The ones I feel I get the most out of are the text to speech reminders that play in the whole house with all of the activities and chores that needs to be done.

Kids laundry days, activities, unpacking clothes, homework etc.

Reads everything from a shared Google Calender.

Automating the kids evening routines is also a good one. Cutting of the network access to TV:s and reminding them it’s time to go to bed.
Always there and help them with it but it cuts down on nagging and the argumentation surrounding how long they have watched TV and so on.

Putting on their evening music on a timer, adjusting the volume, lights.

Besides that and the regular lights on/off routines in the whole house the presence simulation when we are away is also a good one.

Having problems with getting object detection working on the Yellow via Google Coral though, rumours say it’s doable but no one has actually got it working so I am starting to think it’s BS.

I did a few small automation for my car and the charger.

When I plug in the charger at home, it will check the current electricity prices and if below a certain threshold it will setup a plan to charge in those hours.

I also have a button I can press to make a plan depending on how many kwh I need as well as when I need it.

It will then automatically start and stop the charger based on these plans

I have A LOT of automations. Some of my favorites are:

• Automatically set “house state” (morning, day, evening, night, not home, etc.") based on alarm state, time of day, last movement, etc - this state controls a lot of other automations
• Push message to my phone if outside camera detect a person when house state is “night” or “not home” (using Frigate for object detection)
• Automatically turn off lights at night or when not home. Automatically set lights to right level when home
• Push message when window has been open for more than 20 minutes.
• Push message if windows or doors are open when leaving the house or at night
• Push message with “morning update” and “evening update”. Including today’s weather, if I should sell some stocks as price has reached threshold, etc.

Basically, I no longer has to remember to turn on of off lights and if I forget something important in the house (such as an open window or turning on the alarm), it reminds me to do so (if it can’t do it itself)

I think my favorite “automation” is actually one of the most simple. There’s a button next to my garage door I press when leaving the house. It just shuts down all the things I want off. No lights lights left on I know the doors are locked etc