• IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I took a very cursory look at HomeKit a while ago and found its ability to create complex automations rather limited. For example, our washer & dryer are in our basement, and we can easily forget we have loads of laundry being washed/dryed when we get busy with the rest of our days.

    We now have an automation that will text me and/or my wife when a laundry cycle finishes. But it only alerts us if we’re home, and only whoever is home so can go take care of it. If nobody is home when the cycle completes then it waits until one or both of us is home, and then it alerts us. It also won’t alert us overnight but will wait until morning. So if we start a load of laundry at 10pm it doesn’t wake us up at midnight but instead waits until 7am to alert us.

    I’ve implemented this in both Home Assistant and Indigo without too much difficulty. Not sure how easy it would be to do in HomeKit though…

    That’s one of the more complex automations I’ve created, but I have a few others that are up there as well.

    • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Sounds like a fairly simple automation tbh.

      Notifications tend to come through HomeKit itself rather than as a text message.

      So they’re native push alerts to phones / people / devices enrolled in the home.

      • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        But how does it handle issues like retrying until one and/or the other person is alerted, without erroneously alerting the other at a later time when they get home? And pausing until the next morning and picking up where it left off?

        • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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          1 day ago

          I dont have this set up so idk, but I do know automations are able to be coordinated based on location and who is present and when.

          These constraints aren’t anything major is all that I’m saying