Smart Home Theater Tour 2024, Automate Everything!
I built the perfect smart home theater for our home and in this video I’ll show you all of the Home Assistant automations we use AND how we fit a youtube studio, home theater, gym and office all in the same room.
Products Mentioned in this Video (contains affiliate links):
– Sonos Arc https://amzn.to/3UH3fPL
– Sonos One https://amzn.to/3UHs8uP
– Sonos Mini Sub https://amzn.to/49BrByU
– LG C2 65” 4K https://amzn.to/3wer2wp
– Sanus TV Mount https://amzn.to/48jTeLJ
– Apple TV 4K Wifi + Ethernet https://amzn.to/3SYh23j
– Wiz Light Strip https://amzn.to/3UKmDeP
– 3M Cable Clips, great for Light strip adhesion https://amzn.to/49BRoqm
– Playstation 5 https://amzn.to/49clPnm
– Starling Home Hub (https://www.starlinghome.io/)
– Gigabyte M34WQ Monitor https://amzn.to/49fzlXw
– Monitor Mount – super cheap! https://amzn.to/48qGC5G
– Uplift Desk https://amzn.to/42DN6Na
– Everything Presence 1 https://shop.everythingsmart.io/en-us/products/everything-presence-one-kit
– Aqara Button https://amzn.to/4bCYGvU
– Apple TV Mount https://amzn.to/3UJeAPo
Nice video. Though I just use Google Assistant?Google Home for my automations. I simply don’t know create the pause automation in my Google Home app in the automations section. Can someone help me with this? Thanks
I like the Sonos soundbar. Does it really sounds like dolby 7.1 like the sound from the ceiling during a movie?
Good informative video.
Being an audiophile, I could give you a few tips.
1. For better dialogue intelligibility, try moving the soundbar to the outside edge of the cabinet. It’ll cut out the delayed reflected sound coming off the cabinet.
2. If you’re only going to stick with one subwoofer, try doing what they call a ‘sub crawl’. Place the sub in the listening position and with the sub playing, crawl around the room to find the fullest bass. Once found, then place the subwoofer in that location.
Adding a second subwoofer doesn’t necessarily give one deeper bass but a more evened out bass. Basically, no more moving a few inches to left or right to experience the fullest base. All seats should experience the same.
3. When pressing pause or mute and you’re able to pick up on background signal noise, chances having your apple power cable coiled up with an HDMI cable might be causing interference. It’s an absolute no-no for me! In fact, if interested, one can see how careful I’ve become halfway through the short 4 minute video, and bear in mind I have masonry walls..
https://youtu.be/uPi6R54Mdx4?si=0v7BQkBrmuRe2BLz
Love the real-world experience that went into the automations. Have different equipment but gave me greatvideas. Keep this approach coning.
Great room. What is your sitting distance from your TV?
To be honest this level of automation looks impractical.
THANK YOU for this walkthrough. I installed Home Assistant specifically for AppleTV automations, and this just takes it to a whole new level!
Man, great video! exactly the way that I needed to be able to see how you wrote up the automations! Automations are still lacking for me in home assistant so seeing others use them/set them up helps me to know what to do with mine!
I know how much time and effort this took as i have done something similar. (i am using harmony hub instead of apple) so great video. You might check out how to build a weight sensor, so when you set down on the seat in front of the TV it comes on automatically. And when you get up it pauses. I use one as a bed occupancy sensor as well. There called thin film force sensors (yep, i’m a nerd to lol) But you did some amazing work getting this set up like you have. My hat is off to you sir. 🤠
Wow very impressive!
Buuuuuuut, LG can’t seem to get hdmi-cec right, so I had to take mine back. Once they figure that out it’ll be a good option. Samsungs just work flawlessly with all devices I’ve thrown at it. I hit the power button on my roku remote, and roku, TV, and AVR all turn off. Using just one remote for everything while still having the capabilities of an AVR was too good to pass up for me.
Id definitely like more info on using app ids please!
I love the idea of this tv automation and am doing something similar myself.
One thing to consider however is the use of a device as your trigger vs using the state of an entity. In your example you use your Apple TV changing to playing, which is the behavior you want, but if you look at the YAML of what that looks like it isn’t apparent what the device is due to the use of the UID instead of the more readable name of the entity. Changing to use the state or state change of the entity in the trigger also allows for easier troubleshooting of the automation via traces due to easier reading of step details. It has the added benefit of not having to change the automation when a device changes in your setup (think replace of one style of motion detector with a different style). You can simply name the new device entity to match the old one without having to change the automation. You can’t do that using device triggers since it is keyed off of device UID.
Keep the great ideas flowing!
Bro this is awesome. I’m currently on a quest to replicate any complex automation I see that’s not being done through HomeKit into Apple HomeKit, of course with the help of Homebridge dummy devices but specifically not using anything like Hubitat or Home Assistant. it really is challenging unfortunately because you have to do some pretty serious work arounds to get around some pretty serious limitations in HomeKit, but if I eventually do get a ton of extremely complex automations working in HomeKit, I will make a video on my YouTube channel about it.
Nice video. I have the same automations, except for a couple of different conditions. I check the light level as condition. If we want the lights to stay on we usually put the brightness to 100%. The normal brightness is 50% so as long as the brightness is lower than 51% the lights go off 🙂
I also use media title as a condition to change the TV-strip color. So when watching football (soccer) the color changes to green. And then back to normal when the Apple TV changes to idle.