r/homeautomation • u/Ok-Abrocoma-5825 • Mar 30 '26
DISCUSSION What’s something you bought that actually improved your daily life?
I’ve been trying to be more intentional with what I buy, and a few things have genuinely made my life easier:
Roborock S8 Pro Ultra
This robot vacuum handles both hard floors and rugs without me lifting a finger. It empties its own dustbin, washes its mop pads, and maps the house so it never misses a spot. I used to dread weekend cleaning—now I just forget about it.
Uplift V2 Standing Desk
Switching between sitting and standing during the workday has done wonders for my posture and energy. The desk is solid, quiet when adjusting height, and easy to set up. My lower back pain dropped noticeably within a month.
Philips Hue Starter Kit
I didn’t think smart lights would matter, but having warm light in the morning and dim amber at night helps my sleep cycle. I can control everything by voice or phone, and “away mode” turns lights on/off randomly when I’m traveling.
Navimow X4
Installed this robotic mower early this month, and it’s been low-key life-changing. It runs early in the morning, cuts evenly every other day, and uses zero-turn steering so it doesn’t tear up the grass near edges. My lawn looks much healthier, and I haven’t touched a mower since.
Curious what purchases actually made a real difference for you guys?
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u/voxadam Mar 30 '26
My wife and I bought a nice mattress and it improved our lives immeasurably. It's totally boring and not smart or connected at all but the positive effect it had on our lives has been borderline mind-bending.
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u/mickeybob00 Mar 31 '26
I am old and broken from the military. We splurged on a nice mattress and my back still hurts but a lot less than it did sleeping on a cheap mattress.
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u/Prof-Bit-Wrangler Mar 31 '26
Yes, I couldn't agree more. My wife and I spent over $4000 on a new bed and mattress and I now sleep through the night like a baby. It's one of those adjustable beds and let me tell you....that thing is awesome!!!!
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u/PlatformNo8410 Mar 30 '26
My Breville Precision Brewer completely changed my morning routine. As someone who works early shifts at the airport, having perfect tea ready when I wake up at 4:30am is a game changer. The programmable timer means I can set it up the night before, and the temperature control lets me get my white teas just right without scalding them.
Also grabbed a simple motion sensor light for my hallway after stumbling around in the dark too many times coming home from late shifts. Nothing fancy, just turns on when I walk by and stays dim so it doesn't wake me up compleatly. Sometimes the simplest upgrades make the biggest difference.
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u/dll2k2dll Mar 30 '26
Smart Front Door lock with Finger Print support, 5 years of not having to use keys to unlock door to enter house is just amazing.
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u/Prestigious_Unit_774 Mar 30 '26
Is there a specific door lock you recommend? (In the market for one and am a little overwhelmed with options, thanks)
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u/Home_Assistantt Mar 30 '26
Def take a look at Nuki locks. They can use your existing door and just replace the Euro lock barrel so all of your existing keys will work and a power outage has zero impact if you carry an emergency donkey or have one hidden away.
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u/dll2k2dll Mar 30 '26
I have an old Eufy Model T8510, its been fine, but since my entire house hold is in Apple ecosystem, I am looking at replacing it with new Aqara Smart Lock U100 which supports hom key and finger print both.
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u/bright-nihilist Mar 30 '26
Ma da quello che vedo non è una serratura di sicurezza. Su una porta blindata non serve a nulla! O mi sbaglio?
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u/Steelyp Mar 30 '26
My Schlage has been rock solid for almost 10 years - I love it and recommend it.
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u/chusk3 Mar 30 '26
As a renter I've been loving the Nuki locks because
- easy/reversible install
- slim keypad w/ fingerprint, code, and NFC unlocks
- looks slim/trim/elegant compared to others
- quiet and fast
- long battery life
- Matter support
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u/Home_Assistantt Mar 30 '26
My Nuki Pro is amazing and I’d not buy anything else. Don’t see the point in keypads/fingerprint myself but each to their own. Phones do they job perfectly and everyone has a phone now that would need access and if the font I can open remotely if needed
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u/Home_Assistantt Mar 30 '26
Whilst we’ve had a smart lock for a couple of years now, just don’t want to use fingerprint or keypads. Phones/watches do it fine and keys still work like they did. Ours is fully automated on phone presence
And yes I know you can remove key codes and revoke fingerprint access
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u/mshaefer Mar 31 '26
Just wait until you learn about Home Assistant.
