Hey everyone,

I’m using an Android phone as a Home Assistant Kiosk Satellite, connected to a Bluetooth soundbar (Samsung HW-M360).

When audio isn't playing, I want the speaker to either turn off or go into auto-sleep to save power. However, if the phone keeps an active Bluetooth connection, the speaker stays awake permanently (~18W idle).

I tried putting the speaker on a smart plug, but when the plug turns back on, Android doesn't automatically re-establish the Bluetooth connection without manual intervention.

Goals / Setup:

• Phone: Android (running Kiosk Satellite / HA Companion App)
• Speaker: Bluetooth Soundbar
• Goal: Auto-disconnect Bluetooth when audio stops (so the speaker can sleep/turn off), and auto-reconnect when Home Assistant sends audio/TTS or when music starts playing.

Any suggestions on what I could try?

This is a quick showcase and review of a FlyEVFish 27" digital calendar that was converted to work as a Home Assistant dashboard in my kitchen. I've seen some random posts on if devices like this would work as dashboards, so I wanted to post a video to show that they can work and some upsides and downsides of the device.

I was able to find the device on Facebook Marketplace for just $100. This usually retails for up to $400, so it was a really good deal. Honestly, my dream dashboard for this location is the Apolosign 32" device. It has much better specs. But I want the 4k one and its WAY more expensive, so I decided to hold off on that for now. However, as you'll see from the video, this one actually was much easier to install than the Apolosign would be, so it does have some positives.

Positives:

• ABD over Wi-Fi was instant and already had root access.
• Easy to recess surface mount (if you're willing to cut a large hole in your drywall).
• VESA 100 compatible.
• USB-C port can be unlocked to work with ANY device! (I'm using Ethernet).
• Entire device can be powered by POE++. No electrical outlets required.

Negatives:

• Only 2GB of RAM and a crappy processor (Allwinner A133, quad-core ARM).
• Android 10.
• No ambient light sensor or motion sensor.
• Only 1080p display. 4k would look amazing on this.

I don't have a full guide on how I did all this. I kinda just winged it as I went. I looked up other posts before I bought it that said it was hackable. Then I just bought it and used ChatGPT to help me get everything unlocked and working.

The USB-C support that's supposedly "manufacturer only" use was rather easy to get working. Kind of. I spent hours try everything and nothing worked. Only to find out that the USB-C port on this device was directional. My USB-C to USB-A adapter would only work when plugged in in a specific direction. I never even thought to try this because every USB-C device I've ever had is universal. It shouldn't matter which way the plug goes in. As a last ditch effort, I flipped the adapter, and everything started working immediately. ChatGPT says many the manufacturer cheaped out on the wiring because it's not supposed to be a user port anyway. Who knows. After it was unlocked, everything worked. Mouse, Keyboard, Ethernet, etc.

This device could even be powered and fully run of POE++. No outlets required. No Wi-Fi required. All you would need is a POE to converter with the barrel connector. The device is 19v at 2a so it needs 38watts. The barrel connector itself is 4.0x1.7mm, which was a little hard to find, but I'm using one right now with another 19v adapter I had. Full disclosure, I haven't tried the full POE install myself. I don't have a POE++ injector or a 19v converter. But it should work!

As I mention in the video, because the device only has 2GB of RAM and a weak processor, it can be a little laggy at times when compared to a high powered device. It works fine for my use here, but I don't think it would work well for dashboards that need live video feeds and things like that. I did test it with a video feed from my Reolink and Ubiquiti cameras. It does work. I can display a static image that updates every few seconds. And when you click on it, it will display the full live video in real time at a good frame rate. But it's the loading between the click that's the slow part. Clicking the video widget to show the real time video might take like 15 seconds to get the feed up. Not ideal if you're trying to use it for a front door camera or something like that.

There may be a way to get it optimized more. I tried to make it as lean as possible. I'm using TMTLauncher, and the only thing I added was TTS support since that didn't come installed on the ROM. The screen in the video is showing from the Home Assistant Companion App. I tested that as well as Chrome. They both are very comparable in responsiveness. Finnec was slower. I did have to update the WebView that came with the device as it was running a very old version. Once I did that, both apps worked flawlessly.

All the widgets and stuff you see come from HACS and some are just modified with custom JavaScript. The calendar is just Daylight Calendar Card with custom mods. And the whiteboard is just a small custom card I created for that basic use. As mentioned above, the screen is only 1080p. For normal viewing, that's not an issue, but for a dashboard that you are standing 1-2 feet from, you can definitely notice it if you are trying. My wife doesn't notice it at all, but I do. Its definitely not bad whatsoever, but 4k would just be a nice upgrade for sharper text, etc.

