The goals of my house lighting

I had the following goals for this project:

• Circadian lighting in all rooms – Bright, blue/white light during the day; dim, red/yellow light after sunset.
• Control by switches – I disdain fiddling with tablets/phones to turn lights on and off. I’d also hoped to avoid an always-on speaker listening to me.
• Automatic – Light should shift temperature and brightness automatically throughout the day.
• Ability to override – I should be able to override the automatic settings quickly with a switch. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to see what you’re doing late at night—circadian rhythm be damned.
• Platform independent – Because hue bulbs are expensive, I need to be able to add to the system over time. Everything from DIY light strips to hue bulbs to random smart bulbs from Alibaba.com should work together.
• Self-hosted – All software should live on my home network and work with only a local network.

The Results

The effects have been subtle but noticeable.

During the day, I’m sharp, and at night I’m ready to sleep.

In the evenings, after the sun sets, the lights dim, and it gets harder to read and work on projects—that’s a feature. It’s a signal that it’s time for bed.

The most significant benefit I’ve noticed is that I can get back to sleep after getting up in the middle of the night—now that I’m no longer blinded by harsh overhead light in the bathroom.

Home Assistant setup

Home Assistant made this possible.

The Circadian lighting component (available via Home Assistant Community Store (HACS)) computes solar noon based on my location and auto-adjusts the brightness of my lights and the color temperature based on the time of day.

I use Zigbee2MQTT to capture events from my switches and send them to Home Assistant over MQTT—I found this easier than adding a Zigbee gateway to Home Assistant directly.

I have automation that allows me to override circadian lighting when I need maximum brightness or when I want the nightlight.

The hardware setup

Lights:

• Hue bulbs – I have a lot of hue bulbs.
  • Some are full-color bulbs, while others do color temperature.
  • Three different form factors—A19 bulbs, GU10s for the Ikea Tidig in our kitchen, and the Edison bulb for our fancy dining room light.
  • These are good light bulbs.
• Taloya smart ceiling light – this is the bathroom light, integrated with Home Assistant via LocalTuya.

Buttons:

• Aqara mini switch – one each for me and my partner for controlling the bedroom lamps.
• MOES Zigbee 4-gang switch – bathroom lights—one button for on/off, one button for bright, one for dim, one for the red nightlight.

Other hardware:

• Conbee II Zigbee Gateway – Handles the incoming Zigbee signals.

TODO: finish lighting

House lighting is never done. I have ideas for my lights that I’m still pondering.

1. SAD office light – I’m lacking an extremely bright office light—this is especially noticeable when winter brings darkness at 4:30pm. I’m pondering building something that I can attach to this system.
2. Hyperion media lighting – Ambiant bias lighting for the TV via Hyperion. This is neat, but it’s a low priority since I don’t watch much TV (and my TV is from 2012, anyway. I’m not fancy).
3. Moar WLED – I added WLED strip lighting over the sink (which works perfectly with Home Assistant), but I need more to brighten up the whole space.

Managers are leaders with awkward power 😬

The transition from tech lead to manager is awkward.

You know the work of the team as well as anyone.

But moving to management grants you special powers—all new and unfamiliar:

• You’ll set team goals and vision for the future
• You get to make hiring decisions
• You hold a budget
• You organize special events (and maybe day-to-day events, depending on the support you have)
• You get to talk to the organization’s leadership more often than most on your team

These are superpowers. You should relish these opportunities—you’re empowered to contribute to the team like no one else can.

But your new powers may leave your team uneasy. And if you fail to reckon with this new power imbalance, you risk alienating people.

Never make folks worry about their livelihood 😟

The second you became their manager you forfeited the right to joke around in any capacity about their employment at the company.

– Stay SaaSy

You can hire, and you can fire. This Sword of Damocles now dangles over your relationships as a manager.

“Oh, what’s the worst that can happen? We all get fired?” has ceased to be light-hearted banter.

Folks might laugh, but it leaves lingering doubt. And doubts chip away at the trust teams need to do their job.

Contentless pings from managers are scary 😱

It may seem trivial, but asking your question before getting that initial salutatory reply also allows for asynchronous communication.

– no hello

Now that you’re a manager, your contentless pings have transformed from annoying to panic-inducing.

Sure, you should avoid saying nothing but “hi!” to someone in a direct message.

But you should never, ever say something like, “Do you have a minute to jump on a call?” without context.

“Do you have a minute to talk?” from your boss, out of nowhere, immediately sets people’s minds racing.

Is this about my project? Something with the budget? A policy change? A change to my benefits? Am I being fired?

Your manager powers will wreak havoc on people who tend to catastrophize.

You’re the decider ☑️

People expect you to be the decider. Even for small stuff.

Folks may even be unaware they have this expectation.

But it applies to everything from team vision to where we’re eating dinner at the offsite. You can and should delegate decisions, but you can’t abdicate.

Clarity is key 🔑

Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.

– Brené Brown, Dare to Lead

When you leap from tech lead to manager, you have to learn about people.

And what people need most from you is clarity.

So instead of striving to be liked, or striving to be funny: you should strive to be clear.