smart sockets vs smart bulbs – introduction
smart bulbs and sockets have select uses. A smart socket adds a little on/off cleverness to a table lamp, electric heater or the printer upstairs that takes five minutes before it’s warm and useful....
Tagged: Home Assistant
what home automation offers – introduction
When you look for home automation equipment you find many systems. They turn on lights and plug sockets; water the garden; unlock a door, turn up the heating; record a security camera, open the...
a case for a home automation platform – introduction
Even if you’ve no need for as much as a smart bulb, you do need to be impressed or surprised by the variety of smart gadgets on sale. There are smart door locks, garage...
calculate how long is the day
… and see how to add features to the Home Assistant display An interest in solar energy is a possible reason to record the sun’s azimuth and the time of sunset. Home Assistant can track...
project: smart thermostat – nest and hive
The Google nest thermostat or its Hive equivalent are items which I’d be happy to pay for rather than make. A first reason is that we rely too much on warmth, and a second...
extending Home Assistant (esphome 2)
If you want to make your own smart measuring device or presence detector or dog watching camera or tea bag lifting robot, the ESP32 and Arduino circuit boards make the gadget you need. A...
get started with home assistant (esphome 1)
The least you need to run your own home automation server Raspberry Pi – a kit with Raspberry Pi 3+ or later with the recommended power supply, 32Gb SD card, heatsinks and/or cooling fan....
link an ESP chip with Home Assistant (esphome 4)
When a ESP32 device has been flashed and powered, it will use the password you added to the code to connect to your wifi. The ESPhome interface in Home Assistant (pic below) will show...
customise a Sonoff smart relay (esphome 3b)
Software which allows you to ‘own’ your devices ESPhome can be used to reprogram a ESP chip so that Home Assistant can control it. I use it to re-program a Sonoff S20 smart plug...
flash a ESP32-CAM to make a smart camera (esphome 3a)
ESPhome is software that can program (or flash) an ESP chip. This chip is at the core of many automation projects. The software works inside Home Assistant running on a Raspberry Pi. The instructions...
automation: turn it off if it’s already hot
The Sonoff POWR2 can be used as the timer on a hot water immersion heater. This model also measures electricity as volts, amps and current. I’ve flashed its wifi chip with different firmware so...
some uses for a raspberry pi computer – introduction
A Raspberry Pi is a small inexpensive low power computer that has numerous uses and hopefully there’s one that chimes for you. I don’t think you’d want to use a Pi for emails and...
project: cameras around the house
There are a variety of camera types to help monitor the drive, a pet, a baby, a device, a bird feeder – whatever. You might want to know what’s eating the rabbit’s food or...
project: does my broadband speed vary?
Here’s how to add a little functionality to Home Assistant, the automation platform. Do try this especially if you’re just starting to add features to Home Assistant. speedtestdotnet: scan_interval: hours: 4 Go to the...
project: a screen with all I need to know just now
There’s less value in having a camera pointed at the front door if I need to click too many things to see it. The home automation platform Home Assistant lets me fill a screen...
automation: turn on lights when I enter the room
The LED striplights in a kitchen use 12v transformers and they are powered through smart plugs / sockets. The sockets are by TP-link – and they remember their on-off state if ever there’s a...
project: smart electricity meter with historic energy use
fit a sensor to the electricity meter for a minute by minute readout The UK electricity meter has a display showing electricity use in kWatt, and every few months someone pops by to read...
project: oil tank level sensor
A heating oil tank level sensor that’s more useful than anything you can buy. Measures oil level in any unit – litres, gallons or days until I need to refill the tank Displays readings...
some of us have a thing about units, data and graphs
The Home Assistant sensor graph offers painless autoscaling with options to set detail and timespan. But how do I alter the data itself? A car fuel tank measures in gallons but it’s more useful...