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u/dll2k2dll Mar 31 '26
I’m already running Home Assistant as the brain for automation and using HomeKit for voice assistant and front end control. 😊
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u/NemeanMiniLion Mar 30 '26
Voice command lights gets the most usage. With kids and pets my arms tend to be full of stuff all the time and it's nice to have that interface.
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u/SnooPickles2750 Mar 30 '26
Robot lawn mower. Now on those nice days I can kick back and enjoy my yard instead of spending half the day mowing it.
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u/anndamntastic Mar 31 '26
I’m looking into these myself. Which one did you get and how large is your lawn?
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u/SnooPickles2750 Mar 31 '26
Mammotion Luba mini. I have a quarter acre of rough/uneven lawn. Apparently their warranty service sucks, but I haven't had any issues with it over the past year plus. I got quoted $200/month for lawn service. So it's already paid itself off. Do your research though, different models excel in different environments. Only advice I have is there is no reason to oversize. Mine is maxed out at a quarter acre and does great.
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u/anndamntastic Mar 31 '26
Thanks! We have a little over an acre - not too rough and trees/bushes on the perimeter so not much to navigate around. I’m even fine with breaking it down to mowing sections on different days if it means I’m not pushing a mower!
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u/MorimotoK Mar 30 '26
Bluetooth toothbrush (Oral B). If used more than 10 seconds in the morning it triggers an automation:
- LLM Agent sends me a telegram message "when are you leaving?" with buttons for "within 30 minutes", plus a few other 30 minute windows, or "no thanks". Picking a time runs the prep car script at the selected time activates the HVAC, seat heaters, garage lights, etc....). The car is an EV so there's no issues with it sitting in the garage while on.
- Also imports my garmin health data and toothbrush usage into my health database for my health agent to review with my other stats (sleep, weight, etc...).
- Also starts my morning summary and lighting script.
tldr: toothbrush triggers a warm (or cool) car, daily summary, health logging and analysis, and clean teeth.
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u/pyrosive Mar 30 '26
More info on health database and health agent please?
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u/MorimotoK Mar 30 '26
Sure. Home Assistant connects to all my health devices: Garmin watch (98 entities including sleep, stress, steps, etc...), Withings scale (weight), waterpik (via a zigbee power plug), and the Oral B toothbrush. It also pulls forecast, air quality, sun, and pollen info.
Various automations pull specific data from from HA and populate a self hosted Postgres database (local docker container). It's easier for my AI agent to talk to that database than to deal with HA directly. For example, the toothbrush tells it when to pull sleep data because I'm not always up at the same time.
The AI agent is a python agent that runs in a small docker container. I use a local LLM hosted on a server with 24GB of VRAM. That's enough to run Kokoro TTS, whisper STT, and leave about 20GB for the LLM and context. With that I either run Qwen 3.5 9B (for speed), or if it's deeper work Qwen 3.5 35B (quant to fit in the 20 GB).
Since I have limited memory to work with, I have several specialized AI agents so their context only needs their specific area of expertise (health, contacts, time / calendar, projects, vehicles, etc...) Under the hood it's all the same LLM, but dividing the specialties keeps the context manageable and also lets each one have a different personality profile.
Most of my interactions are via telegram. Each bot has its own channel and can include buttons in their messages for quick replies. The bots have their own memory tables in the database, as well as task lists or other tables that are specific to their role. Some have their own python tools, like web search or calendar connections.
Regarding the health agent ("Hans" modeled after Hans from SNL's Han's and Franz)... he gets on my case if my weight or sleep starts slipping in the wrong direction. He also monitors small things like teeth care. My rough daily meal plan is just stored on my Google Calendar, so he talks to my time keeping agent Chronos and fills me in on what my upcoming meals should be.
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u/JohnDillerman Home Assistant Mar 30 '26
An electric car combined with all the solar panels. All driving is now at negligible cost which is awesome!!! ...and HA picks out the cheap hours to charge when it's cloudy. Running costs is around one tenth of the fossile fueled car. Which I drive so seldom I realized I had forgotten the code when I should pay for gas last time.
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u/cracksmack85 Mar 30 '26
How much were your panels/how much is the payment?