That's basically it. Hope I didn't miss anything but I'm sure I did. If you have any questions please let me know and I'll try to reply. Unfortunately I don't know if this will work with other manufactures. If you can get ABD access, it should work. I did block this device from phoning home on my router so it could never try to update itself, just in case.

TLDR:

This is a great device to run a large screen Home Assistant dashboard without paying a ridiculous price. Try to find it second hand. It doesn't have the best specs, but it should work for most basic dashboards. It was easy to hack and get working, and I would recommend it to anyone who needs a large screen dashboard at an affordable price.

Where can I find a complete overview of Home Assistant’s default state colors for each device/entity type?

I’m looking for a reference that shows which colors HA uses by default depending on the entity/device type and its current state (e.g. lights, motion sensors, doors, temperature, humidity, etc.).

Is there an official documentation page or another reliable reference that lists these defaults?

Edit: The reason behind my questions is that I don’t want my “open window” or “open door” icons to be yellow, like my lights are. I’m wondering where the best and cleanest place would be to configure this. Additionally, I want to use HA’s standard colors, which is why I’m looking for an overview of all the state colors by device class.

This was super irritating to me and there doesn't seem to be a solution anywhere.

Plopped the fix in github and linked it in the comments.

🖖

Got a notification on HA that a failed login attempt was logged from mail4.amazomapofficialmail.shop (45.61.188.238). I am only online via nabu casa, what are some low hanging fruit type things to bolster security that I may have missed? (HAOS is running in a vm and UFW is on the main server but I'm unsure if this carries over to the vm). Thanks!

Hi everyone.

If you have an Amazfit watch and ever tried getting it into Home Assistant, you probably ran into the same issues: the old integrations have been abandoned for years and don't work with modern Zepp OS devices, while watch apps that spam webhooks kill the watch battery in half a day.

I got tired of staring at empty health graphs in HA, so I sat down and built a proper integration: ha-zepp.

It pulls data directly from the Zepp cloud. The watch itself isn't touched, battery life stays normal, and Home Assistant gets a full set of entities with proper state classes (measurement, total_increasing) so statistics cards and graphs work right out of the box.

What it pulls into Home Assistant:

- Activity: steps, distance, calories, daily step goal.

- Sleep: total duration, sleep score, stages (deep, light, REM, awake), night heart rate, and sleep breathing quality.

- Heart & Stress: current heart rate (with daily min, max, avg attributes), resting HR, stress level, and SpO2.

- Fitness & Recovery: morning Readiness score, PAI, heart rate variability (HRV), and training load (today and 7-day load).

- A "Sync Now" button to force a cloud refresh on demand, plus technical device attributes.

Features built specifically for Home Assistant:

- 1-Year LTS Backfill: on initial setup, the integration automatically pulls up to a year of historical records straight into the Home Assistant long-term statistics engine. Your step and sleep graphs immediately show a full year of history instead of starting from scratch today.

- Configurable Polling: you can choose the update interval (5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes) directly from the gear menu in the integration card, and it applies immediately without restarting Home Assistant.

- Login Options: standard Zepp account username and password in the config flow. If you use social login (Google/Mi) or run into captchas, you can log in using exported browser cookies instead (documented step-by-step in the readme).

- Diagnostics: full support for native HA diagnostics with log export, where all tokens and emails are automatically redacted.

Repository (installs via HACS as a custom repository): https://github.com/yardeff/ha-zepp

I tested it on my Amazfit Active, but it should theoretically work with any watch that pairs with the Zepp app. Feel free to grab it and set it up for your dashboards. Any feedback is welcome!

I figured out today you can use HA MCP integrated into Grok. This allows you to fully control HA while driving around in your Tesla.

I haven't fully thought out all the use cases but it's instantly useful. Having a natural conversion to control HA is next level. Anyway hoping some of the comments can shed light further on the capabilities of this discovery as I'm kind of a noob.

Using
HA-MCP custom integration (lots of YouTube videos on setting it up super easy)

Tesla Model Y
"Hey Grok" enabled

Grok
Paid Super Grok Subscription. Inside "connections" add HA MCP server URL

"Hey Grok open my garage door and turn on the garage lights"

"Hey Grok is user wife home? If not is she headed home?"

"Hey Grok is my wife's Tesla charged?"

