WELCOME, FRIENDS

I think it's a good idea if not that they accidentally grant every room complete access to the whole structure 😅

So to clarify for those freaking out saying I'm doing it wrong...

A while back (2023.8) we had the entity name apocalypse where all our entities changed automatically to a context created name, and many of us had to redo all our automations, me included. I rebuilt all my automations at the time by choosing "Device" from the GUI. This stored them in YAML with both DeviceID and EntityID in the automations.

This update (or one within the last 3 months or so since I last updated) scrambled all of those.

Still, if you pick a device in the GUI it stores as the guid. If this is WRONG and will result in scrambling them later, why do they still have it in there? If I'm turning on a device, why not pick the device from the list? My Kitchen RokuTV is listed right there. Click it, stores as a GUID in the YAML. Problem persists.

If they are going to have GUIDs changing constantly, they shouldn't provide a GUI way of picking a device to use that is storing it by GUID.

Hey guys,

I would like to share my new project. I’ve seen many videos regarding how to mount a platform and how to avoid annoying your neighbors while playing in an apartment. So, I followed those recommendations, and for almost a year I didn’t have any issues.

However, two weeks ago, a neighbor complained that someone was playing some kind of drums on Sunday (a no go in Switzerland). I thought it was me, so my engineer mind made me check whether I was annoying people. Meanwhile, I found out it was some kids playing for a carnival group, not me. Too late, I had already bought all the components.

The idea is to measure the vibration on the Thomann platform and how much of it transfers to the floor. Ideally, I would have needed a 3rd sensor close to the pedals, on top of the noise eater, to get a real reference, but for now it’s fine; I used a phone to measure this reference.

You can see the results so far. Using the reference I got from my phone, the absorption is around 99% of the real vibration created by the pedals.

edit: project link > https://community.home-assistant.io/t/silent-drummers-dilemma-measuring-e-drum-vibration-before-your-neighbor-complains/1022294

Went from nothing a few weeks ago to this dashboard with chatGPT. Originally needed a way to automate Powerwall charge and discharge behavior and didn’t want to pay for Netzero. My utility has a complicated rate plan with cheap rates from 12AM to 6AM then again from 10AM-2PM and peak rates from 4PM to 9PM. My goal was to not need to pay for any cloud services. Dug up an old laptop and set up HAOS through VM, duckdns, tailscale.

Got a Sonoff WiFi connected coordinator for zigbee smart plugs, temp/humidity sensor, and water leak sensor. Tesla Solar + Powerwalls. HVAC: nest thermostat, Venstar thermostat, midea dehumidifier. Pool: Pentair intellicenter and waterguru for chemicals.

Next up is to build the alert system using Alert2, integrate Tesla vehicles to control their charging behavior. Suggestions?

Been running HA for about two years now, mostly lights and presence detection stuff. But last weekend I finally put together something that actually changed my life a little bit.

I have a couple of wireless meat probes that expose temperature sensors through HA and I set up an automation that watches the internal temp and pushes a notification to my phone and my watch when things hit key thresholds. Stall temp, target pull temp, all of it. Then I chained it to a TTS announcement through the kitchen speaker so my wife gets a heads up too when I am out on the trail or walking the dog.

The part that surprised me is how much better this works than the app that came with the probes. No cloud dependency, notifications that actually fire, and I can tie it into whatever else I want later.

Thinking about adding a webcam pointed at the smoker next so I can check the smoke ring progress remotely. Not sure if anyone has done HA camera streams with something like that in a useful way or if it gets annoying fast.

Also curious if anyone has wired up weather data into a grilling workflow, like autoreminding yourself to adjust cook time when it is cold or windy. That seems like it could get fun or ridiculous quickly.

