Home Automation
Smart home hubs, Home Assistant guides, Zigbee/Matter devices, sensors, and energy monitoring.
I Replaced My Cloud LED Strips With WLED and Home Assistant
A build log for ripping out app-and-cloud LED strips and rebuilding them with WLED on an ESP32, fully local in Home Assistant. Parts, power math, and the gotchas.
Jun 19, 2026
Build a Whole-Home Bluetooth Proxy with a $6 ESP32 and ESPHome
Cheap BLE temperature sensors keep dropping off Home Assistant? Build ESP32 Bluetooth proxies with ESPHome for whole-home coverage, fully local, no vendor app.
Jun 17, 2026
Building a Local Water Shutoff in Home Assistant That Triggers Itself
A build log for tying leak sensors to a motorized main valve in Home Assistant, fully local, no cloud account. The Zooz Titan, the automation, and the hardware failsafe.
Jun 15, 2026
Build a Smart Backyard World Cup Watch Party With Home Assistant
Wire up smart lights, outdoor audio, and portable power so your backyard World Cup setup turns on with one tap. A practical Home Assistant build guide.
Jun 13, 2026
Best Air Quality Monitors for Home Assistant in 2026
CO2, PM2.5, TVOC, and radon monitors that actually feed Home Assistant. Which read locally, which need the cloud, and which have a real NDIR sensor versus a guessed one.
Jun 12, 2026
Building a Fully Local Voice Assistant With Home Assistant Voice PE and Ollama
A build log for a no-cloud voice assistant: Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition, faster-whisper, Piper, and a local Ollama LLM. Wake word to lights-on without a single packet leaving the house.
Jun 10, 2026
Frigate NVR With a Coral TPU and Home Assistant: The Local AI Camera Setup That Killed My Cloud Subscriptions
Build log for running Frigate on a Beelink mini-PC with a Google Coral USB TPU, four PoE cameras, and full Home Assistant integration. No Ring, no Nest, no monthly fee.
Jun 8, 2026
Honeywell T6 Pro Z-Wave Review: The Boring Thermostat That Beats Ecobee for Home Assistant
Six months running the Honeywell TH6320ZW2003 T6 Pro Z-Wave thermostat in Home Assistant. Local control, no cloud, schedules that survived three internet outages, and the C-wire decision you actually need to make.
Jun 5, 2026
Wiring a UPS Into Home Assistant With NUT: Graceful Shutdown for the Whole Homelab
Build log for plugging an APC BR1500MS2 into Home Assistant via Network UPS Tools (NUT). Battery sensors, runtime estimates, and the automation that actually shuts the rack down before the lights go out.
Jun 3, 2026
Zooz ZST39 LR Review: Z-Wave Long Range That Actually Reaches the Garage
Six months with the Zooz 800 Series ZST39 LR USB stick in Home Assistant. Pairing, range tests across a 2400 sq ft house, the firmware update gotcha, and whether Long Range is worth switching for.
Jun 1, 2026
Building a Whole-Home Motion Map with Aqara Zigbee Sensors and Home Assistant
How I built a reliable whole-home motion map using cheap Aqara Zigbee sensors, a Sonoff coordinator, and a single Home Assistant template. The wiring, the gotchas, and the automations that actually got used.
May 29, 2026
I Moved Home Assistant Off a Raspberry Pi to a Mini PC, and Wish I'd Done It Two Years Ago
After three years on a Raspberry Pi 4, I migrated Home Assistant to a $180 N100 mini PC. Faster automations, no more SD card anxiety, room to run Frigate. Here's what changed.
May 27, 2026
The Aqara FP2 Is the First Presence Sensor That Actually Made My Automations Trustworthy
Build log for wiring an Aqara FP2 mmWave presence sensor into Home Assistant — zone setup, HomeKit bridge trick, and the three automations that finally stopped lying about whether the room is empty.
May 25, 2026
Why I Removed Alexa From My Smart Home
An opinion piece on pulling Amazon Echo out of a Home Assistant setup — the privacy creep, the ad behavior, the slow degradation of basic voice commands, and what I replaced it with.
May 22, 2026
Setting Up the Ecobee Smart Thermostat with Home Assistant
A walkthrough of pairing an Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium with Home Assistant — the cloud integration, the local LAN trick, the sensors you actually want to expose, and the three automations that justify the whole setup.
May 19, 2026
I Built a $12 ESPHome Mailbox Sensor So I'd Stop Walking to an Empty Mailbox
A weekend build log for a battery-powered ESP32 mailbox sensor that pings Home Assistant the moment the door opens. Parts list, deep-sleep config, and the gotchas I hit along the way.