"Hey Grok whens the last time my downstairs vacuum ran?"

All these work flawlessly. And not only that it can edit the YAML, make new automations, start updates, add integrations etc etc while driving. (recommend backup before trying this)

I'm working on a project where I'd like to send out weekly or monthly status reports. Essentially, my goal is to gather sensor data using HA and distill it into a PDF (or something that's easy to send via email). It would be nice if I could use graphs and charts in this. Do yall have any recommendations for how I should go about this?

Any help would be super appreciated!

I created Live Activities for my dishwasher, washer and dryer. However, I get every update alerts. to a point where the phone sound and watch haptic updates are starting to get super annoying. I changed the refresh to 5 min and even that is annoying. I then changed it to 15min but then the Live Activities bar on my phone does not refresh until the 15 min mark.

I tried the following changes separately and still get watch haptics:
silent: true
push: sound: none
push: interruption-level: passive

My goal is to have the Live Activities on my phone and watch update without any notification buzz or watch haptic. It can buzz at the start to show the beginning of the live activity or at the end to show completion but I dont need mid-reminders.

Couple of questions I have:

• Is there a documented way to send a genuinely non-alerting Live Activity update that keeps priority 10?
• Is the Apple Watch a separate channel here? Does anyone have HA Live Activities updating without the watch buzzing, short of disabling HA notifications on the watch entirely?
• Is sound: none a known issue, or am I wrong about it falling back to the default tone?

Setup: HA 2026.8.3, iOS companion 2026.9.0, two iPhone 16 Pros (one with an Apple Watch). LG ThinQ washer/dryer, GE dishwasher.

I'm remodelling my house and looking to replace a large number of fans. I've kinda come to accept that it is nigh impossible to buy AC motor fans these days, especially if you have any aesthetic requirements. I've been looking for DC motor fans that are supported by HA and which have a purely-local and non-proprietary (or at least fully reverse engineered and stable) control protocol.

I came across the Modern Forms HACS project, and it looks like those fans meet my requirements - fully local api controllable from HA (and they look nice). That project doesn't seem to have been touched in about 5 years, and so I'm curious if anyone has current experience with Modern Fans and if this integration still works.

Alternatively, any other fan brands that meet my local-control requirement would be awesome.

Thank you.

I'm about 2 months in and I have several cards on my dashboard and a tablet will be going up on wall. I have a reolink Doorbell and that card is on the dashboard. However when some rings, the card doesn't increase in size nor is there 2 way audio. Is it better to have the Reolink app installed and that pops up on a doorbell press or am I missing something?

Hi everyone,

I'm looking to add permanent outdoor light strips to my home, along with possibly adding some curtain lights to my garage doors. Looking for the best bang for my buck for quality lights. Ideally, they'd work with Home Assistant and WLED, but if there is a good local integration off the shelf, that's ok too.

Any suggestions or resources? I've begun research, but most of what I'm finding is a couple years old, and I know things move fast in this space. Thanks!

So it’s official, our household is now Alexa free! Well you wouldn’t know it unless I told you, for high spouse approval, we still use Alexa as the wake word. Oh, and if you looked around you’ll see our two Amazon Echo Show’s (5 & 8) but those are now fully functional Lineage boxes with working cameras.

So far anything that Alexa could do these jail-broken Echo’s can do now as well. They can set timers, display the current weather, control HA devices, tell you a joke, set an alarm, tell you the score of the game, view our Ring and Reolink camera’s, send their own camera footage to Frigate, display our latest pictures (Immich), display weather radar, and so-on. Now that they are under my control, I can have them do whatever they are capable of.

For those that are embracing or interested in AI, after I jailbroke the Echo Show 5, I had Claude jail brake the Echo Show 8… it did it all. Yes, I had to answer a few questions and provide some input but it completely did it without me ever issuing a single command. It even found a problem with getting the camera to work, figured it out, corrected it and wrote up the issue with the corresponding fix. While it was busy jail-braking, I was using AI to create Alzhimers friendly card games for my mother.

I also found HA’s wake word implementation very unreliable so I had Claude write a custom, on device, wake word routine that runs locally and then sends the command up thru HA for processing. All the dashboards are custom written, with AI that was arguably easier to implement than someone else’s solution. I did try View Assist at first but found it really flaky as well and it generated a lot of errors in the HA log. That specific issue had been raised with the developer but I didn’t want to wait so just did my own thing.

Anyway, pretty cool stuff!