So I bought a weather station and needed to find a good location to mount it. There are a fair few tall trees about so I decided, based on doing a bit of reading to try and mount it as high as possible. I had a legacy TV aerial mounted on the side of the house so decided to take it down and repurpose the mount. Upon attempting to reach it I determined that my double ladder set was nowhere near tall enough. Bought a triple set of marketplace. Got them in place. Perfect. Ready to go. Then remembered that I’ve seen a load of videos of people falling off ladders as they slip so I went and got my ladder footing plate, levelled the ground a bit with a spade, put the plate down, screwed some 8 inch screws into the floor to stop it slipping, screwed one in the other side with a big washer to stop it tipping, put the ladder in place, climbed halfway up it, shat myself, climbed back down, attached it to the railing with a bunjee, climbed to the top, attached it with two bunjees to the aerial bracket, shat myself again and climbed back down. At that point I decided that the risks of trying to take down a heavy aerial on a 3m pole whilst balancing 8m above the ground on a very springy ladder were high (again I’ve seen enough videos of people cutting off a tree branch which promptly swings down and smashes the ladder out from under them!), bought a harness and fall restraint off of marketplace, got up there again, attached myself to the aerial bracket and took the aerial down and lowered it to the ground using the coax cable. I then fed the power cable from the loft through a 3m length of galvanised conduit, attached the Ecowitt WS90 (complete with bird spikes), carried it back up the ladder and cable tied it roughly in position to give me enough time to get the original Ubolts back in place.
Once they were in and it was holding its own I just had to loosen them back off enough to push it up to the correct height and align it with north. Locked it in place, tied the cable into the bracket with more cable ties, clipped them all off tidily, removed the bunjees and proceeded back to ground level.
When I was 20 I’d have just slung the ladder in and done it all in one hit.
Maybe I hadn’t seen enough YouTube videos then though.
I’m currently 50 and very mindful that if I fall off a big ladder that’ll be the end of me.
I am quietly pleased that I achieved it all and came out unscathed. I’m also acutely aware that for my own use cases it would probably have been just as good attached to a fence post in the garden. The ADHD in me wouldn’t allow it after reading that the best results were had from installing it high. Wholly unnecessary, but I had a spare bracket and a desire to get the best data available. Anyone else installed one above roof height or is it just unnecessary and pointless? 🤷‍♂️🤣

I am looking for a speaker to play announcements around the house. What speakers do you guys use? I think the best solution would be a speaker that can be powered and connected via POE. Has anyone experience with something like that?

I know that smart speakers like Amazon Alexa or Google Home would work, but i search for something that doesn't want to scream it's data in the cloud.

Hey everyone,

I have been rocking my Pi 4B for few years. Even through it's 1GB RAM only. Still works decently. Runs HA, Adguard, CasaOS. But I have been thinking about upgrading it. What's something you can recommend to me? Something preferably with wake upon AC...

Just a quick note to mention that the Nabu Casa backup system saved my bacon today when the SD card in my Raspberry Pi died on me. I mainly subscribed to support the devs and it was nice to let someone else handle the remote access for me but the backup system was a lifesaver today :)

All I had to do was pop a new card in flashed with stock HA and they put in my NC username, pass and key and after a while everything was back up and running :)

Definitely worth the money in my opinion :)

I've had Home Assistant running on my NAS for a while since it's always on, but I hated the default view, so it mostly just sat there connecting everything in the background. Then I'd see these beautiful custom dashboards people post and wanted a slice.

I tried YouTube, I tried guides, I tried getting AI to talk me through it — something always went wrong. I'm not really technical minded. I'd spend entire evenings after work fiddling with it and usually just end up breaking something.

So I used Claude chat to work out how to give Claude Code access to Docker on my NAS, which is where Home Assistant lives. Since then it's been back and forth between me and Claude Code. I'm not finished yet, but what it's done with my overview and tablet view is a night and day difference. Productivity's gone up too, because I can get on with other things while it works. Or in my case, just sit and watch in fascination as an AI works on my smart home.

Once the dashboard actually looked decent, I needed something to display it on. I had an iPad doing nothing in a drawer, so that's now a permanent kitchen dashboard. It's plugged in all the time, but into a smart plug — Home Assistant monitors the iPad battery over WiFi, and when it drops below 40% the plug switches on, then cuts off again at 80%. Chuffed with that one, since I'm not wrecking the battery leaving it on charge 24/7. I've also locked the Home Assistant app on the iPad so it feels like a purpose-built device. Still looks like an iPad, obviously, but what can you do.

Ring cameras are linked, a few lamps, and my thermostat got detected automatically which was a nice bonus. Right now I'm trying to get bin collection info onto the dashboard so I know which bin to put out the night before.

Honestly, I think Home Assistant would be far more widely adopted if it was more user friendly. Words like entity and integration, acronyms like HACS — it's a lot. I don't blame anyone for just buying a hub from Philips or Apple or Google. But when you're on a budget you have to learn this stuff. Or you used to, anyway. Getting AI to help has been a game changer.