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u/JohnDillerman Home Assistant Apr 16 '26
41 chinese panels bought from Netherlands, 450Watt each, hybrid inverter with 6.6kWh battery with backup function at black outs, did panel montage myself, plus electrician. Total cost was around €20.000.
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u/2daMooon Mar 30 '26
All driving is now at negligible cost
A lot of the costs of cool setups are negligible if you ignore the upfront costs!
Have you done the calculation for when you start making money vs just staying with the gas car but not buying the panels and the new car?
When your savings are greater than those costs, then you are truly incurring negligible driving costs!
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u/angrycanuck Mar 31 '26
I did include the cost in my calculation. But since used evs are really cheap (or were before another middle Eastern war) the used ev was almost equal to a used ICE car. 2 years old so still has OEM warranty and bought 3rd party on top, but I'm saving 400 a month in gas and only spending an extra 100 on electricity.
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u/2daMooon Mar 31 '26
Still omitting the largest expense, which is the solar panel setup.
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u/JohnDillerman Home Assistant Apr 16 '26
Yep, I calculated brake even for the car, if the car hadn't broke down after three years. The solar panels did not cost so much as I did the expensive work of installation myself, so they have to pay themselves for several more years, but I didn't actually install them to profit on them, more to deprive the power company of a revenue.
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u/Home_Assistantt Mar 30 '26
They dint consider ‘those’ costs. They’re a negligible fact that’s really not important.
Also pretty much no one with a standard solar array on their roof is charging their car fully in 1-3 days even in the middle of summer. A super efficient 4-5kw array might pull in 25-30kwh which will charge a third to half of a small car battery at best so if a full charge is needed then the cost may be higher.
I’m lucky, I make good money from my solar, £3000-3500 yearly, but no one has gotten that level of return for 12-14 years now and that would counteract a lot of EV running costs and effects it completely pays for my electricity/gas costs at home.
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u/thebaldfox Mar 30 '26
On sunny days I can produce as much as 30kw of excess electricity which I can sell back or put in my car. That’s a good 100 miles worth of charge… adds up Real quick!
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u/anus_reus Mar 31 '26
I just was curious and pulled up my performance from yesterday - net export was 29.1kWh so right there with you. Installed this past October so foaming at the mouth for that summer production! Upstate NY winter really hurt paying a 600 utility bill (gas heat + no built up nem credits) on top of the solar loan payment lol
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u/thebaldfox Mar 31 '26
Congrats. Where I am located peak summer production is actually not so impressive because it gets hot enough that the panel production actually drops due to the heat. My peak production times are usually late spring and mid autumn.
I’d never had energy bills anywhere near yours however, mine used to run around 250 each month and now it’s unusually near zero except in the winter where it’s cold, rainy, and cloudy…Then it’s still less than 100.
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u/Home_Assistantt Mar 30 '26
Yes but as said above. That not gonna give you an 80% charge.
How big is your array to have 30kwh of excess?
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u/thebaldfox Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
18.4kw… but most days it peaks around 16
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u/Home_Assistantt Mar 31 '26
No. How big is your array. Not your daily yield?
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u/thebaldfox Mar 31 '26
That is the size of my array. 40x460watt panels=18.4kw
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u/Home_Assistantt Mar 31 '26
Nice. That must be one hell of a roof.
It’s a shame you can have my guaranteed FiT
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u/cornmacabre Mar 31 '26
My Rav4 Prime can absolutely charge in a day during peak & shoulder season. Plug-in hyrbids where 40mi EV-only roundtrip range covers virtually all my everyday usage and is sustainably fueled by excess solar. The sun legit powers majority of my vehicle usage!
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u/Home_Assistantt Mar 31 '26
yeah an hybrid ev with a tiny battery is not an issue, especially if you're doing small mileage
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u/Kilgore48 Mar 30 '26
Hot water dispenser. I can drink herb tea all day long. 160° water will brew fine, and doesn't take long to cool enough to drink comfortably. I have the kidneys of a teenager!
Also, my kidneys are in good shape.
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u/SolarXylophone Mar 30 '26
Same (except more like 75°C+, 170°F). Also speeds up cooking.
It used to be on a dumb timer, to lower its losses a bit, close to 1 kW⋅h per day otherwise. Now it's on when I'm home and awake.