May 12, 2026
Setting Up a Reolink Video Doorbell in Home Assistant (Without the Cloud)
A step-by-step guide to getting a Reolink wired video doorbell working locally in Home Assistant — RTSP stream, doorbell press automation, motion alerts, and snapshot cards, all without a Reolink account.
May 8, 2026
Best Outdoor Security Cameras for Home Assistant in 2026
Outdoor cameras that work properly with Home Assistant — local RTSP, no forced cloud, real motion automations. Reolink, Amcrest, UniFi, and Aqara compared.
May 7, 2026
Your Smart Home Should Get Out of the Way
An opinion piece on the philosophy of a quiet smart home: automations that you don't notice, no app dependence, and respecting the people you live with.
May 1, 2026
Best Smart Locks for Home Assistant in 2026
Smart locks that pair cleanly with Home Assistant — Z-Wave, Matter, and retrofit options. Local control, real automations, no vendor cloud required.
Apr 28, 2026
Best Smart Blinds and Shades for Home Assistant in 2026
Motorized blinds that actually work with Home Assistant — from budget Zigbee rollers to retrofit kits for existing blinds. Real picks with real integration details.
Apr 14, 2026
Best Smart Garage Door Openers for Home Assistant in 2026
Make your garage door smart without replacing the whole opener. Three controllers that work with Home Assistant — from a $35 Meross to a DIY ESPHome build.
Apr 14, 2026
Best Water Leak Sensors for Home Assistant in 2026
A $15 sensor can save you $15,000 in water damage. Five Zigbee water leak sensors that integrate cleanly with Home Assistant — tested under sinks, behind toilets, and next to washing machines.
Apr 7, 2026
IKEA + Matter in 2026: Budget Smart Home That Actually Works
IKEA's massive 2026 Matter push — 21 new devices, a dramatically cheaper entry point, and proper Thread border routing — changes the math for budget smart home setups. Here's what you need to know.
Mar 20, 2026
Best Robot Vacuums for Home Assistant in 2026 (With Area Cleaning)
Home Assistant 2026.3 added native area cleaning for robot vacuums. Here's which robots actually support it, which ones integrate best with HA, and how to get your Roborock or Ecovacs cleaning your rooms on command.
Mar 13, 2026
Home Assistant 2026.3: What Actually Matters
Area-based vacuum cleaning, Continue on Error in the automation editor, Energy dashboard badges, and wake word on Android. Here's what's worth your attention in the March 2026 release.
Mar 9, 2026
Matter Smart Plugs for Home Assistant: Are They Finally Ready in 2026?
Matter promised a unified smart home. Smart plugs were supposed to be the easy win. Two years in, here's the real state of Matter plug support in Home Assistant — and whether to switch from Zigbee.
Mar 6, 2026
The Best Smart Plugs with Energy Monitoring for Home Assistant (2026)
Track what's eating your electricity bill and automate around it. These are the best energy-monitoring smart plugs that actually work with Home Assistant in 2026.
Mar 3, 2026
Home Assistant 2026.3: What's New and What You Should Actually Care About
The March 2026 Home Assistant release is a big one — Android phones as voice satellites, a revamped home dashboard, and more. Here's what actually matters.
Mar 3, 2026
Fix Dropped Zigbee Cover Commands with This Zigbee2MQTT Extension
A custom Zigbee2MQTT external extension that automatically retries cover commands when shades and blinds don't respond. Works with any Zigbee cover device.
Feb 27, 2026
Stop Bleeding Watts: How to Build a Private Home Energy Monitor with Zigbee & ESPHome
A practical guide to building a private home energy monitoring system with Home Assistant, Zigbee smart plugs, and ESPHome-flashed CT clamps. Track every watt without cloud dependencies.
Feb 26, 2026
Best Smart Home Hub in 2026
The best smart home hubs in 2026, from Home Assistant for power users to SmartThings for simplicity. Real picks, real opinions.
Feb 22, 2026
Best Zigbee Devices for Home Assistant (2026)
The best Zigbee sensors, plugs, bulbs, and switches for Home Assistant. Tested picks that pair reliably with Zigbee2MQTT and ZHA.
Feb 22, 2026
Lutron Caseta Review: Still the Best Smart Lighting in 2026?
Lutron Caseta review after years of daily use. Why it's still the most reliable smart lighting system you can buy in 2026.
Feb 22, 2026