New Home, Starting with Home Automation

On my previous house the garage door automatically closed after 10 minutes unless the sensors were tripped.

I thought about that automation, but there are a lot of times where I’m working in the yard for several hours at a time. It would require multiple open/close cycles.

My current house doesn’t have a garage, but I solved this issue with a contact sensor in my last place. Worked like a charm, although a camera in the garage is not a bad thing.

One of the issues I’ve seen with is new Home Automation users sometimes overspend on some accessories.

For example a lot of us want the garage lights to come on when we walk in or say the pantry or master closet. You don’t need to buy a $40 sensor and smart switch to accomplish this. Your local Home Despot or Lows will have the sub $20 single gang light switch replacements with a PIR sensor. I’ve got one in the Garage/Laundry/Master Closet and son’s walk in closet and they work great. Upstairs in the guest bathroom I’ve got the dimmer module that ramps up to the desired level (35 bucks). Love them.

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My controller had a lockout button to disable the automatic close if needed.

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