Not the mailbox you have in your Google account, your physical mailbox. 🤓 I have a lot of magnetic contact sensors in my house to monitor the states of the doors/windows. They're also a security measure in case some unwanted movement occurs while I'm away or the security system is armed.
I had one extra, laying around without a use case, then I came up with the idea to use it as a mailbox monitoring sensor. Basically, by placing it in the mailbox, I can get a notification every time a postman drops something here.
| Operation | Action |
|---|---|
| Room View |  |
| Notification Setup |  |
| Actual Notification |  |
| Home Assistant Logs |  |
Setup
Of course, you can achieve the same with similar ecosystems & products, but this is my setup working very well in recent years.
Do you have home automation examples like this? Share in the comments, or even better share a post in Smart Home community.