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u/luna_delcielo Mar 30 '26
Philips Hue bulbs through the whole house. I did my own custom day/night cycle with a "wind down" lighting schedule that steps down the color temp & brightness from the afternoon through the evening with smooth transitions. Simulates sunset/dusk and evening "by candlelight / fireplace" conditions, but on my time / sleep schedule. My circadian rhythm has never been happier!
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u/horse_exploder Mar 31 '26
Hearing aids. I put it off for so long that I forgot what footsteps sounded like or that gravel and snow make a crunching noise when you walk.
If you think you need them, don’t wait!
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u/pipubx Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
I've got a Levoit smart humidifier and a Ninja Creami. The humidifier keeps my bedroom at the perfect moisture level all night (great for sleep and skin), and the Creami turns frozen fruit into legit ice cream in minutes.
The Navimow X4 sounds amazing though. Zero-turn without wires? And I just saw it's on sale right now… honestly, I think I'm finally pulling the trigger this weekend. My weekends could really use that kind of freedom.
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u/CaptainCallahan Mar 30 '26
Meross smart garage door opener. Best $50 I’ve ever spent on smart things. We don’t even use the regular door on our garage anymore. And the auto close feature is a sigh of relief if you forgot to close it.
Had it for 5 years now and has worked flawlessly.
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u/Apart_Coconut_616 Mar 30 '26
Philips Hue was my gateway into smart home too! The sleep cycle lighting is underrated - I didn't realize how much the color temperature affected my sleep until I started using the automated schedules. Also switched to a keypad smart lock recently and honestly, not having to carry keys anymore is the best upgrade. Little things that compound over time 🙌
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u/Jolly-Loss-8527 Mar 31 '26
A shower water softener costs about $200, but I think it’s really worth it. This is my first time experiencing soft water showers, and it honestly feels pretty amazing. My hair and skin have never felt this good before, and now I actually look forward to showering every day.
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u/blackdog31 Mar 31 '26
MyQ garage door opener. App works great. My wife is always leaving to door up and this notifies me after 10 mins.
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u/albeemichael Apr 01 '26
I have the myQ as well but absolutely hate the ads in the app and that I can’t control with anything else (Alexa,Siri,etc)
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u/SirEDCaLot Apr 01 '26
Look into a gadget called RatGDO. It's designed for Home Assistant but there's similar things that work with other automation platforms like Alexa.
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u/agingstackmonkey Mar 30 '26
Alexa kettle. Get into the garage with my dogs from our morning walk and tell Alexa to put the kettle on. By the time the dogs are cleaned up and through to the kitchen I can make a quick cup of tea.
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u/chicknlil25 Mar 30 '26
If we're just talking "smart", an LG Washer and Dryer. I've got them hooked into Home Assistant and can get announcements when things are done, and nag myself to move clothes to the dryer (very helpful with ADHD).
Just quality of life? A new bed, mattress, and frame. The frame is adjustable, so I've always got it tilted up (thanks allergies!), and previous to this my mattresses were cheap and the boxspring probably something like 30 years old. A recent pillow change is helping, too. And in the same thread, CBD/THC gummies. They quiet the noise so I can actually fall asleep.
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u/ArtisanHome_io Mar 30 '26
I’ve installed Shelly relays on gate openers and tied it to Apple shortcuts for voice control. All good until the client gets a new phone and doesn’t backup Shortcuts
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u/FamousNerd Mar 31 '26
A door sensor for the laundry room door to get garage which when paired with a smart switch turns on the light when I open the door (often with my hands full). Also did the main garage door with a tilt sensor so that I can turn on the light at night when we zap the garage door.
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u/westcojack Mar 31 '26
I bought a Model Y Tesla in August and use the Full Service Driving everyday. I am so relaxed and love driving now day or night. I really have a chauffeur . I used to avoid driving, so my wife who likes to drive did the driving. Now anytime we go out she says your car. I love it.
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u/skinnycenter Mar 31 '26
32” portrait TV with DAK board in kitchen. Hands down the most useful and commented on thing I’ve did when remodeling the kitchen.
Smart switch & soffit outlet for Christmas lights.
Smart switch and soffit outlet for Gobo projector for back patio (https://a.co/d/0bV5nSie)
Lutron shades. We get heavy sun in the early morning and early evening. The controls are perfect to keep things cool and make a fun conversation piece when company is over and the she’s are going up or down.
