Robots wash my dishes and my clothes for me, keep my household boiler stoked, and manage the ambient temperature. I also don't ever have to refill lamps, or go around with a match each evening to light them.
Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
61–70 of 749 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
#62Robots wash my dishes and my clothes for me, keep my household boiler stoked, and manage the ambient temperature. I also don't ever have to refill lamps, or go around with a match each evening to light them.
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Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
#63I automated all my piracy.
My NAS automatically downloads files as they are released by scene/p2p/pirate groups. Files are extracted (if compressed), renamed, metadata is added, and published on some apps like plex and trakt.
Movies, TV Shows, Music.
Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
#64Bill pay?
Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
#65I have several scripts that make my keyboard behave better, which is "automating" in a sense. I basically have vim-style keys anywhere on the computer, as long as I'm holding caps lock. (So e.g. caps+j is the same as down arrow). This includes some more complex motions like "select current word", and even things like "open two quotes and but the cursor between them." I also have a script which scrapes my podcast play…
Autohotkey?
Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
#66I wrote a Chrome plugin to double check the price per kg for online groceries as the values provided by my supermarket are basically fiction.
You missed a big obvious one there, you've automated your grocery shopping. I'm still driving, parking, grabbing, paying, packing, and driving like a sucker.
Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
#67I used the VoiceRecognition API to control my music player using voice commands - works great for cooking!
https://smalldata.tech/blog/2017/11/15/building-a-voice-assi...
I also wrote my own little VPN kill swtich - great for ensuring that my browser shuts down if the VPN dies.
https://smalldata.tech/blog/2018/04/11/building-a-vpn-kill-s...
Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
#68Monthly credit card payments. So money flows from my employer to my checking account to my credit cards. Also of course to my 401K, IRA, Mortgage account, Saving account etc. Which means I don't encounter money much and I like it this way (I generally make sure I live within my means and my money does flow into my investments). Downsides: -I'm not actively thinking about money and hence improved investments -I'm not…
I do this for many years now. My one check is that when the credit bill comes (electronically) I sort it by size and check that at least all the big charges make sense. Also I have alerts on my cards for any charge over a few dollars.
Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
#69The lights in the most reasonably trafficked areas of my apartment are automated. The kitchen and bathroom mainly. If I'm in the kitchen I'm actively cooking or using the sink and pacing around, so the motion sensor keeps the lights on. After 1 minute of no motion, they turn off. Important to set timers though as the lights are no longer a reminder if something is in the oven or on the stovetop. For the bathroom, I h…
For the bath, couldn't you add a sensor that detects water level in the bath and use it to override the lights? Even something as simple as measuring the weight of the tub would work, and would simultaneously cover the shower cases too.
Re: Ask HN: What are the things that you have automated in your personal life?
#70The most useful thing I have is a little script that logs into my bank, downloads a CSV and sends me the latest transaction via email daily. Saves me time to login to online banking, and also serves as a useful way to search for previous transactions inside my mailbox from time to time. Besides that I use Home Assistant[0] with a few simple automations. For example, when the lights are on in the bathroom, and it's af…
For your banking script, are you able to use an API with a limited access token? Or does it use your normal credentials. I don't save my various banking credentials anywhere, not even 1password, as they're so sensitive, curious how you do this.
My bank gives only readonly access by default with the username/password. Any transaction (transfer, operation) requires a one-time pin (TAN) anyway. So I'm not particularly worried about leaking my password.
I wish they had an API but I just use a selenium script essentially. Luckily(?) logging in to this particular account only requires user/password and no fancy codes etc. I guess when the system is built with readonly default and OTP for anything else, then the login can be kept simple.