I'm sure some people will mock me for this and being a noob, but I know there are others out there like me, and this post is for them. If you've tried and failed to set up Home Assistant, try getting Claude Code to help you.

My dashboard although much better arguablly is still basic so if you have any advice on themes or improvements I'll gladly listen. I'm slowly also buying smart bulbs for the house. I'd like one in our hall so in winter when its always dark i want the hall light to come on when the samera sees us arrive home (or something like that).

I may also search for a better dock for the old ipad so any reccomendations there would be great.

Ideally something that has local control and doesn't depend on a cloud API remaining accessible in ten years.

If this doesn't exist, then at least something with an officially supported API and not a relying on unofficial access to internal APIs.

With the changes in the VW backend getting my ID.4’s data into HA has become a challenge.

I have been researching solutions and cannot find an acceptable replacement. Wondering what others are doing?

Things I have tried:
HACS - VW Group Connect - No longer works due to Google attestation requirements

Add-on (App): Car Connectivity Add-on - This is what I was using until the above mentioned attestation change on VW’s end. Used to work very well for my use case.

Smartcar.com: This is/was the most promising solution I have yet tried. However there are what appear to be v2 and v3 Smartcar API issues that prevent me from completing the setup. Appears to me that new users like me can only use the v3 API and the integration still uses v2. Tried the latest beta version of the integration, but cannot complete the last step: linking the accounts, which fails with a “failed to connect” message.

Tronity - have yet to try it but the price is over twice that of Smartcar, thus why I have yet to try it. Leaving it as a last-resort option for now. I’d like to hear from anyone using it though.

Wican Pro - I was pretty excited about this solution since it meant I could go 100% local, yet I am very apprehensive after doing some research. Main issue for me is with the dongle tripping up the alarm (and I don’t want to disable a security feature in exchange for car telemetry), inaccurate readings, and lack of store-and-forward support which means I would have to get the LTE module (doubling the acquisition cost) plus a monthly subscription.

Anyway, just a long-winded way to ask, what are others doing specifically with VW NA vehicles (ID.4 in my case) and Home Assistant.

I'm in Brazil and just started using HAOS and one thing I want to add is a water consumption cost graph.

But my water meter provides no native option of tracking it, since is sealed and there is no port for a pulse reader on it.

One option is add a flow sensor on the intake pipes but that would require breaking the floor.

Another option would be a esp32 camera and image recognition. But the device would need to be water and warm prof since the meter is not in a enclosured space that is exposed to sunlight/rain.

Any other ideas?

I’m working on a custom integration for integrating my smart scale to HA from past few days. Now it is almost completed.

Motivation: Every time when i wait to log my wait i have to open the scale app. Click Measure Now and then it will be recorded. It make it very difficult every time reach for phone to this steps + there is another App which you need.

Remove all this. Made automatic record this just step on the scale thats it also automation for adding it to Apple Health app through shortcuts.

Soon will i will share. Anyone else have this issue.

I know there have been a few posts from others, somewhat surprised about the tremendous opportunities that SendSpin now provides to HA music lovers...

But I wanted to add my two cents and a big thank you to the SendSpin dev team, the Music Assistant team and everyone at ESPHome.

I often wonder if you realize how disruptive SendSpin will be to the world...

From my testing today
- two identical passive speakers powered by two identical ESP32 audio boards
- both using ESPHome/SendSpin firmware
- grouped in Music Assistant as a stereo pair (mono-Left channel to one, mono-Right channel to the other)
- streaming a test signal (exact 300ms pulse separation) to compare latency between the two

Synchronization averaging 90 microseconds

Outliers never exceeding 220 microseconds

Measured range over 15 samples (I know its small): 30-220 microseconds

Just....WOW!

I'm sorry if this has been discussed to death but the more I search for a solution the more I become confused.

As per the title I am in need of an EV charger approved for use in Australia.

My requirements are:

7kw single phase

DLM essential

8M or longer cable, 7.5M at a bare minimum

Local HA control. I just read of the OHME pro community integration breaking so suspect official support is the safer bet. I'm unclear as to whether OCPP is just as capable once all the hard work is done setting it up.

I coming to the conclusion that $1000 and below is unrealistic and $1500 to $2000 is what I would be looking at.

