I had a little revelation, and remembered that not every post needs to be a few pages of high-quality, deeply complex, well-researched content. I can just drop a paragraph and run. Something that is much easier now that my self-hosted gitlab installation is stable enough to not need rebuilding every time I write something new 😉

Anyway, I work from home, and my office is out in the back garden. During the winter months, I finish work long after sunset, so found myself turning on the dining room lights to (slightly) illuminate my commute back across the garden.

After far too long (more than days, shorter than months), the lightbulb went on above my head, and I set up a little automation in Home Assistant to say “When I turn off my office desk smart plug, if it’s after thirty minutes before sunset, turn on the dining room lights”. Not perfect, because it’s pointless on a nice clear sunny day, but on a properly grim, dingy, rainy day, it makes a difference.

Next step, improve my quality-of-life even further by integrating the weather, or even better, add a lux sensor to my automation and use the light level to decide if I illuminate my commute.