FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I am talking about using smart home devices to aid in dormancy. I live in Colorado along the Northern Front Range. Temps can drop at times to almost 20 below zero in the winter so I cannot leave my traps outside. My garage is only about 10 degrees warmer than the outside temperature and I don't want my traps in the frig.

So I have come up with a smart home solution. I have purchased a smart thermostat and grow lights from AliExpress. I have set up an old coleman cooler using these devices and a heat mat. The thermostat is set to come on at 34 degrees F and go off at 35.1. The lights come on for 7 hrs a day. I also have set up a scene so that even if the heat is on and the temp goes below 34 the grow lights also come on as they add a bit of heat also.

Uploading a bunch of photos showing the devices and setup.

I also have a secondary temp and humidity meter in the cooler as well. Just so I know the humidity. I open the cooler during the day to lower the humidity. Close it at night to keep the temperature good.

Obtw the thermostat also shows the amount of energy used when heating.

No it doesn’t but its easy to adjust the start and stop times. It had already started into dormancy before I moved it from its outside location in the last 1/2 of Nov when temps started approaching freezing at night.

All I have to do is bring the app up and change the schedule.

The light controller is the smart plug in the original photos.

Panman wrote: ↑Mon Dec 05, 2022 8:40 pm You can look at the website IFTTT.com (IF This Then That). It has scripts that can automatically turn on and off smart devices based on sunrise/sunset. Smart Life devices are supported.

Unfortunately I only see turn ON at sunset and OFF at sunrise.

That is for sure, really cool but, well, you don't need any light at those temps. Like, at all. Of course, it doesn't hurt anything either so, you know, just saying.

Panman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 1:14 am You can edit the instructions to swap them.

I see no way to download the source code from the site to be able to accomplish that. I am not willing to pay a monthly subscription in order to do so.

Panman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 1:35 pm Set up an account and then use the Create button in the top right corner. For the trigger, search for sunrise and for the event use the Smart Life actions. You can create up to 5 events on a free account.

I just discovered that the smart life app has built in sunrise and sunset triggers for their scenes. This makes it simple to do what you suggest.

Thank you loads for the idea.

Huntsmanshorn wrote: ↑Tue Dec 06, 2022 2:03 am That is for sure, really cool but, well, you don't need any light at those temps. Like, at all. Of course, it doesn't hurt anything either so, you know, just saying.

The temp yesterday rose to almost 60f. I have read that even if one keeps their traps in the frig for dormancy that while its not absolutely required traps do better when coming out of dormancy if they have had a least some light during dormancy.

That said, this is my first vft and my first dormancy so what I have read could be wrong.

Okay, like I said, it won't hurt anything (it might even help against mold) so if all this makes you feel better about dormancy than absolutely you should go for it.