> Home Assistant already knows which bins (trash cans, for the international readers) are due for collection. [...] What it can’t tell me is whether I’ve actually done anything about it.
My first gut reaction to this was: Have you tried using a vision-language model?
I used to have an elaborate Home Assistant setup with tons of zigbee sensors here and there telling me if front door is not closed properly, if the rice cooker is left on (via current monitoring), if the garage door is left open (with a magnetic contact sensor), if window is left open, if the soil is dry, etc. I had to keep changing batteries of all these things and manage flaky Zigbee connections in the past.
More recently, I've found the absolute most reliable, ~zero-maintainence solution to be an LLM. Home Assistant already has an LLM plugin, you can wire it up to a local LLM if you want, and you can just feed it an image and ask "Is this garage door open or closed" and I found that to be much better for my sanity than changing batteries every 6 months and dealing with flaky sensors sending me false alerts.
I even found it useful for "Did the cat vomit on the floor" and "Do any plants look like they need attention"
and for TFA's use case, if you already have a security camera facing front, you can just feed it that image and ask "Are the garbage bins out"
Thanks. I regret not taking more pictures during the initial testing indoors. I should document these things better, I only think about writing them up when it’s too late
That’s all well and good until the truck driver operating the mechanical arm drops your bin into the truck. Spoiler alert: the bin will not be fished out, it is now garbage.
So those tags are going to have to be a little cheaper before I’ll use them. :-)
> Home Assistant already knows which bins (trash cans, for the international readers) are due for collection. [...] What it can’t tell me is whether I’ve actually done anything about it.
My first gut reaction to this was: Have you tried using a vision-language model?
I used to have an elaborate Home Assistant setup with tons of zigbee sensors here and there telling me if front door is not closed properly, if the rice cooker is left on (via current monitoring), if the garage door is left open (with a magnetic contact sensor), if window is left open, if the soil is dry, etc. I had to keep changing batteries of all these things and manage flaky Zigbee connections in the past.
More recently, I've found the absolute most reliable, ~zero-maintainence solution to be an LLM. Home Assistant already has an LLM plugin, you can wire it up to a local LLM if you want, and you can just feed it an image and ask "Is this garage door open or closed" and I found that to be much better for my sanity than changing batteries every 6 months and dealing with flaky sensors sending me false alerts.
I even found it useful for "Did the cat vomit on the floor" and "Do any plants look like they need attention"
and for TFA's use case, if you already have a security camera facing front, you can just feed it that image and ask "Are the garbage bins out"
Enjoyed this, thank you for writing it up and posting
Thanks. I regret not taking more pictures during the initial testing indoors. I should document these things better, I only think about writing them up when it’s too late
That’s all well and good until the truck driver operating the mechanical arm drops your bin into the truck. Spoiler alert: the bin will not be fished out, it is now garbage.
So those tags are going to have to be a little cheaper before I’ll use them. :-)
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that happening to someone!
Luckily these are only £5 each https://www.alibaba.com/x/1lBJtin?ck=pdp
The majority of cost is the wrover and the programming jig (which I think the manufacturer built to order, it’s very… home brew