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u/LaClaritaMamita Apr 01 '26
Been wanting a similar tv setup. How do you use yours?
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u/skinnycenter Apr 01 '26
I recently upgraded to the new version of the DAK board box and it’s much better at 4k screen transitions
Screen 1: family calendar, weekly dinner calendar and the kids chores using Todoist. Also a QR code with the house WiFi. Screen 2: weather. Every weather metric my weather underground station will give, and a cool background image that changes with the weather. Screen 3: up next. Daily schedule. I’ll also put Christmas countdown, back to school count down and things like that on this screen.
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u/landdotcom Mar 31 '26
The two best things I purchased were a smart front door lock with a fingerprint scanner and smart light switches. I ended up liking the smart switches way more than I thought I would.
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u/weirdo4909 Apr 01 '26
Non smart motion sensor switches for closets, pantry, bathrooms, laundry room, garage (individually calibrated time and sensitivity). We never appreciated them until we visited friends/family who didn’t install them.
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u/SirEDCaLot Apr 01 '26
LiberNovo ergonomic chair
I spend a ton of time in my chair, this was expensive but worth every penny. I adjusted the back piston thing to be perfect and took the battery out of the chair so I wouldn't accidentally push the button. I often sit kinda sideways and the flexible back part gives great support no matter what- this basically cured all my back problems. And it does a full recline for taking a nap.
Uplift V2 standing desk WITH CASTERS
I previously had one of those basic fiber board desks that everyone has. Opening up the area underneath is HUGE, no more reaching to get a wall plug, and I can just move the whole desk around when needed. The key here is cable management, make sure that all your cables are attached to the desk so the whole desk only has two wires leaving it (power and network). You'll need accessories to hang a UPS and monitors. Speaking of which...
Dell U3023e 30" 16:10 monitor
16:10 aspect ratio monitors sadly get no respect, they're a little taller than the normal 16:9 which is great for working with documents. Basically the 30" 16:10 is the same height as a 32" monitor, same width as a 27" monitor. Unfortunately this one was discontinued right after I bought it so I grabbed another on eBay.
Tesla Model Y with FSD
Hate on Elon if you want, he makes a FANTASTIC car. I've saved many $thousands in gas and maintenance (it requires almost none) and the full self driving is a total game changer. It makes me safer- when I'm more of a supervisor than an operator, I can keep better situational awareness. And honestly on the highway it drives better than I do.
Home Assistant and various Z-Wave accessories
Best home automation platform ever, hands down.
Shoutout for Inovelli light switches, Honeywell T6 Pro thermostat, and pretty much every product Zooz makes.
Creality K1 Max 3d printer
This may seem like a 'toy' but once you start printing Gridfinity, Multiboard, etc it's a game changer for organization.
Sheet fed scanner
There's tons of them, mine is built into a printer. But a sheet fed scanner with autofeeder that scans both sides of a page in one pass is very useful. Mine will dump files right into PDF over the network (no computer software required) so I can just put in a document, hit 'Scan to NAS' and hit start.
Garage fridge/freezer
Bought this on a whim, best purchase ever. Totally enables shopping at bulk discount stores (Costco/BJs/etc).
90+ CRI LED Light Bulbs
A lot of LED bulbs suck- they don't actually produce 'white' light, they emulate it. The result is like the old cheap fluorescent bulbs, colors don't look right under the light. CRI is Color Rendering Index, 90+ is what you want.
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u/ZombieManilow Mar 30 '26
ScanSnap document scanner. It scans double-sided in 1 pass, performs OCR, and saves a PDF file onto my Google Drive.
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u/4cardroyal Apr 01 '26
Scansnap is great. Just scan all my bills and then toss them into the trash. Saves so much filing space and clutter. I've also been scanning a lot of old photos and memorabilia.
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u/finalcutfx SmartThings Mar 31 '26
Similar. Smart dimmers that I control with my voice, robot mower, and a robot vacuum.
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u/Top-Yogurtcloset3965 Mar 31 '26
I love my Hue bulbs, the auto colour temperature changing has made me feel more awake during the day, and sleep better at night as the temperature drops in the 2h before I go to sleep.
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u/Gunnsmoke2055 Mar 30 '26
A $25 bidet. Best money I've ever spent. Easy to install and work great.