4 Home Assistant blueprints that saved me hours of effort
Creating automations in Home Assistant can be a long and tedious process. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, however. There are some useful templates you can use to create complex automations in no time.
Low battery notifications and actions
Battery-powered smart home sensors that communicate using low-power protocols such as Zigbee and Z-Wave can be very useful in your smart home. For example, a battery-powered humidity sensor can be placed anywhere in your bathroom without having to worry about where the nearest outlet is. However, the downside to battery-powered devices is that although they consume little power, the batteries will eventually run out.
Many sensors will expose the current battery level to Home Assistant. You can use these battery entities to create automations that notify you when a battery is low. However, if you have many sensors, creating the automations yourself can be a pain and you will need to update them every time you add a new battery-powered device to your home.
The low battery detection and notification plan for all battery sensors in Home Assistant Blueprints Exchange has saved me a ton of time. It automatically checks the level of any sensor with the “battery” device class, which means that when you add a new device, it will be included the next time the plan runs.
The plan will send a notification including the names of all sensors whose batteries are below the level you set in the plan. This gives you enough time to replace the batteries before the sensors completely die.
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Send a camera snapshot when motion is detected
This is another very useful template that can save you a lot of time and effort in creating manual notifications. It’s helpful to have a smart camera or video doorbell that sends you a notification when motion is detected, but it’s much more useful to be able to see what triggered the automation in the first place. Including a snapshot from the camera is a quick and easy way to see exactly what was moving.
The Send Camera Snapshot Notification on Motion plan allows you to select a motion sensor, the camera that will take the snapshot, and the device you want to send your notification to. Whenever motion is detected, it will take a snapshot from the selected camera, attach it to your notification and send it to your device of choice. You can then instantly see what triggered the motion detection.
Turn calendar events into notifications and actions
You can add calendars to Home Assistant using integrations like the CalDAV integration or the Google Calendar integration. While it’s useful to have calendar entries in Home Assistant, it’s even more useful if you can use them to trigger actions or trigger notifications. The Calendar Notifications and Actions Plan does just that.
You select the calendar you want to use, include any triggering keywords from the calendar event summary or description, and choose the devices you want to notify or the actions you want to perform. At the start time of the appropriate event in your calendar, the plan will run and the notification or action will be triggered.
You can add an offset if you want to receive a notification an hour before an event for example, and also use the end times of events to trigger notifications or actions. It turns your calendar events into powerful triggers in just minutes.
Send a notification when an appliance is completed
Smart plugs that include energy monitoring can be incredibly useful. You can use them to determine which appliances in your home are using the most energy or to see which appliances are driving up your electricity bill when they’re on standby. Another great way to use them is to determine when appliances such as washing machines are finished.
When a power-hungry device starts working, the consumption through the smart plug increases significantly, and when finished, it goes back down. You can use this information to determine when the device stopped working.
The problem is that appliances such as washing machines often stop temporarily and then restart during their cycle. At these times, energy consumption will decrease, which could incorrectly trigger your automations.
The Notify or Do Something When an Appliance Like a Dishwasher or Washing Machine Finishes plan may have a silly name, but it makes it quick and easy to create automations or notifications that only trigger when the appliance is completely done. You set the power thresholds that you want to use to indicate that the appliance is complete. Importantly, you then add a duration, so that the automation only triggers when the device stays below your threshold for the duration you specify.
You may need to monitor your smart plug while the device is running to determine the optimal values to use in the plan. However, once you do, it can be impressively accurate.
How to add plans to Home Assistant
Adding these plans to Home Assistant is easy to do. Simply paste the plan URL and the corresponding plan should be installed.
Go to Settings > Automations & Scenes and select the “Plans” tab. Click the “Import Plan” button and paste the URL of the plan you want to import. Click “Preview” to verify that the correct plan is found, then click “Import plan.” You can then configure the plan as you wish.
One of the best things about Home Assistant is the community. If you have an idea, chances are someone else not only thought of doing it first, but also shared their method. Using these blueprints has saved me a ton of time, and many other blueprints have inspired me to create automations that I wouldn’t have otherwise considered.
