunset and sunrise” restriction is in there!
I haven’t actually been anywhere since I set it up, but when I do a test run during the daytime, the lights don’t come on, and when I test run it at night, they do, so this is looking good.
Has anyone else tried writing a Google Assistant automation using AI?
After two years and two months of using this automation, it suddenly went bonkers, turning the floodlights on multiple times overnight. I figured out why, and I’m going to bore you with the solution because when I searched for help online, the discussions I found always ended with: “Google needs to fix this.”
Problem statement: An automation that is set to fire when I come home is firing multiple times a day when I am at home.
When I checked the Activity tab of Google Home, there were multiple instances of “Everyone left the home” and “The first person arrived home” all throughout the night. No one was coming and going at that time, and this was new overnight activity that had not been going on in the app before. Thinking through what’s changed recently that might account for this behavior, I had three possible culprits:
We just got Fiber installed and with that came a shiny new ONT, a new router and a WiFi repeater. This recent change seemed like the most likely culprit based on the timing of the new behavior.
What I learned is that my new router, like many new routers, by default will pack the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz networks on a single SSID and will optimize them with band steering. I had noticed when setting my SSIDs that I wasn’t being asked which network to use, but I had not thought anything of it, so I was allowing this default behavior.
Thanks to band steering, multiple times a day while the phone was idle, it was being forced to switch between the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. When these changes take place, there can be a brief disconnect, which Google Home would interpret as me leaving home. When I next woke the phone, Google Home would recognize me as being home again, triggering the automation.
By setting up separate SSIDs for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks, I’m no longer seeing the behavior. Problem solved!