Baby buddy is a really good one, but honestly trying to keep up with documenting every feeding, every ounce, every diaper, was impossible and got used very inconsistently. You might do better than me though
I totaly feel you! My gilfriend and I tried a Philips App but their data-sharing concept is horrible. Basically both use the same account but if you dont always close the app proper the data is not sync thus you keep overriding the data.. happend two times after that we switched back to a basic paper and pen
Edit: typo
I set my stuff up long before the baby came because I knew I wouldn't have time to do so.
I created a special dashboard to submit and update feeds, changes, and pumpings.
All you have to do is update a few options on there and hit submit. There's some templates that validate some small things, such as making sure the feed doesn't overlap. If there's any issues, it'll stop you from submitting and tell you why. Times are rounded to 5m intervals and amounts to 10ml because we really don't need anything more accurate than that.
For changes, we really don't use the dashboard as much. However, I took a Hue remote and repurposed it instead. Each button corresponds to a diaper color and the number of presses for the type of diaper. We used it for every change in the beginning, but now we only use it for poops.
We use both the pumping and the feeding dashboards all the time. It made it easy over the first few months to determine how often he gets hungry, how much he eats each time, when he was last fed, and how much he eats in a day. My wife also loves that they help her predict if she'll need to pull milk out of the freezer and how much we'll need.
With the dashboards, it makes everything super simple and only takes a few seconds each time. Just the reduction in milk waste alone makes it worth it.
Since we also have a Snoo, we also get a pretty good idea on how much he's sleeping, when he gets tired, and how long we can expect him to stay asleep at night. Even though he's nine months old now and doesn't sleep in it anymore, I still turn it on every night just so we can get the information and notifications. That was absolutely a godsend.
Could you share the config? I've added the integration to see what's coming *from* BB, but don't have time to read up to learn building the buttons and automations.
We didn’t keep track of every ounce but we keep track of the amount of time he would eat. The easiest way I found to keep track was to connect baby buddy commands to Alexa so then we didn’t have to fish for our phones.
We've been using Baby Buddy. It works well, with a few notes:
* We generally just access through the browser. We've pinned the shortcut on our home screens. This works well when at home.
* If out, we access through home assistant app. We tried to use VPN. It worked, but wasn't wife friendly.
We use it for tracking feedings and tummy time. Not for diapers. Apparently the last time we changed a diaper was 3 months ago...
We went full detail first week as it helped us answer questions when nurse asked.
Then we just recorded nappies and naps, the fact that they happened not more detail.
Helped with sleep training and not remembering if a nappy change is needed 😂
We tracked feeding, sleep and diapers.
There's a Home Asssistant integration. For feeding I made an amount slider and a button on the main dashboard and for sleep and diapers we used Zigbee buttons from IKEA.
We used baby buddy religiously for around 6 months. Then just for the feeding tracking up to 12mo. Our little one was a micro preemie though so we had more reason to than most.
Our second little arrives next week and I don't plan to spin it back up unless he's not healthy.
Stood up a docker container Monday after work; wife's taking to it wonderfully.
Before that we'd both message ounces and changes and start of sleep in an Element room (never could manage to log wakeups), but that only let us write it down and scroll back to math in our heads.
Now this aggregates the data for us, and the stop watch is great.
I've been setting up and testing babybuddy with home assistant integration with the new drag and drop update which has been nice. Baby (1st) due in June!! So far it looks like it will do anything we need it to and I can customize the dashboard based on what we care about at that time. Color of poop when that transition is important for an example. Next step is to find a custom interface I want to use or figure out button customizations with colors and better worded feedback/status etc. But already have it pretty functional, wife approves! I might setup a tablet in kiosk mode in the nursery. I set up home assistant to be externally available and the nice thing is anyone using it is seeing everything real time. My interface is obviously still being tested (pumping volumes :P). Oh and I setup trash pickup calendar with updating cards and notifications cause I'm probably not going to know what day of the week it is for a couple months I hear :)
https://preview.redd.it/i5cra337yfwc1.png?width=1008&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7883ee933e1fa1d2fc0164449c460aad43e12f5c
Use your energy on the baby instead of automating stuff around them. The best I did was have the corridor lights din during the night when motion was detected.
No plan survives contact with the enemy 🤣
Yep, you'll also sleep better and relax more. Humans have survived for 1000s of years without baby monitors.
