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[First post] Suggestions on automating my old house even more ?
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Hello everyone, first post here and glad to join you automators :), please don't be too hard on me !

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A bit of background, I live in a pretty old house on the second floor (100 years old?) with my wife. The electrical wirings were redone recently ( /- 30 years) with electric baseboards heaters. I have 2 bedrooms (1 is empty at the moment), 1 living room, 1 bathroom, 1 kitchen, and a small hall connecting all these separate rooms. 1000 sq2 is the total size of the house.

I recently bought some Google Minis, used it for basic questions, then I started buying smart plugs for my bedroom lamps, window AC unit, fan and living room lamp and I quite enjoyed the possibility to cool down my house before I arrive home, and also very convenient not having to reach out to turn off the bedroom lamp while cuddling with my dear wife !

Before I knew, I started looking up for more automation possibilities and started researching on how to make life more convenient here, you know, settling down and perhaps expecting a baby in the near future. So I started researching on optimal home humidity levels, optimal temperatures, ways to save on electric bills, how to prevent frozen pipes and on, while still using an outdated Honeywell analog thermostat.

This is when I knew my house needed some attention, and with boxing day closing in, I took out the thermostats, the switches, and replaced them with 3 Mysa thermostats for high voltage electric baseboards, and bought a bunch of Lutron Caseta dimmers (I have no neutral wires). For the first time ever, I have a precise humidity level reading in my house, and I started noticing a difference on my skin right away, and a much less dry throat in the morning, while noticing a significant reduction in my electricity daily usage.

My wife always wanted a dimmer for the bedroom and so she was happy with the change, she noticed a difference on her skin too, and approves of most of the changes that I've made. But at the same time, she also felt overwhelmed with all the changes and having to readjust her ways of controling the thermostat and the lights. I took my time to explain the reasons why I went forward with all the changes, but I would never have thought that automation would cause conflicts between us, it's all too new for us and hopefully will get better with time and slow adaptation.

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Moving on (sorry the first part was longer than I expected !),

While mainly focusing on convenience and wife friendly changes rather than luxury and over-the-top automation,

  1. What other automation would you recommend, bearing in mind that we live on the second floor, and have to carry groceries quite often, and maybe a baby stroller in the future ?
  2. What is your input on smart locks ? Gimmicky or useful ?
  3. How about automated iRobots ?
  4. Motion sensors ?
  5. How do you manage all your picos ? I have one inserted in the wall as a 3-way light for the hall, one for the bedroom light sticked on the wall above my bed, one "master pico switch" that turns of all lights. Still 2 more to assign.
  6. What is the most wife-friendly automation you could think of ?

Thank you all for your input and Happy New Year !

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5 years ago