Security

It's better when you don't need to think about it

The problem

I initially bought a couple of Blink cameras a few years ago. My wife and I were starting to go out again for a date night from time to time leaving our children home with the babysitter. We wanted a way to peek home quickly and make sure everything was fine. Blink cameras from Amazon seemed the best solution at that time: cheap, wireless, and came with an app to use them.

I then added a third camera, the outdoor version, in the backyard after finding my car with a broken window. You know, maybe next time we’ll have some great footage to share with the police…

It turns out we used the cameras just for occasional live streaming for a long time, only rarely did we arm the system when leaving for some trip or long day out all together. Why? Because it requires action when you’re already totally busy: have you tried leaving home with 2 kids?

Here’s what you are supposed to do:

• remember about the system

• open the app to arm it

• arm the system (don’t get caught by the cameras!)

• enable motion detection if it was previously disabled

• optionally: disable the system and repeat everything if you need to get in again because someone forgot something

How should it work instead? You should not even have to think about it. And that’s what I achieved creating my first home automation with Home Assistant (HA). Here’s how I did it.

The automation

I actually created 2 different automation to take full advantage of the system and use it at nights and when we leave. All working seamlessly without even having to think about it.

The night automation uses the clock as a trigger. When we’re about to go to bed the automation starts and arms the system. This will enable all the cameras, but since we still want to be able to move during the night (loo pit stops) w/o receiving alerts the automation also disables motion detection for internal cameras. All the external ones will track any suspect movement instead. Then, again using the clock as a trigger, in the morning the system gets disarmed when we get out of bed right before I get out to walk the dog.

The leave automation is more sophisticated and is based on the count of people (tracking mobile devices connected to HA) in our house zone. When the count goes down to 0 it means that both my wife and I left so the automation is triggered: the system is armed and motion detection is activated on all cameras. When coming back in the zone HA will see the count of people changing from 0 to 1 (or 2) and proceed to disarm the system way before we reach the external gate.

No one needs to remember to arm/disarm the system, it just works on its own now. We’re also using it way more than when we had to do it manually and this is priceless because it improves security for your family.

Until next time!

Daniel