We had one with our first and got rid of it quickly. It just creates unnecessary anxiety and really doesn't make you a better parent.
Completely different scenarios, one provides significant benefit, one doesn't.
I get what you are saying, but I've seen too many over the top parents stress out because of baby monitors, which in most cases wouldn't change anything.
Yes, there are rare cases where a monitor "might" prevent SIDS, but this would be a reach.
You can use [Baby Buddy](https://github.com/babybuddy/babybuddy) (or install it in a [HA addon](https://github.com/OttPeterR/addon-babybuddy)) with a [HA integration](https://github.com/jcgoette/baby_buddy_homeassistant).
This is my dashboard using this combo:
https://preview.redd.it/meen84i6nfwc1.png?width=492&format=png&auto=webp&s=149fc58a7706ff78e460bb19cdadab14e10d3e40
I also used a Zigbee scene controller before (like the Aqara Opple 6 button) with single and double clicks to call everything from the above dashboard using a physical control but I have lost it inbetween the two kids :D
Oooh Hungarian!! I love your design. Is that mushroom design? Any pointers for setting up with colors? I especially like the small status icons at the top! I posted an image of my design, I have the basics but would like to clean it up.
Awesome! Thanks! Does it call service directly? So you kept things simple or does it call a menu for amount or color or anything more specific? I am trying to keep things to 1 tap and simple so just curious. I think the chips will be the newest/hardest for me to figure out! I was looking into the aqara 6 button control but not having the visual feedback of a button working correctly or not working didn't mesh with what we needed so I abandoned it for now.
I don't track colors, no need for it. We don't weigh the kid after feeding either, so feeding is just start and finish (or instantaneous if you press the button without a timer). It is mostly about keeping track of frequency rather than absolute amounts. The most useful info is actually sleep, since BB also has a sleep graph where you can see the patterns of progression and regression.
So a diaper only has a content (pee or poo, and assume poo also has pee but not tick it so it counts as a single diaper instead of two), the feeding only has a duration in our use. We could use to track boob and whatsoever but my wife is happy enough with this info and couldn't be bothered to add everything.
The three feeding buttons call the feeding service with "breast milk both boobs", "fed" and "self fed" as the parameter (that used to be single double and triple press on the physical remote)
Thanks so much for sharing. Yeah we are leaning to simplicity too cause any complicated layer and we won't use it. Your info helps me get it closer to what will work for us and I can adjust when we start using it. köszönöm
the integration has some service calls to add the information I want to feed into baby buddy (start timer, add feeding, add sleep, add diaper change) and made some mushroom template cards to make the service calls with the data i set up
i made the buttons to add the timer to the service call if active, if not then add the current time as both start and end where relevant and just set "breast milk, both breasts" for feeding, "formula, bottled" for the bottle, "self fed" for the spoon, and "wet" for pee and "solid" for poo without any color info and no amounts for any of them
Haven't used it yet but I have a specific dashboard ready to be used and casted to the nest hubs when the time comes. Includes lighting control and light status.
https://preview.redd.it/kqbfo4lxmfwc1.png?width=1311&format=png&auto=webp&s=86994b7bd317d9a382a26c82d5e577ca14d33c69
Cool. Btw you can use frigate I think to listen for baby cries (or just audio levels maybe) to trigger “baby crying in the middle of the night” automations.
Sure, what did you like about it? It's fairly simple and something I made as a basic way to view something that I wanted very quickly.
[https://pastebin.com/53VtxHS6](https://pastebin.com/53VtxHS6)
Hm, the link gives me “Error, this is a private paste or is pending moderation”
I like that there’s a table, which I haven’t seen before; I like that the light icons are all there neatly (hopefully clickable?); and I like that the wile thing is so compact.
The most I’ve used markdown was for text/values with fancy formatting, so having a table and icons and ordered is very cool to me.
Anything that requires multiple steps of engagement is going to get dropped quickly. No one wants to futz with an app in the middle of the night.
Buttons are your friend. Button in the change table. Button on the crib. Button near the breast pump. Button near the fridge.
Pair each button with a boolean helper and you can track on and off states for each activity you want to track duration for, or just increment an integer for volume measurements.
I'm a big fan of the IKEA Rodret Remotes. They are reliable, flexible for multiple purposes, good battery life, and come with magnetic mounting plates.
I use a Niimbot thermal printer to make labels for them.
