Home Assistant. Few pieces of software have been so influential in my life over the past few years. Home Assistant is a home automation platform with more integrations than you can shake a USB stick at. It’s a great option because it runs locally, which is good for data security and for reliability. I have been running Home Assistant for several years now and have been slowly integrating more and more features into my instance. Every device that I add to my house must meet several requirements:
- It must work with Home Assistant (even if it must be via an unofficial plugin)
- It must be locally controlled - no cloud integrations. Devices must work on a segregated network with no internet access.
- It must have a manual fallback (if applicable).
The journey has taught me a ton and it’s been a ton of fun.
Doorbell
I have a video doorbell that is connected to HA. When the doorbell is pressed, Home Assistant calls to a Volumio VM that plays the chime. I have a number of chimes that I can select to play via a Home Assistant dashboard. The chime plays via speakers set up throughout the house and wired to the amp in the server rack. It also sends a notification to my phone.
Weather
I use a Tempest Weather System to get real-time weather data. I can track rainfall, wind, temperature and much more - but the thing I use the most is the ambient light sensor. Home Assistant triggers several automtations based on the light level outside. For example, my outdoor garage lights come on at dusk.
WLED Lights
With ESP32 controllers and LED strips so cheap, and WLED so feature-rich, I’ve been putting accent lighting around the house. In the kitchen, I have lights under and above the cabinets. I have a strip under the couch, and under the cabinets in the bathroom. They are mostly used as night lights, and all come on at night. However, they are RGB, so fun patterns can also be set up for the correct occation. All can also be toggled via HA.
Blinds
I use Switchbot Tilts to open and close my blinds whch are connected to Home Assistant via an ESP32 Bluetooth proxy. Home Assistant opens the blinds at the same time every morning and closes them when the sun goes down (via the Tempest light sensor).
Cameras
I have person detection in my security cameras, and Home Assistant is able to turn on the porch light when someone walks up my sidewalk.
Bedroom Lights
I have the lights set up to come on in the morning with my alarm.
Door Sensors
I have sensors on the doors, including the garage door. If the garage door is still open when the sun goes down, Home Assistant sends me an alert.
Vacuum
I have a dashboard set up for my robot vacuum and I can kick off custom jobs from the Home Assistant dashboard.
Thermostat
I have a thermostat with local control and can adjust the temperature from the Home Assistant dashboard.
Power Monitoring
I have monitoring set up in my electrical panel, which dumps data into Home Assistant. This allows me to graph and better understand my power utilization.
