Tagged: Home Assistant

monitoring at home

Jan 2023

use a sub-domain to access your home server (eg Home Assistant) via nginx proxy manager using CNAME

the need for a sub-domain: Your home network allows you access to ‘services’ such as an IP camera, the router, Home Assistant, a wi-fi access point, a NAS drive (eg Synology or QNAP) and...

time of flight sensor VI53L0X mounting and calibration

home & garden / monitoring at home

Oct 2022

calibrate a ‘Vl53L0X time of flight sensor’ to measure water or oil tank level

a tank level sensor that’s more useful than anything you can buy. This post shows my housing for a sensor that measures oil and water levels. The sensor is a VL53L0X time of flight...

monitor oil or water tank liquid level with a time of flight sensor

home & garden / monitoring at home

Oct 2022

heating oil tank level – Vl53L0X time of flight sensor version

make a heating oil tank level sensor that’s more useful than anything you can buy can measure oil level in any unit – litres, kWh, gallons or days until I need to refill the...

monitoring at home

Sep 2022

a DIY security camera system with object detection, recording and phone notifications – using Docker, Frigate and Home Assistant

Let’s start with the reminder that an easy route to a security camera setup is to buy a kit with cameras and a system box to record events on site – you’ll find plenty...

handling data from experiments / home & garden / monitoring at home

Mar 2022

use a smart switch to turn off a lithium battery charger

I know that I ought not leave things powered on. Knowing that is easier than remembering that an e-bike or drone or laptop battery is still connected. Below I show how to turn on...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Feb 2022

this motion detecting night light tells Home Assistant when you pass by

The very popular, but hardly-known Xiaomi nightlight, which lights up a dark space when you pass, now has a ‘smart’ version. A night light is nice on a dark stairway and toe-saving on a...

monitoring at home

Dec 2021

connect remotely to your home network using the WireGuard add-on in Home Assistant

Why do this? At an early point on the journey to network heaven you may have a need to connect from some holiday location say, to a camera, your computer, a home automation setup...

monitoring at home

Nov 2021

how to stop a smart light and switch states getting out of sync

what do we mean by getting out of sync: Scenario one: You’ve two table lamps which are controlled independently either because they’re smart lamps or because you’ve two regular lamps controlled by two smart...

monitoring at home

Aug 2021

access your Home Assistant remotely using DuckDNS, Letsencrypt and the nginx SSL proxy

The Home Assistant home automation hub is more useful if you can access it remotely. In addition to having anywhere access with a browser URL, there’s an excellent phone app to access Home Assistant....

monitoring at home

Aug 2021

use nginx proxy manager with home assistant to access many network devices

If you need to access Home Assistant remotely away from home, skip this page and instead go to access your Home Assistant remotely using DuckDNS, Letsencrypt and the nginx SSL proxy. This page is...

monitoring at home

Aug 2021

use the smart device app even if you use an automation platform

Your smart bulbs, switches and door bell all come with a useful manufacturer’s app – over time you’ll accumulate many such apps. While Home Assistant might make them redundant, here are couple of tips...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Feb 2021

how to know when the washing machine has finished

If you need to know when a device, like a dryer or washing machine has finished working, get a ‘smart plug with energy monitoring‘. Amazon list many of them but whichever brand you get,...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Feb 2021

automated fade up dimmer for analogue LED Strips – using a MOSFET and ESPhome

This ceiling ‘coffer’ is lit by four 5m LED strips cut down to size fitted in 2017. If you wanted really, really bright light, these analogue white LED strips were the thing to get....

monitoring at home

Feb 2021

see your sensor readings on a TTGO T-display ST7789V TFT LCD

If you use Home Assistant you can show temperature, time and other sensor entities on this cute display. The inspiration for this mini-project came from a need to display my oven temperature in a...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Jan 2021

what is the temperature of your oven? how to cook reliably with an inaccurate oven

Ovens may have digital controllers or analogue temperature controllers and cooks seem to have blind faith in their settings. In this household the cooks were burning food so I checked the oven temperature. It...

monitoring at home

Jan 2021

how much oil / electricity do I use in a day – Home Assistant or espHome

The measurements that I take around the home provide two things: – a picture of a moment in time – a room temperature for example. – how something changes over the course of a...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Jan 2021

how to integrate 433MHz temperature & humidity sensors with Home Assistant

A home automation platform, such as Home Assistant, allows you to make temperature v time graphs using sensors that you might place around the home. Monitoring temperatures allowed me to get my heating devices...

HE200 HE301 HE308 HE305 HE100

monitoring at home

Jan 2021

can I integrate ‘HomeEasy’ 433MHz devices with Home Assistant?