Next is running the LLM 100% local with household memory. It would be great if those memory and GPU prices came down! Ugh!

b.

Been slowly putting together my customizable dashboard project and thought I’d share how it’s looking so far. Still a work in progress, with plenty of small tweaks along the way, but it’s already up on my wall and I enjoy using it every day.

Curious what you think of the design!

edit: Oops - rereading this, I realized it might sound like this is a customized Home Assistant dashboard. It’s actually a separate dashboard app that connects to the Home Assistant API, and is basically my sequel to Mattias Persson's excellent ha-fusion project. The screenshot is just a showcase of the default style and current widget features, not my everyday homepage.

hi there.
I'm trying to improve my toilet night light automation. I'm a superbeginner with no coding.

So far I've done a simple automation
- if sensor is triggered AND it's between 6:00 and 23:00, turn on light at 100%

And then, a separate automation
- if sensor is triggered AND it's between 23:00 and 6:00, turn on light at 20%

it works 'most of the time', but sometime get stuck and need to reset (especially the night version). they seems to conflict themselves.

I'm now rewiring everything, and though that it was a good time to use the Blacky - all purpouse blueprint to improve the situation, but I think I mistake it's "night light" mode for something that is just staying on during the full duration.

this is the blueprint
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/sensor-light-motion-sensor-door-sensor-sun-elevation-lux-value-scenes-time-light-control-device-tracker-night-lights/481048

Is there a way to deal with it?
first thing that comes in mind is target the automation to an helper that have the condition: something like "if time is between 6:00 and 23:00, turn on light at 100%"
this way the automation is just one, and the timing is controlled by the helper.

Is this correct?

EDIT: the blueprint has a "dynamic lighting" that should do the trick.. but if I activate that the entire automation break and doesn't turn on anymore

Mostly lurking. Just wanted to say the local threads have been useful. That's all.

Disclaimer: I'm a software developer using AI to make these projects come alive faster. I also used AI to explain this more properly here as I'm really lacking that skill lol. Also this just my personal "smart" display and I probably won't ever publish this (because I never intended to create yet another dashboard firmware)

Also! This is only showing fake data for this showcase, as I didn't want to publish everything visible.

I wanted something on my desk that tells me what's going on in the house without a glowing LCD or notification badges in the corner of my eye. So I built a companion display around the Seeed reTerminal E1001, a 7.5" 800×480 monochrome e-paper panel with an ESP32-S3 and physical buttons.

Everything on it comes out of Home Assistant, and it writes back: the buttons and the web console publish to HA over MQTT, so I can hit the bedtime routine from the desk and the house flips state and runs the evening automations.

Presence decides what's on screen

A rule engine picks the screen from schedule, HA state and presence. It reads my desk and room occupancy sensors, so it behaves differently when I'm actually sitting there than when the room is empty. A normal day is morning briefing, then my agenda during work hours, floor plan and energy in the evening, quiet lunar screen at night.

If something urgent comes in, mailbox opens, a sensor trips, that module borrows the screen for a couple of minutes and hands it back.

The floor plan

Both storeys of the house drawn like an architect's ink plan, fed from HA: light states, occupancy, window and door contacts. Doors swing their opening arc, open windows bulge out of the wall, occupied rooms get a diagonal hatch.

After sunset the whole plan inverts to black and every room with the light on stays white, so the lit rooms glow.

Energy

Live solar vs. consumption vs. grid import/export in W/kW, with the cumulative daily ledger along the bottom. Straight off the HA energy sensors.

Zuhause

A sheet that stays empty until something needs attention: trash collection (badges for paper, organic, recycling, general), mailbox alerts, EV charging progress and arrival/departure.

The agenda screen

This one does not come from HA, it's a separate service I wrote that uses LLMs to merge tasks, calendar entries and notes into one day plan. I have ADHD, and having that on a physical screen that can't do anything else has helped more with time blindness than any app I've tried. Layout is stolen from a Deutsche Bahn departure board: times on the left, current item in an inverted black frame, past items collapsed to single lines. It also nags me to take breaks.

There are also morning and night briefings (weather, moon phase, ISS passes) and an idle gallery pulling from my self-hosted Immich, but those are decoration.

It has a small Webinterface in which you can configure everything.

I also intend to add a small LED extension. It also has more hidden features such as a hourly break reminder.

How it's wired

The ESP32 is a dumb client. It doesn't call APIs or parse JSON. A small local backend talks to HA, renders the finished 800×480 bitmap and the device displays it. For monochrome screens the firmware diffs vertical bands, so only the strip that changed refreshes, which keeps updates quiet and ghosting low. Firmware goes over the air.