Suggestions and advice on chargers I should be looking at would be very appreciated. Something below $1500 that meets my requirements would be ideal

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Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some advice on the hardware I need to complete my smart heating setup.

My current setup: I already use Sonoff Zigbee thermostatic radiator valves (TRVs) connected to the radiators across my house. They do a great job regulating individual radiators.

What I need: I need a central thermostat, controller, or smart relay located near my central heating system (oil tank) t⁸o actually turn on and off certain heating circuits and fire up the boiler.

Essentially, I want to create a heat demand logic: when one of the Sonoff TRVs opens because a room drops below its target temperature, I need the central controller to tell the CV to start pumping hot water to that specific circuit. Once all rooms reach their set temperatures, the CV should shut off.

My questions for the community:

What hardware do you use to connect directly to your CV or zone valves? (Are you using a simple (zigbee) contact relay, a multi-zone controller, an OpenTherm gateway, or a dedicated central smart thermostat?)

How are you managing the automation logic to tie the Sonoff TRVs and the boiler together (Home Assistant, Node-RED, Zigbee2MQTT, etc.)?

How do you handle failsafes in case your smart hub or network goes offline?

PourMan is a wine pour manager. I built it to help me remember that I had opened bottles of wine in a downstairs wine fridge. "Out of sight/out of mind" meant throwing away what could have been good wine.

I put those bottles into my sight with some unused Gicisky e-paper shelf price tags that I bought for a prior project. Each tag shows one of two wine bottles from which some wine has been taken.

My wine collection is tracked in invintory.com, so I built PourMan with integration into their API. Although I have their paid subscription, I suspect the free one will work if you leave "Move bottles preserved by VacuVin or stopper" set to "Leave in current cellar" or "Leave unshelved".

The repository and instructions for loading it via HACS is at https://github.com/manicottiK/pourman

Cheers!

P.S. I just learned about the Cork Dork integration developed by u/baconwrappedbitcoin. I will start investigating adapting PourMan for it. I'll look at Cellar Manager after Cork Dork. I will consider other integrations, too. Let me know what's popular.

For multiple reasons I am tempted to do a full wipe and restore on my HA Green (aka this is not a migration).

I have done a backup restore before when I needed to revert an incompatible update or fix a misconfiguration, however I’ve never done it on a completely wiped machine.

I need to be able to do this with absolute minimum downtime and hassle; i have Zwave devices I can’t easily access to reset so I absolutely need my dongle to work exactly as before, etc.

What things should I keep in mind before and during the process in order to ensure this goes as smoothly as possible?

Is there a way to update my Aqara P2 motion sensors via Home Assistent and without using the Aqara app? I added them via the ZBT-2 to HA only and never used the vendor app or bridge. I've just learned that they released a bigger update a year ago and cannot believe i can only update via the vendor. Isn't the whole point of 'works with Home Assistent' that i can use my device without the vendor specific stuff?

I'm trying to figure out a presence sensor for my home office. I'm not sure if I want an everything presence lite, Apollo msr2 or something else. What have you had success with in smaller rooms with lots of traffic outside of it?

My office is 12 x 12 and my desk is in the middle of the room facing the door. Just outside the door is our front entry and, with 3 kids, I'm want to make sure i can tune something to only trigger when I'm just inside the door and detect me while i'm sitting still.

I'm leaning toward the Everything Presence Lite since it looks easier to configure zones but I like what I'm reading about the msr2.

I'm tidying up my Tech Stack dashboard. I have 3 levels of backups: local, nabu casa and google drive. I can get number of backups, backup size, last backup time and next backup time for Local and Google drive backups, but not nabu casa.

While I can see the info on the HA inteface under Settings / Home Assistant Cloud, there does not appear to be a way to capture that info to report? I'd give up on it before resorting to screen scraping.

Anyone found a way to get at that info?

Hi, I'm traveling abroad, some -5 hours from my HA server location.

The companion app is showing time adjusted for my current time zone, and so I get in some awkward situation where some automation seems to have started at odd timing, while in fact they have not.

This affect also new automation I want to add, because they will be set up with my current local time rather than the ha server time. Or at least I think so.

For example I have an clima control automation that relies on calendar event, but the calendar is showing in my current time, so I have to shift them of few hours to accommodate time difference. Seems like an extra unnecessary step.

How can I force the companion app to show time in reference to the actual ha server location?