homeassistant

While not publishing it, my weather station uploads my indoor temperatures to weather underground. The plaintext password is in every packet. It uses unencrypted HTTP.

My TV continues to chatter to random servers on the internet long after it has turned off. It transmits to a telemetry server on every single button press.

My air conditioners drain a lot more power when I haven't cleaned the filters. It's almost double.

A chromecast will try to bypass your router's DNS and go straight to Google's. It is constantly pulling data even if you're not using it. I'm fairly certain it's that slideshow. It's not cached at all.

I've caught the front door and garage door left open several times (kids)

I found out my garage under my bedroom is primarily why my room is hard to heat and likely has poor insulation in the ceiling.

I found out my Samsung TV was sending a LOT of data home.

I know every time my Roomba gets stuck so I can go and locate it before the battery dies.

I know when my unraid Dockers fail to update and accidentally delete the old containers, so that I can go and re-add them.

One of my children were doing remote learning and I would get an alarm if he didn't get up in the morning and start using his Chromebook.

Outdoor temperatures always go up when it's raining.

Are you saying the outside weather temperature rises when it starts to rain, or am I understanding that incorrectly?

I can see if someone is on the toilet and having a Nr.2 by checking the power draw of the Japanese style toilet. (I also have a presence detector). I do not monitor the first part intentionally, though.

I unintentionally catched some birds eating on camera and that led to us installing a designated bird cam - in a 3D printed bird house. The AI model for identification is still in the works though - there aren't any good European based ones available as open source so I still will need to work out my own.

I found out the kid is reading FAR more than thought and is using the PC far less than I thought. Sorry kiddo!

CO2 is going up far more than expected,yes. What I found more interesting, though, is the direct connection between the humidity and my sinus infections - I always get them if my room air gets to dry.

Cooking releases an ungodly amount of VOC and uses FAR more electric energy than I thought.

And: After two years of optimisation I can control the temperature in two very sun exposed rooms just by using the covers and a weather forecast extremely well. Means they are up to 4° colder in the summer than before and 10° warmer in winter. Sadly this does not apply to all rooms.

And last but not least: Heating is the only point where home automation really saves energy here.

My electrical system always drops in voltage around 8AM. Power usage in my house remains constant, so maybe more demand on the grid when people are getting ready for work?

If it turns into a problem I wonder if you report that to your power provider they can investigate it. I assume it isn't much of a drop though 240v to 210v ish drop.

We had a UPS that would report under voltage every winter at a remote radio tower. We sent the info to the power company and a few months later found the issue and we never got an alert again.

Wait, how do you make your smart bulbs turn off and on automatically when you enter/leave a room? I've been using them for years and I always have to manually trigger them with an app! And how are you measuring power usage?