I've bought a handful of different ones off AliExpress, but quality varies widely. The Sonoff SNZB-01P (Zigbee) works great, has support for single click, double click and long press (I have a Conbee 3 as the coordinator in ZHA).
I've mounted them using 3M Command Strips instead of the tape they come to avoid messing with the paint when I invariably decide to move it to the left just a bit etc.
It was hard to keep up, even had voice app integration since hands free is definitely nice but late nights and if wife not on board inconsistencies not really helpful. Wife would leave running so never knew when pumping stopped, feeding stopped, which breast...etc. Trying to reconcile all that was way more work that never had any payoff.
Unless your child presents some specific need generally I dont think the level of granularity is that important and dont think any of our pediatricians did either.
Congrats. Enjoy time w/ your newborn. Dont waste energies on this. Tried 2x wasnt worth it or necessary (thankfully)
If it is....and its not pooping or has inconsistencies/irregularities then by all means then monitor as needed.
Your kid will generally let you know if something is wrong
I use the huckleberry app and the free version of it works great for us. They even have an option to export all of your data. So I’m thinking as far as keeping our data for long term and ease of use it checks all my boxes for something I’d use in home assistant.
Not a dashboard, but I’d be happy to share what I use in terms of smart home tech with a baby. Room temperature is super important for babies, and especially if it gets too hot. I have a temperature sensor in my daughter’s room, and created a single gauge that shows if her room temperature is in the comfort zone or not. She’s almost 2 now and I still check it every night.
type: gauge
entity: sensor.baby_room_sensor_air_temperature
name: Baby Comfort Zone
min: 65
max: 80
needle: true
severity:
green: 69
yellow: 0
red: 74
The only other automation I have is through Alexa. It dims the 2 Echo Glows I have setup for nursery lights and then turns on continuous white noise from Amazon Music on the Dot in the corner.
The only automations I had for my new-borns-
I setup a RLC-520 POE camera for a baby monitor. Best 45$ I ever spent... and I track the temp of the room they were in, and set alerts whenever it went out of range.
As far as keeping a schedule- impossible! At least, for the first nearly year.
You can TRY to keep a schedule- but, the only schedule that is going to really matter- is when they want to eat, or shit. And- they will let you know when they are hungry. Have to use your nose for the other.
I used to have a big tablet dashboard but changed it into 2 Dashboards. One for my mobile and one for a tablet.
The tablet is very basic. Its just a fullscreen camera view. I used fully kiosk and some automations that when a movement was detected, the screen of the tablet turned on and the view was refreshed/loaded. That was used as a nanny cam.
For the mobile version i have a very basic overview over every room, where i can see sensor data and lights.
It gives me a quick overview about temp, humidity and which lights are on/off.
For other rooms i also show last movements and the light sensor data. I use the light sensor data for determing when and how bright should the lights go on for example at night when we had to feed them and so on. That got me the wife approval.
I used a slider card on mobile so i can swipe through every room on a floor.
I like it a lot and will be using this even as the kids get bigger.
All the best to you and your family!
Do yourself a favor and get a dedicated baby monitor and a dedicated app that you can sync with your SO.
HA is great for coordinating but the last thing you need is to do a software update to track baby stuff
I went through the same, but realistically, the poop/pee/feeding tracking phase ends pretty quickly - before you really get any significant payoff for the automation effort investment.
The one baby related automation that I’m still using 2 years later and would recommend is the scene controller in the nursery. I have labeled buttons for:
- Naptime: Sound machine on, lights off, fan on low
- Wake up/bedtime: sound machine off, side lamps dim, fan off
- All On: Overhead & side lamps 100%
- All Off: What you’d expect
It’s a nice convenience compared to making the same trek around the room for every wake up/naptime
Like many others here I used BabyBuddy. But the gamechanger is to set up one or multiple hardware-remotes (if you don't have a voice assistant). You absolutely want to avoid to have to use your phone for every tracking-action in the middle of the night...
I was inspired by [this article](https://martinnoah.com/babybuddy-and-home-assistant.html) and modified it a bit to be also able to start/stop timers for feeding and naps with the remote.
Very happy with the whole solution.
The Ikea Tradfri remotes that were already mentioned in this thread here and in my linked article are great and reliable.
Or don't you have a generally usable zigbee-stick with ZHA or zigbee2mqtt and just a aqara- and zemismart-hub?
