This is a Levoit Vital 100 and it has a timer to switch itself off after x hours but i’d like to turn it on automatically.
I’m somewhat fit with soldering and taking stuff apart but i don’t wanna go that route before i have atleast a rough understanding of what’s up with those buttons.
Thx! 🙂
Attatch a sausage to a soneloid and make a capacitive button pusher!
#gifsYouCanHear
deleted by creator
I don’t remember the brand but there are smart home button pushers for this thing. I have no idea how well they work or anything, but it’s a product at least one company made at least one point in time.
SwitchBot
Yes. SwitchBot is the biggie but there are a ton of knockoffs (google “smart button pusher”). The catch is that the security is crap - fine for what you’re doing, but I wouldn’t use it for a garage door, for instance.
I think you’d need a shortcut or script on a computer to run a scheduled task or cron job to start it, but pretty sure that’s available too. (Note - looked at them briefly, just wanted to respond while it was fresh in my mind)
it works for capacitive buttons?
It doesn’t look that way. https://us.switch-bot.com/pages/switchbot-bot
I don’t see why you couldn’t stick something capacitive to the dingus.
iirc there’s a common mod with aluminum foil tape which makes them work great with capacitive touch buttons. For some reason I remember it having to touch the negative terminal for the battery too.
How would you switch it? What’s an example of something capacitive? This hadn’t occurred to me. I do know there are supposedly capacitive styli for phones, but they don’t work very well.
Human fingers.
That would work fine but you’d probably have to replace it every couple days.
Can you do toe subscriptions?
LMBO I posted the answer to your question in this same thread at the exact same time you asked it.
Oh man switchbot is scary, a lot of awful looking IOT stuff though with one wall switch flipping peripheral. I think I’d just rip into the air filter with a soldering iron. Also better check whether the buttons are capacitive.
There are some where there’s no hub, just a standalone (I can’t be arsed to check if you still need the job for switchbot itself). Worth looking at the knockoffs since I know some exist that don’t need anything else. And I wish the security were better, but for a simple case like this I think they’re fine.
You just need a humanoid robot with the latest AI. Then you explain what you want it to do, and if it doesn’t murder you or make you its slave, you might be alright.
what kind of slave?
If it’s on when you unplug it, does it go back on when plugged in? If so then turn off its own timer and just use a regular appliance timer.
oh man, you got my hopes up there for a sec.
sadly it didn’t work.
Aww. Modern tech is too ‘smart’ for its own good.
For anyone looking for a cheap but decent air filter which DOES do this, IKEA’s UPPÅTVIND remembers its last setting when turned off and back on at the plug.
You can build your own in Home assistant using esphome with an esp32 dev board, a linear servo, and a piece of fabric that works on touch screens.
It’s really not as complicated as it sounds, and if you’re wanting to get into smart home stuff, HA is the way to go.
If OP is willing to open it up, you can just bypass the capacitive button and directly close the circuit it controls with the ESP’s pins.
But yeah, Home Assistant and ESPHome are awesome!
I think for all the talk of integrating a servo, wiring in a relay or some other internal bypass makes more sense.
If it has a remote, then using Home Assistant plus an IR emitter might be easier.
Our evaporative air cooler uses IR, we bought a Tuya ir receiver and taught it the remote codes. Whole thing carried through to home assistant with the plugin.
Tuya devices are extremely sketchy. The only reason you should buy one is if you’re going to flash it with Tasmota.
Otherwise it should go in the trash ASAP.
Many of them support ZigBee and work fine in that context. It’s just the wifi devices that are problematic.
Or, if it uses RF, a Bond Bridge.
Great point!
Is using a Christmas light timer not an adequate solution to this problem?
No, it appears that just plugging it in won’t make it go, you have to plug it in and press the button.
I’ve always wondered if something like this would work:
Take a relatively short bit of wire, make a flat spiral at one end about the size of the button, tape that spiral to the button. Then take the other end of the wire hook it up to a relay with the other end attached to ground (or any big metal object probably). I would imagine then closing the relay is “touching” and opening the relay is “not touching”.
I have no idea if that would actually work, but it seems to me like it should. You just need something to interrupt the electric field above the “button”.
As everyone says, what happens if you just turn on the power at whatever time?
quite a few simply turn back on if you pull the power and reconnect afterwards
You just need a humanoid robot with the latest AI. Then you explain what you want it to do, and if it doesn’t murder you or make you its slave, you might be alright.
