Posted inAutomation
Getting Your Home Assistant Ready for Autumn
Autumn is when a smart home starts earning its name. During summer, the house can mostly look after itself. The sun is up early, the evenings are bright, heating is…
Posted inAutomation Home Automation Smart home
The Night Your Smart Home Became Haunted: A Halloween Automation Story
Every other day of the year, we ask our smart homes to behave. Turn on the lights. Save energy. Keep the temperature comfortable. Send important notifications. Be reliable. Predictable. Boring.…
Posted inAutomation Home Automation Smart home
Preparing Your Smart Home for Halloween: Building Your Own Haunted House with Home Assistant
Most of the year, we ask our smart homes to behave. We want automations to be reliable. We want lights to turn on when we enter a room. We want…
Posted inAutomation Smart home Z-wave
Testing Your Smart Fire Safety System in Home Assistant (Part 3)
Building a smart fire safety system in Home Assistant is only half the job. The real value comes when you can trust it. And trust does not come from configuration…
Posted inAutomation
Advanced Fire Safety in Home Assistant: Full Emergency Automation and Smart Evacuation (Part 2)
In Part 1, we focused on the fundamentals of integrating smoke detectors with Home Assistant and building a basic emergency response system. That setup already provides a significant safety improvement…
Posted inAutomation
Making Your Home Safer with Smart Smoke Detectors in Home Assistant (Part 1)
Fire safety is one of those topics that rarely gets attention in smart home setups—until something happens. In reality, smoke alarms are still one of the most important safety devices…
Posted inZigbee
When Zigbee Devices Misbehave: A Friendly Introduction to Home Assistant ZHA Device Handlers
If you’ve been using Home Assistant for a while, chances are you’ve had that Zigbee device. You know the one. The sensor that proudly reports itself as a toaster.The button…
Posted inHome Automation Zigbee
120 Zigbee Devices Later: My Move from Zigbee2MQTT to ZHA
I have recently started a new project in my Home Assistant setup that I have called "Better Zigbee". The goal is not necessarily to replace something that was broken. In…