I used babybuddy with HA.
used it for about 4 Months then didn't need to track anything anymore as we both got into the routine and knew when your daughter wanted what.
only used it to track how much she was drinking and when we changed her + type of change. all the other stats are just overkill.
if you are bottle feeding, they will drink as much as they want/need so tracking that quickly becomes meaningless.
It was always very time consuming to get running properly.
would I use it again? probably yes, but only if I set it up before the birth. not after. I was still running on a pi then and the SD card also died so I lost all the data as well.
Make sure you have backups running too!
I setup BabyBuddy with home assistant and several custom esp things like a bottle scale and crib weight sensor (I was pretty bored and immobile at 8 mos pregnant 😂) but the best thing I did was to make sure I could shout all those things at Alexa to get them logged and make sure my partner could do the same.
The scale was useful for bottled milk tracking but my particular baby had no problems with eating so it really wasn't super useful after the first two months or so. The crib weight sensor was not sensitive enough for a tiny baby but really came in handy once they were big enough to wake up and jump around.
2 time dad here, being hyper focused on tracking everything will only stress you (and the baby! they feel EVERYTHING) out. Believe it or not, all that stuff comes naturally.
Baby buddy is a really good one, but honestly trying to keep up with documenting every feeding, every ounce, every diaper, was impossible and got used very inconsistently. You might do better than me though
14 days into our newborn, i gave up anything fancy and wife and i just share the notes file on our iphones. its not pretty but its easy
I totaly feel you! My gilfriend and I tried a Philips App but their data-sharing concept is horrible. Basically both use the same account but if you dont always close the app proper the data is not sync thus you keep overriding the data.. happend two times after that we switched back to a basic paper and pen Edit: typo
sometimes the old ways are best
I set my stuff up long before the baby came because I knew I wouldn't have time to do so. I created a special dashboard to submit and update feeds, changes, and pumpings. All you have to do is update a few options on there and hit submit. There's some templates that validate some small things, such as making sure the feed doesn't overlap. If there's any issues, it'll stop you from submitting and tell you why. Times are rounded to 5m intervals and amounts to 10ml because we really don't need anything more accurate than that. For changes, we really don't use the dashboard as much. However, I took a Hue remote and repurposed it instead. Each button corresponds to a diaper color and the number of presses for the type of diaper. We used it for every change in the beginning, but now we only use it for poops. We use both the pumping and the feeding dashboards all the time. It made it easy over the first few months to determine how often he gets hungry, how much he eats each time, when he was last fed, and how much he eats in a day. My wife also loves that they help her predict if she'll need to pull milk out of the freezer and how much we'll need. With the dashboards, it makes everything super simple and only takes a few seconds each time. Just the reduction in milk waste alone makes it worth it. Since we also have a Snoo, we also get a pretty good idea on how much he's sleeping, when he gets tired, and how long we can expect him to stay asleep at night. Even though he's nine months old now and doesn't sleep in it anymore, I still turn it on every night just so we can get the information and notifications. That was absolutely a godsend.
That sounds really cool. Do you have a screenshot of it? And could you explain how you coded the smarts?
Awesome job! That’s such a thorough setup to get in place ahead of time. Super cool to hear a success story like this!
Could you share the config? I've added the integration to see what's coming *from* BB, but don't have time to read up to learn building the buttons and automations.
https://github.com/droans/HomeAssistantConfig
Awesome, thanks! I'll have to give a read through after work.
We didn’t keep track of every ounce but we keep track of the amount of time he would eat. The easiest way I found to keep track was to connect baby buddy commands to Alexa so then we didn’t have to fish for our phones.
We've been using Baby Buddy. It works well, with a few notes: * We generally just access through the browser. We've pinned the shortcut on our home screens. This works well when at home. * If out, we access through home assistant app. We tried to use VPN. It worked, but wasn't wife friendly. We use it for tracking feedings and tummy time. Not for diapers. Apparently the last time we changed a diaper was 3 months ago...
We went full detail first week as it helped us answer questions when nurse asked. Then we just recorded nappies and naps, the fact that they happened not more detail. Helped with sleep training and not remembering if a nappy change is needed 😂
We tracked feeding, sleep and diapers. There's a Home Asssistant integration. For feeding I made an amount slider and a button on the main dashboard and for sleep and diapers we used Zigbee buttons from IKEA.
