this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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Home Automation

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So I have a bunch of home automation projects I've been tinkering with weather related. One of which is an air quality sensor that determines when the air quality is bad with the intention of displaying some visual notifications around the house. I've been working on the coding for it and currently have it sitting on my desk in my home office. My most recent addition to it was having it graphing the data out to a webpage on my home network so I could see the change over time. The day I finished it and started testing was the day before Thanksgiving, my niece, 14 years old, decided she wanted to spend the night to hang out with her cousin, my son, since her mom and dad were coming over for Thanksgiving the next day anyways.

My home office is also our guest room, so the bed she sleeps in is in there. She went to bed about 10, I went downstairs to play some video games and have a couple of beers. I finally went to bed about 1 am, when I walked passed her room, I could hear her talking on the phone.

Next morning comes and after everyone is up and moving I decided to check on my air quality sensor and see how the data looked on the graph. As soon as I pulled up, something was really suspicious. It was basically a flat line with values between 1 and 5 most of the time, but at 1:05 am and 1:15 am it spiked twice to ~150. I took me a few seconds to put 1 and 1 together... "the only time I've ever seen it get that high was when food was cooking and there was smoke coming off the stove"..... ohhhhhhhhhh.

I called her into the room and showed her the paper and told her, "The only reason these numbers would show like this is there was some kind of smoke in the room". She said, "I don't smoke". I said, "Or something like a vape pen." Her face went white, "Are you going to tell my mom?" "No, but you need to give me the vape pen". So now I have a vape pen.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Pull it out in front of her and casually vape. Assert your dominance.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Jesus Christ… all this just to find out she vapes. Congrats.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

“So now I have a vape pen”

HOME AUTOMATION FOR THE WIN

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

lol, that ending..

"so now i have a vape pen."

Classic

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Personally I would have made her watch a documentary on how vape pens can lead to health issues like collapsed lungs and then I’d give her a test on it. Then I wouldn’t say anything. Other choice: she can turn herself in. Vaping is pretty dangerous and taking the pen may or may not help. She can likely just get a new one.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (7 children)

I thought this was going the "she farted" direction, cause I've heard of those modifying air quality sensor values.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

It does. Don't ask me how I know.

Okay fine I darted on it and it read it got a warning light and said unsafe for vulnerable populations. 🤣

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah that was my thought too. It always makes me laugh when my dog is sleeping behind my chair in my office and I hear Alexa tell me the air quality has recently changed to poor. I love that dog but her farts are toxic.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Farthing is not lady like. So she can’t use that as an excuse. Dudes are like whatever. I farted that’s why the air quality spiked.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I agree. I’d expect a young lady to deal more in pennies than farthings.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Damn, i was curious about this while reading. Will organize a family event about who got the most toxic fart.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Opening any kind of alcohol upsets mine. Or rather, it did... suddenly it isnt anymore which is probably a bad sign.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

It was always fun farting on the M8 chemical detectors. WHOOP WHOOP, WHOOP WHOOP!

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

What sensor are you using?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

When my old room mates used to smoke weed inside even though we had a balcony, my auto air filter would kick on high speed and show red… it sucks. I hate people that smoke inside.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Good job not being a twat and narcing on her. Three rules for life, mind your business, don’t rat on your friends, and keep your mouth shut.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

You're using your powers for evil. I remember when I was 14, cigarettes seemed so expensive. Kids these days have to get a pod and a device. Probably going to take a week to save up that much. I guess unless they have an OnlyFans page and now look at the bigger problem you caused here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Don't be a dick

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I'd love to read the post from her perspective too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

When I worked this in a big office we did optimizations but the trends were kinda funny. My findings were that IAQ was good except at 10pm and that IEQ was good all day and we'll below decibel targets until 10pm.

