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Monthly Battery Checks
Every month I have a routine where I make sure batteries and devices that I don't use regularly are charged. Some may think that I'm a "prepper" getting ready for a major disaster, but I'm definitely not that extreme (I don't have a bunker and am not off the grid!). You never know when some of this will come in handy; a few months ago the power went out at dinner time due to an emergency transformer replacement. I pulled out the LED lanterns I have (the orange pucks in the picture) and we had light. It wasn't a big deal.
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Fighting back against rebates
The other day I was filling out a rebate form and it got me thinking. Rebates are a great way for companies to make people believe that they are getting a deal on a product. The reality from what I've read, is that most people don't bother filling out rebate forms or fill them out incorrectly and don't receive the rebate thereby making rebates just a marketing gimmick. Years ago, the minority of people that received rebates got checks that they could deposit.
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Dealing with the influx of scooters
I try to get out and run 3-4 times a week down by Mission Bay as there is a nice path and I don't have to be afraid of vehicle traffic. I used to run on the sidewalk where there was one and on dirt when there wasn't; however with traffic whizzing by at 55 mph (speed limit is 45 mph), I got smart and decided that I'd just drive to a nice place and run. Last year on one of my runs, I noticed electric scooters parked in groups along the path. Over the course of the next few months, the scooters started appearing just about everywhere I went in the city.
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Adding Energy Monitoring to Home Assistant
Now that I have Home Assistant running pretty well, I've started seeing what else I can add to it. There are several components for monitoring energy usage, but sadly none for my Rain Forest Automation Eagle Energy device. After a quick search, I found a Node-RED flow that looked promising. It would query the local API of the device (or the Cloud one) and give me an answer. The next step was seeing how to get that into Home Assistant. I found the HTTP Sensor which would let me dynamically create sensors. (There is so much to explore in Home Assistant, it will keep me entertained for awhile.)