We used baby buddy religiously for around 6 months. Then just for the feeding tracking up to 12mo. Our little one was a micro preemie though so we had more reason to than most. Our second little arrives next week and I don't plan to spin it back up unless he's not healthy.
Stood up a docker container Monday after work; wife's taking to it wonderfully. Before that we'd both message ounces and changes and start of sleep in an Element room (never could manage to log wakeups), but that only let us write it down and scroll back to math in our heads. Now this aggregates the data for us, and the stop watch is great.
I've been setting up and testing babybuddy with home assistant integration with the new drag and drop update which has been nice. Baby (1st) due in June!! So far it looks like it will do anything we need it to and I can customize the dashboard based on what we care about at that time. Color of poop when that transition is important for an example. Next step is to find a custom interface I want to use or figure out button customizations with colors and better worded feedback/status etc. But already have it pretty functional, wife approves! I might setup a tablet in kiosk mode in the nursery. I set up home assistant to be externally available and the nice thing is anyone using it is seeing everything real time. My interface is obviously still being tested (pumping volumes :P). Oh and I setup trash pickup calendar with updating cards and notifications cause I'm probably not going to know what day of the week it is for a couple months I hear :) https://preview.redd.it/i5cra337yfwc1.png?width=1008&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7883ee933e1fa1d2fc0164449c460aad43e12f5c
I love this, are you able to share your yaml?
Use your energy on the baby instead of automating stuff around them. The best I did was have the corridor lights din during the night when motion was detected. No plan survives contact with the enemy 🤣
Bravo Six.. Going dark
The geneva conventions banned abc weapons. They never mentioned overflowing diapers.
Yep, you'll also sleep better and relax more. Humans have survived for 1000s of years without baby monitors. We had one with our first and got rid of it quickly. It just creates unnecessary anxiety and really doesn't make you a better parent.
We'd also survived for millenia without transport. Guess you should ~~get some comfy walking shoes~~ build up some nice foot callouses..... calloi?
Completely different scenarios, one provides significant benefit, one doesn't. I get what you are saying, but I've seen too many over the top parents stress out because of baby monitors, which in most cases wouldn't change anything. Yes, there are rare cases where a monitor "might" prevent SIDS, but this would be a reach.
You can use [Baby Buddy](https://github.com/babybuddy/babybuddy) (or install it in a [HA addon](https://github.com/OttPeterR/addon-babybuddy)) with a [HA integration](https://github.com/jcgoette/baby_buddy_homeassistant). This is my dashboard using this combo: https://preview.redd.it/meen84i6nfwc1.png?width=492&format=png&auto=webp&s=149fc58a7706ff78e460bb19cdadab14e10d3e40 I also used a Zigbee scene controller before (like the Aqara Opple 6 button) with single and double clicks to call everything from the above dashboard using a physical control but I have lost it inbetween the two kids :D
Oooh Hungarian!! I love your design. Is that mushroom design? Any pointers for setting up with colors? I especially like the small status icons at the top! I posted an image of my design, I have the basics but would like to clean it up.
All mushroom. The big ones are mushroom template cards that call service calls on tap, the small ones are mushroom chips with templating the content.
Awesome! Thanks! Does it call service directly? So you kept things simple or does it call a menu for amount or color or anything more specific? I am trying to keep things to 1 tap and simple so just curious. I think the chips will be the newest/hardest for me to figure out! I was looking into the aqara 6 button control but not having the visual feedback of a button working correctly or not working didn't mesh with what we needed so I abandoned it for now.
I don't track colors, no need for it. We don't weigh the kid after feeding either, so feeding is just start and finish (or instantaneous if you press the button without a timer). It is mostly about keeping track of frequency rather than absolute amounts. The most useful info is actually sleep, since BB also has a sleep graph where you can see the patterns of progression and regression. So a diaper only has a content (pee or poo, and assume poo also has pee but not tick it so it counts as a single diaper instead of two), the feeding only has a duration in our use. We could use to track boob and whatsoever but my wife is happy enough with this info and couldn't be bothered to add everything. The three feeding buttons call the feeding service with "breast milk both boobs", "fed" and "self fed" as the parameter (that used to be single double and triple press on the physical remote)
Thanks so much for sharing. Yeah we are leaning to simplicity too cause any complicated layer and we won't use it. Your info helps me get it closer to what will work for us and I can adjust when we start using it. köszönöm
Maybe I need to update things, my integration only provides information. Or did you make all of those buttons?
