The last few weeks have been "home automation installation" times for me.
Today I was fine tuning a new Ring camera/floodlight that I installed yesterday. Re-aiming it for best video coverage, trimming evergreen bushes that were blocking some of the view, working with the app to set up motion detection zones, alert settings, recording settings, etc. Today was the easy part - except going up and down that metal ladder with bare hands (16 degrees out there in the middle of the day). You had to grab and move quick so your hands wouldn't freeze to the metal. Yesterday was a lot warmer luckily, because I had to be up on that ladder a lot longer installing an outlet box and doing all the electrical wiring. Tomorrow I'll re-purpose another one of my old unused WiFi routers as an additional access point since this new camera is on the edge of WiFi signal strength. We have a separate Ring doorbell too with a camera in it. That's nice, but I like this new floodlight/camera combo better.
The new sprinkler controller I installed three weeks ago is alerting me that it's not going to water due to the low temperatures (I haven't told it that I already drained the system last week). It's one of those smart controllers that adjusts watering times based on weather sensors and also on online forecasts - it looks at heat, humidity, wind, type of grass, type of soil, slope, elevation, full sun or shade, rain accumulation ... all kinds of things to determine watering times. If it rains enough (you set how much) it is smart enough to turn itself off for a while. If it decides it's going to water a zone for, say, 30 minutes then it will break that up into two 15 minutes cycles and do a different zone in between to help prevent saturating the soil and thus having water run off. You control it from your smartphone or computer. Everything is done on the controller so you don't need internet to access it (you can get to it from your local network, and it even has its own internal network with WiFi access point). Of course you can use the internet it you want to access the thing from across the country, but you don't have to. I can even talk to one of my Echo devices and say things like, "Alexa, turn on front yard sprinklers for 15 minutes" and that interfaces into the controller. Many cities, mine included, have substantial rebates on these smart controllers because of the water savings. By the time you include the rebate, a smart controller ends up costing less than a standard controller (no rebates for the simple controllers here). I got my controller on sale for $165, and the city rebate was an additional $100, so quite a good deal.
I've been getting more and more into home automation these last few weeks, with the sprinkler controller, the cameras and automated floodlights, inside the house voice controlled lights, upgrading the alarm system with motion sensors. Even the bed is hooked into the network - it's one of those things that pumps air into and out of itself to adjust for your movements and motions in bed. Hot and cold air to maintain the temperature you like (it also has a separate electric foot heater). Get out of bed and it turns on night lights for you. Get back in bed and it turns them off. Motion and sound sensors (to detect snoring) so it can give you a "quality of sleep" report in the morning. It can raise you up to a sitting position, elevate your feet. It's king size, but each side is independent of the other for controls. A few years ago I swore I'd never put up with stuff like this. Yet, here I am...
Also shoveled a lot of snow on several different occasions today. It was snowing quite hard, and it kept building up fast. Went to the grocery store and stocked up on staples. Cooked dinner. Well, it wasn't much cooking - grilled cheese and cream of mushroom soup - I think that's a great combo on cold snowy days. Supposed to get down to 8 degrees tonight.