My big take away was to make sure night time cleaning crews had breathing and hearing protection. I have no pen, no mask, no muffs!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (10 children)

Stop being her friend and be an adult. Give the vape pen to her mom and explain the circumstances and let mom decide what, if anything, to do. At 14 she has no business vaping and you might just save her long term lung damage.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Every family is different. Get out of here. You’d also have a way bigger influence on them if you remain the cool trustworthy aunt/uncle. You can teach them lessons they will actually listen to if they trust you. Not so much if you’re a nark.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm so glad you posted this. That's exactly what my wife and I came to. We know she's got some more bad decisions coming up in the future, were hopeful she knows we are here for her if she needs it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You want to Make sure she knows she could call you if she’s ever in a jam. Like sick at a party or her ride home is drunk etc. You made the right move IMO it’s important she knows she could trust you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

My kid knows all these things but also knows if they fuck up they will have to own it and if they break the law we’re not going to make it go away for them. We will support them to the end of the world but that doesn’t mean they get out of trouble with no consequences. All this “be their friend” and “be the cool parent” BS just leads to kids who refuse to take responsibility for their misdeeds and give up at the first sign of resistance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I’m not a parent but i admire your principles. But I also think it’s important a kid knows they have family they could rely on to get them out of a situation without to much emotional torment. (So they feel comfortable taking the safe route out) with consequences later of course and reflection on lessons learned.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Not everyone has a great home life, and there are absolutely situations where the right answer, even for stuff that's quite serious, is to not say a word to the parents.

And that's ignoring the point everyone else is making regarding having someone that the kid trusts, so that when they screw up badly, they have someone that they are willing to call or tell about it, instead of trying to hide it from everyone, letting stuff get much, much worse.

A whole lot of this can be summed up like this: Sometimes, there are no good answers, and you only have the choice of different kinds and degrees of bad ones.

In this case, I think OP made exactly the right call.

Can she get another vape pen? I mean, let's be honest, she probably already has.

But now she knows that if she gets into a much worse situation, she has an adult who is both willing to call her on stuff, and who isn't going to do something to make it worse.

She's 14, that's both old and young enough to do stuff with people that she's not supposed to, in places that she's not supposed to be, and for it to turn into something bad in a hurry.

[–] 0x0001 1 points 11 months ago

Kids need adults they can trust, you're not going to stop her by talking to her parents.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

There's no reason to believe involving a parent is meaningful. Not every family situation is the same.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

There’s every reason to believe that. Perhaps not true in tiny minority of cases, but in western culture, in general, this is considered responsible parenting/adulting.

OP is free to make the decision they think is right. I am free to suggest an alternative course. You are free to point out the corner case that may apply.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If I were my kid, and some other adult knew my kid was vaping, I'd be PTFO at that adult first and foremost for withholding that information from me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Your kid is not my responsibility. And if you think the angry dad is going to get you anything more than laughed out of the room then that says more about your parenting abilities than anything else.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So my kid isn't your responsibility, yet you took the time to investigate, interrogate, and confiscate stuff from her? Your argument is falling apart.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Meh. I disagree

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I can see both sides on telling her parents, but if you're not going to tell them, I would definitely pull her aside in the future and follow up on it. If you think she is continuing to vape, I woulh definitely tell them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (5 children)

There is a lot going on with her, she's fragile. It was Thanksgiving, I didn't want to put her mom in that state of mind. I talked to my wife about it and we both came to the conclusion that she's probably going to be making some more bad decisions and when she does, we want her to know she can trust us. We did have a conversation with her, much more than what I posted. I don't think we are going to change anything, but I hope it's been driven in that we love her and are here for her.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

You are an amazing Uncle and Aunt.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Kids always end up outing themselves. Either the parents will figure it out, or they mess up and leave one in a pocket for the laundry.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (7 children)

Air quality sensors are scary, especially if you've got a good CO2 sensor. I can tell when my partner is home, food is cooked, window open, small group visiting, large group visiting, far-uvc sterilizers running, all from a few numbers from

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I bought a Kidde Co2 monitor the other day which also monitors TVOC. It’s fun to watch it get mad when there is a whole lot of cooking going on (ie Thanksgiving)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I just started looking, but haven’t seen any devices that measure CO2 and CO? Any thoughts or advice?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I had no idea this was even a thing. I only have toddlers but I will definitely have this when they are of age.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

You suck!!!!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

She should have just said that she had chili for lunch.

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