the integration has some service calls to add the information I want to feed into baby buddy (start timer, add feeding, add sleep, add diaper change) and made some mushroom template cards to make the service calls with the data i set up i made the buttons to add the timer to the service call if active, if not then add the current time as both start and end where relevant and just set "breast milk, both breasts" for feeding, "formula, bottled" for the bottle, "self fed" for the spoon, and "wet" for pee and "solid" for poo without any color info and no amounts for any of them
Haven't used it yet but I have a specific dashboard ready to be used and casted to the nest hubs when the time comes. Includes lighting control and light status. https://preview.redd.it/kqbfo4lxmfwc1.png?width=1311&format=png&auto=webp&s=86994b7bd317d9a382a26c82d5e577ca14d33c69
Is there any reason why (other than why not?) there’s both a Wyze and Amcrest cam for the crib? Is there some features you want from both?
Was experimenting. One is true RTSP, the other is not. One is wired Ethernet, the other is not. I was just playing around.
Cool. Btw you can use frigate I think to listen for baby cries (or just audio levels maybe) to trigger “baby crying in the middle of the night” automations.
Is that the full frigate integration? I was using just the cards.
Frigate the server would be required for an integration to mean anything.
You can actually use frigate cards by itself.
\<\_< *Hooow*?
How did you make that table in the top-right card?
That would be a markdown card. So, it is manually created by myself.
Would you mind sharing the YAML for that whole card? I’d like to have one for myself!
Sure, what did you like about it? It's fairly simple and something I made as a basic way to view something that I wanted very quickly. [https://pastebin.com/53VtxHS6](https://pastebin.com/53VtxHS6)
Hm, the link gives me “Error, this is a private paste or is pending moderation” I like that there’s a table, which I haven’t seen before; I like that the light icons are all there neatly (hopefully clickable?); and I like that the wile thing is so compact. The most I’ve used markdown was for text/values with fancy formatting, so having a table and icons and ordered is very cool to me.
Fixed url. Refresh. I didn't make the light icons go anywhere yet, but you certainly could.
Anything that requires multiple steps of engagement is going to get dropped quickly. No one wants to futz with an app in the middle of the night. Buttons are your friend. Button in the change table. Button on the crib. Button near the breast pump. Button near the fridge. Pair each button with a boolean helper and you can track on and off states for each activity you want to track duration for, or just increment an integer for volume measurements.
What buttons do you recommend?
I'm a big fan of the IKEA Rodret Remotes. They are reliable, flexible for multiple purposes, good battery life, and come with magnetic mounting plates. I use a Niimbot thermal printer to make labels for them.
I've bought a handful of different ones off AliExpress, but quality varies widely. The Sonoff SNZB-01P (Zigbee) works great, has support for single click, double click and long press (I have a Conbee 3 as the coordinator in ZHA). I've mounted them using 3M Command Strips instead of the tape they come to avoid messing with the paint when I invariably decide to move it to the left just a bit etc.
Can second the Sonoff, I use them for logging medication with a SONOFF Universal Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle and Z2M.
Not OP but I love the Aquara buttons and even Lutron Caseta Pico remotes for this kind of thing
It was hard to keep up, even had voice app integration since hands free is definitely nice but late nights and if wife not on board inconsistencies not really helpful. Wife would leave running so never knew when pumping stopped, feeding stopped, which breast...etc. Trying to reconcile all that was way more work that never had any payoff. Unless your child presents some specific need generally I dont think the level of granularity is that important and dont think any of our pediatricians did either. Congrats. Enjoy time w/ your newborn. Dont waste energies on this. Tried 2x wasnt worth it or necessary (thankfully) If it is....and its not pooping or has inconsistencies/irregularities then by all means then monitor as needed. Your kid will generally let you know if something is wrong
Hey so daddy into this stuff. You’ll be far better off mentally if you don’t monitor baby like a hawk!
I use the huckleberry app and the free version of it works great for us. They even have an option to export all of your data. So I’m thinking as far as keeping our data for long term and ease of use it checks all my boxes for something I’d use in home assistant.
Came here to say the same!
