We had a need to have a simple overview of birthdays for family and friends. The goal of entering this in Home Assistant is to be able to create automation around birthdays. For example. get a notice when a birthday is approaching, or adjust lights in the home when it…
Smart home
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Unique ID
If you have created an entity manually in Home Assistant, you might have seen the message “This entity (‘abcde.fghi‘) does not have a unique ID, therefore its settings cannot be managed from the UI. See the documentation for more detail. Some entities can’t be fixed, but you can fix some. Like for…
Automation
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Random quote
How about starting the day with a random quote, or getting encouragement after a workout?With the help of the automation in Home Assistant, this is possible to implement.In this example, we have used Node-Red to create the automation itself, but it can also be done by using the automation in…
Automation
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Automation for entering and leaving Zones
Sometimes it would be nice to get a notification when someone enters or leaves a Zone. An example could be that a person leaves home, or a person enters school. In Home Assistant this could be done by just creating automation based on entering/leaving Zone. But what if you have…
Automation
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Outdoor light
In order not to use unnecessary power, all lights outdoors are controlled by LUX. That is, how much light there is. When it gets dark enough, we turn on the outdoor light, and as soon as there is enough light, we turn it off again.The advantage of measuring the brightness…
Smart home
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Christmas lights
What is not Christmas without some Christmas lights (which we can automate).We have made it very easy in terms of the automation of the Christmas lights.Outdoors we have used Twinkly string Christmas lights. These are connected to the Home Assistant to be able to turn them on and off. Not…
Automation
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Remember to charge your car
What is no more annoying than discovering that you had forgotten to plug in the charger for the car before going to bed. Or maybe even more annoying, to come up with it right after you go to bed.But do not despair – Home Assistant may be able to help…
Smart home
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Firmware upgrade
Even if you have a closed smart home network, you may want to upgrade the firmware on your Zigbee and Z-wave devices when there is an upgrade.When you upgrade the firmware on a device, it will both correct errors and remove any security holes. It can also come with new…