What I'm about to present has to be one of the most extravagant Home Assistant automations I have ever seen. It combines a Philips Hue dimmer switch, six ESP32 boards, a B7 Wristband beacon, and an absolutely massive Node-RED flow. The result? A single remote which can control just about everything in one person's smart home.
How the location-based Philips Hue dimmer switch works
The principle of this creation is basic: You have a bunch of ESP-32 board running ESP32-mqtt-room scattered around your smart. These devices can tell Home Assistant in which room you currently are by communicating with a B7 Wristband beacon. How exactly this community member gained access to a device which is targeted at hospitals, I do not know, but just about any iBeacon will work with ESP32-mqtt-room.
In the background, Node-RED waits for any button pushes and once one occurs it will first check in which room the button-pusher and their iBeacon are located and will then execute an action based on that.
Useful or just a bit silly?
The question that begs to be asked is whether this automation is actually useful, or just a bit silly and something you might do for a laugh. According to the creator, they can remember each action and at the end of the day, only that matters. To me, it seems like a more economical and ecological option than buying a remote for each of the six rooms.
The goal of sharing this automation on Home Assistant Guide is not just to be able to gawk at what someone else is doing and having a laugh because it seems a bit out of this world. The location-based actions on a Philips Hue dimmer switch are a perfect example of what makes Home Assistant better than any alternative: Home Assistant is what you make of it.