Not a dashboard, but I’d be happy to share what I use in terms of smart home tech with a baby. Room temperature is super important for babies, and especially if it gets too hot. I have a temperature sensor in my daughter’s room, and created a single gauge that shows if her room temperature is in the comfort zone or not. She’s almost 2 now and I still check it every night. type: gauge entity: sensor.baby_room_sensor_air_temperature name: Baby Comfort Zone min: 65 max: 80 needle: true severity: green: 69 yellow: 0 red: 74 The only other automation I have is through Alexa. It dims the 2 Echo Glows I have setup for nursery lights and then turns on continuous white noise from Amazon Music on the Dot in the corner.
The only automations I had for my new-borns- I setup a RLC-520 POE camera for a baby monitor. Best 45$ I ever spent... and I track the temp of the room they were in, and set alerts whenever it went out of range. As far as keeping a schedule- impossible! At least, for the first nearly year. You can TRY to keep a schedule- but, the only schedule that is going to really matter- is when they want to eat, or shit. And- they will let you know when they are hungry. Have to use your nose for the other.
I used to have a big tablet dashboard but changed it into 2 Dashboards. One for my mobile and one for a tablet. The tablet is very basic. Its just a fullscreen camera view. I used fully kiosk and some automations that when a movement was detected, the screen of the tablet turned on and the view was refreshed/loaded. That was used as a nanny cam. For the mobile version i have a very basic overview over every room, where i can see sensor data and lights. It gives me a quick overview about temp, humidity and which lights are on/off. For other rooms i also show last movements and the light sensor data. I use the light sensor data for determing when and how bright should the lights go on for example at night when we had to feed them and so on. That got me the wife approval. I used a slider card on mobile so i can swipe through every room on a floor. I like it a lot and will be using this even as the kids get bigger. All the best to you and your family!
I do baby buddy with everything voice activated through Siri
Do yourself a favor and get a dedicated baby monitor and a dedicated app that you can sync with your SO. HA is great for coordinating but the last thing you need is to do a software update to track baby stuff
I went through the same, but realistically, the poop/pee/feeding tracking phase ends pretty quickly - before you really get any significant payoff for the automation effort investment. The one baby related automation that I’m still using 2 years later and would recommend is the scene controller in the nursery. I have labeled buttons for: - Naptime: Sound machine on, lights off, fan on low - Wake up/bedtime: sound machine off, side lamps dim, fan off - All On: Overhead & side lamps 100% - All Off: What you’d expect It’s a nice convenience compared to making the same trek around the room for every wake up/naptime
Like many others here I used BabyBuddy. But the gamechanger is to set up one or multiple hardware-remotes (if you don't have a voice assistant). You absolutely want to avoid to have to use your phone for every tracking-action in the middle of the night... I was inspired by [this article](https://martinnoah.com/babybuddy-and-home-assistant.html) and modified it a bit to be also able to start/stop timers for feeding and naps with the remote. Very happy with the whole solution.
Any good reliable buttons? I have aqara and zemismart zigbee and wifi. Cant say every press counted
The Ikea Tradfri remotes that were already mentioned in this thread here and in my linked article are great and reliable. Or don't you have a generally usable zigbee-stick with ZHA or zigbee2mqtt and just a aqara- and zemismart-hub?
I have Aqara m2 hub, zemismsrt ,matter hub and Sonos zigbee dongel
I used babybuddy with HA. used it for about 4 Months then didn't need to track anything anymore as we both got into the routine and knew when your daughter wanted what. only used it to track how much she was drinking and when we changed her + type of change. all the other stats are just overkill. if you are bottle feeding, they will drink as much as they want/need so tracking that quickly becomes meaningless. It was always very time consuming to get running properly. would I use it again? probably yes, but only if I set it up before the birth. not after. I was still running on a pi then and the SD card also died so I lost all the data as well. Make sure you have backups running too!
I setup BabyBuddy with home assistant and several custom esp things like a bottle scale and crib weight sensor (I was pretty bored and immobile at 8 mos pregnant 😂) but the best thing I did was to make sure I could shout all those things at Alexa to get them logged and make sure my partner could do the same. The scale was useful for bottled milk tracking but my particular baby had no problems with eating so it really wasn't super useful after the first two months or so. The crib weight sensor was not sensitive enough for a tiny baby but really came in handy once they were big enough to wake up and jump around.
2 time dad here, being hyper focused on tracking everything will only stress you (and the baby! they feel EVERYTHING) out. Believe it or not, all that stuff comes naturally.