Yes. Below you’ll see how to control HomeEasy devices through Home Assistant and the RFlink receiver/transmitter. (This also controls other manufacturers’ wireless sockets). You’ll be able to create timers and automation to turn things...

monitoring at home

Jan 2021

control unsupported devices with Alexa or Google Home

or how to selectively expose Home Assistant entities to Alexa with emulated hue Home automation platforms like Alexa, Google Home and Home Assistant show major differences in the devices that they can discover and...

monitoring at home

Jul 2020

use one switch to turn on two lights – in any combination

The need: you use a table light for watching TV and a main (wall) light at other times and you want a coffee table button to switch between one or the other or have...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Jun 2020

T4EU1C and Home Assistant

a 3-gang wall switch for your home automation – using eWelink, T4EU1C and Home Assistant I got to a point where I had plenty of ‘smart’ lights and gadgets but few switches. But then...

monitoring at home

Jun 2020

set up rflink to respond to 433MHz devices and then integrate them with Home Assistant

a project to integrate inexpensive 433MHz RF devices with modern smart devices. We’ve brought all the instructions to get going with RFlink on one page. see also: 433MHz smarter letterbox how to set up...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Jun 2020

project: plot the temperature of your fridge-freezer, pet home or fermenting wine on a history graph in Home Assistant

In a previous project I set up temperature sensors in my room and sent the data via Bluetooth to Home Assistant, the home automation platform. Home Assistant is software that can record measurements and...

monitoring at home

May 2020

how to toggle the state of a light or switch for Alexa in Home Assistant

Toggling a light switch means that a press of the switch will turn the light off or on depending it what it was last doing. There is nothing clever about that but if I...

DCS-D150

monitoring at home

May 2020

take your D-Link DCS-D150 out of the cloud and into Home Assistant

I wouldn’t especially recommend the D-Link DCS-D150 motion sensor but it does have some features that had me buy it. Firstly it plugs into a wall socket above a worktop so it can sense...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Apr 2020

project: plug-in energy meter with graphs of energy use over time

‘Smart meters’ and metering devices usually measure the electricity used by the whole house*. However I prefer to pay attention to the electricity used by individual devices, such as a combination oven, fan heater...

monitoring at home

Apr 2020

control a sonoff switch using eWelink and Home Assistant – without IFTTT or firmware flashing

In this project I control a Sonoff light switch using Home Assistant. You can do the same with other Sonoffs. The switch shown here is the T4EU1C wall plate switch. It works over wifi...

monitoring at home

Apr 2020

control a sonoff switch from Home Assistant using IFTTT

The regular way to switch a Sonoff relay is to use the official ewelink app. Other ways require you to ‘flash’ the Sonoff device with Tasmota or ESPHome software and then control it with...

monitoring at home

Mar 2020

send sensor data from Home Assistant to a spreadsheet

The Home Assistant dashboard (aka ‘Lovelace’) is very good at displaying live sensor data as well as historic sensor data. The display below shows a ‘just now’ reading of the sun and also a...

monitoring at home

Feb 2020

433MHz (aka RF) sensors and devices are good value

How to make inexpensive, ‘old’ technology, 433MHz devices work with today’s smart devices see also: 433MHz smarter letterbox RF sensors and receivers If you’ve used any of the following examples you probably own some...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Feb 2020

best uses for a smart socket

smart sockets have uses. A smart socket adds a little cleverness to a table lamp or electric heater. The printer upstairs takes five minutes to warm up so switching it on by remote control...

monitoring at home

Jan 2020

project boxes for ESP32 and other microcontrollers

How do I safely house an electronics project? Is there a better way to mount a ESP-CAM camera? I’d been looking for boxes in the wrong shop so I found a better shop. My...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Jan 2020

433MHz smarter letterbox – for when you don’t want to walk to the letter box

see also more about 433MHz devices The letterbox is five doors and fifty metres from my desk. The uncertainty of the post lady arriving in the afternoon means that I make wasted journeys to...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Nov 2019

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....

monitoring at home

Nov 2019

introducing what home automation offers

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...

monitoring at home

Nov 2019

the need to use a home automation ‘platform’

In the beginning there was the smart bulb that changed colour and convinced me that here was something trivial and fanciful. Today I’m surprised by the usefulness of the smart gadgets on sale. There...

home & garden / monitoring at home

Nov 2019

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...

nest smart thermostat

home & garden / monitoring at home

Nov 2019

project: smart thermostat – nest and hive

The Google nest thermostat (or its Hive equivalent) are devices which I’d be happy to pay for and recommend. I could easily make something that turned on the heating with temperature as it is...

monitoring at home

Nov 2019

add your own smart devices to Home Assistant using ESPHome

what’s needed to start using ESPhome? option 1: an ESP32 development board with a micro-USB socket option 2: an ESP8266 development board – less power use, but no Bluetooth option 3: an ESP32 development...

monitoring at home

Nov 2019

starting with Home Assistant

Home Assistant is software that connects smart devices. It enables them to have a useful life outside of the app that they come with. You will gain unusual flexibility where a Philips Hue lamp...

rogerfrost.com is a compendium of ideas for using technology with sciencey questions in mind. Started in 1995 to offer ideas to school science teachers, Roger Frost expanded the coverage to home automation, gadgets and sensors to monitor, or understand, what’s going on around us.

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