For my own morbid curiosity, why Zigbee?

If you don’t want to learn ESP Home yet, but you’re ok with Wifi, here’s a sensor that uses ESPHome, but is all pre-programmed and ready to go with Home Assistant. I haven’t used this produce yet, but the other products from Apollo are pretty awesome.

https://apolloautomation.com/products/temp-1-temperature-probe-for-home-assistant

It came with a plug in wireless chime, but nothing to wire to the old chimes. I have only been using it since October, but no issues so far. We live in the country, so not a lot of visitors either, but we have had several people use it over the holidays.

This is the exact one I purchased: https://a.co/d/88peOTU

I’m powering it with this: https://a.co/d/dpTUHh4

Mine is connected to the network wirelessly. It is powered from the doorbell transformer.

I have a Reolink Doorbell. We have about the simplest/cheapest mechanical chimes you can get. (2 total, one on each floor). The Reolink said I should disconnect the chimes and use their electronic ones, because it might mess up the doorbell if I didn’t. I ignored this advice, and the Reolink still rings the mechanical chimes when somebody presses the button. I have yet to see any issues with the Reolink. I did plug in their wireless chime also, and it rings too.

So I would say, YMMV, but there’s a good chance a Reolink will still ring your chimes.

You’ll want to research “room presence” systems.

Here’s one I’ve been looking at implementing for an example: https://espresense.com/

I have installed 3 of these now. A little expensive for an outright cost, but well worth it when you see how easily it integrates with the garage door openers. You can a ton of information out of it and some other goodies like parking sensors. They did a great job of making it really easy to install and straight forward to add to Home Assistant. You save a ton of money in the long run over a MyQ subscription.

I use the M5Stack C124 AtomS3 Lite with the RS485 Base for direct local control of my Rheem water heater. (I have the heat pump version, but it works with other versions also)

https://github.com/esphome-econet/esphome-econet

Way better than using the econet integration in home assistant. It eliminates the need for the Econet account and cloud. Now it is all local and provides way more information and options than the built in integration.

I know it isn’t technically a stand alone project made by a specific company, but it was so easy to install and setup and really pretty cheap. No soldering and just some very minor modifications to an existing phone cable that I sacrificed to the cause.

Have you looked into the Shelly Plus?

https://us.shelly.com/products/shelly-plus-1pm-list-copy?variant=49667619684693

Paired with one of these?

https://us.shelly.com/products/shelly-plus-add-on?variant=49666058813781

I haven’t installed them yet, but I just ordered some to use for floor heating. They work with Home Assistant, so I plan on using it for the logic and I’ll incorporate the in floor thermostat with them. I also will use a separate sensor in the room for humidity and temp for my automation.

Our dishwasher and washing machines take long enough that sometimes that notification is for the same person that started it. I’ve started the dishwasher and then gone about my business doing things, completely forgetting the dishwasher. This way I remember to go unload it and start it again. (We do a lot of cooking/baking at home, so our dishwasher probably gets ran ~2 times on a weekday and sometimes 4+ times on weekend days)

The washing machine is similar. Nice to know there’s wet clothes in the machine that need moved to the dryer so I don’t forget them. I don’t automate the dryer finishing because the clothes in there are fine if they sit.

No downvotes or death threats from me! Start however you want or it happens to start! I started by watching TNG on air with my Dad as a kid, which is probably why I like the 90s shows so much. I’m really not sure how younger people find an entry point into the older shows because they just don’t have the same feel as the newer shows, IMHO, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy them.

I watched Picard and enjoyed it. I probably will never rewatch it like TNG, but it was a fun distraction. I’m glad others are enjoying it.

I ordered the stuff and setup the ESPHome-Econet solution. It works really well! I actually deleted the Rheem integration just now because the ESPHome solution is so much better. It was cheap and easy to setup too. I spent about $25 US buying the parts from Mouser. (I used an old phone cable, so I didn’t have to buy that)

Finally getting back to this. I only recently discovered I can use the diagnostics port to try and control it directly. I’m probably going to attempt that but need to get some hardware.

I still don’t seem to have any issues with connecting or disconnecting.

I just upgraded to the 2024.10.1 version and I’m not currently having any issues with my Rheem Econet integration. I have nothing about it in my logs that I can see. Let me know if there’s something specific you want to see.

Supposedly 220V is a little more efficient to step down than 110V? I’ve read a lot of articles about data mining where they run the mining rigs off of 220V in the USA instead of 110V and they gain something like 5% efficiency. They’re doing it with entire shipping containers full of PCs though. On my single PC, I’m not sure I can tell the difference at all. But I’m an Electrical Engineer by trade, so it makes me feel better that I’m more power efficient and have my panel balanced. I was running the 220V for my server rack anyway, so it wasn’t a lot of effort to pull one more circuit for my Desktop PC.

I’ve seen some things about maybe stick to a 6000 series for now until AMD gets their 7000 series drivers worked out? Do you have any experience with a 6000 series card?

I don’t actually play any eSports. I should probably just try going without a Window partition. I rarely boot over to my windows 10 drive as is now. I think I almost like the idea of making the VM work more than the idea of actually using it.

I always tend to over size my power supplies. I ran my own wiring in my house, so I actually have access to 220V power there! I bought a LR-30 to C13 power cord a while back (https://www.amazon.com/NEMA-L6-30P-C13-Power-Cord/dp/B004WODG6A/) so I could run my PC on 220V. I’m not sure it actually saves me anything, but I like the idea of having my electrical panel balanced a little better.

My existing PC is old enough, it only has the SSD. I’m really looking forward to the NVMe drive after all the comments!

I am lucky enough to have wired my own house for data, so I have ethernet right at my PC Desk! (I also went a little overboard and wired for 220V power there) I’ve always preferred wired Keyboard/Mouse also, so hopefully those won’t be an issue. I have wireless headphones from my existing PC, which I’m hoping to reuse. They already work well with my existing Linux PC.

I love the idea of upscaling graphics on an emulator! Maybe I can go play through FF6/FF3 again!