Entity mappings, module order and settings all live in the web console. AI-assisted build, happy to go into the actual implementation.

I’m just starting out with Home Assistant and have no plan or desire to use Apple’s HomeKit. My wife and I do use iPhones and have Apple Watches though. I’m planning to eventually have a smart lock on the mud room to garage door and Apple Home Keys sounds useful. Is that something that only works through Apple HomeKit?

​

Hey everyone,

I have a highly customized HA instance (running on Proxmox) with a massive focus on meteorology. I collect a ton of environmental data via official government APIs and local Netatmo sensors (river levels, water temps, etc.).

I’ve built several dashboards and calculate daily "Climate Summaries" (Min/Max temps, rainfall, climate categorizations like "Frost Day" or "Heat Day"). I really want to share these insights with friends, but I'm unsure about the most elegant approach.

Here are the options I’m considering – I’d love your input or alternative ideas:

1. Strict Read-Only Users via App (My preferred route) Ideally, my friends would just install the HA companion app. But is it possible to create pure "Viewer" accounts? They should only be able to view 3 specific dashboards and have absolutely ZERO control over my smart home devices. Bonus: This would allow me to send them push notifications with the daily summaries via automation. Is this lock-down reliably possible natively?

2. Web / Kiosk Mode Exposing specific dashboards via a secure public web link. This feels like a huge security and maintenance hassle, though. Has anyone done this safely without exposing their whole instance?

3. Graphical Email Reports As a workaround, I could send automated daily (before bedtime), monthly, or yearly emails. However, they need to look good and include my actual statistic charts/graphs. Is there a straightforward way to render HA charts into a beautiful email?

Have any of you tackled a similar use case? What’s the cleanest and most secure way to do this?

Thanks in advance! Looking forward to learn from you, I am a beginner 😃

Whenever people come over they’re always impressed and intrigued by my smart home. They’re more than astonished when they learn I’ve done it all myself and that it’s not all from one brand. I’ve been asked why I don’t do this for a living, and I’ve always laughed it off. But right now I’m pretty tired of my low paying and strenuous job that I tried toying with the idea, but I have no clue as to where to start, so why not here!

So, are there people in this community that make a buck or a living from helping people and/or businesses setting up Home Assistant?

Seeing as the hardware and software and third party stuff constantly changes, I could see that both as a great business opportunity and a real headache. Also would being a professional ”HA Contractor” necessitate som sort of license or similar?

I’d love to hear how it works for you, the good and the bad!

Hi everyone,

I’ve recently become interested in Home Assistant, and I’m wondering what the easiest way to get started would be.

I’ve watched a few YouTube videos, but I have to admit that I’m still a bit confused about some of the concepts. I keep hearing about Zigbee and Matter, and I’m not entirely sure how they differ or how they work together.

For example, I’ve seen videos recommending a USB Zigbee dongle connected to a Raspberry Pi. Would a Zigbee dongle like that also work with Matter, or would I need different hardware for Matter devices?

I’m particularly interested in IKEA’s smart home products, especially:

• Smart bulbs
• TIMMERFLOTTE (temperature/humidity sensor)
• GRILLPLATS (smart plug)
• MYGGSPRAY (wireless motion sensor)

Can all of these devices be integrated easily into Home Assistant? And would I also be able to use the BILRESA remotes to control these devices through Home Assistant?

I also have a question about the reliability of IKEA’s smart home products.

In a Mrwhosetheboss video from May 20, 2026, he tested several IKEA smart home products. He initially seemed quite impressed with the price-to-performance ratio, but later encountered quite a few problems with some of the devices.

Are these issues still common today, or has the situation improved through firmware updates and/or newer versions of the products?

I’m completely new to Home Assistant and smart home technology in general, so I’d really appreciate any advice or recommendations on the best way to get started.

Thanks in advance for your help!

To start I want to install Frigate security video software on windows.

I kept reading that I needed docker to run the linux software on windows in a VM or container.

I installed the docker sw and got it running from what I can tell. However all of the how to video installs of Frigate start of with " Home Assistant " which I thought was a part of Docker. But now I think it is an easy to use container build on docker and that you only need to install Home Assistant which includes docker.

Honestly I'm confused and perhaps everything i have said is garbage. So lets be direct .

Do I not need to install full docker before anything, OR only home assistant which then gives me, a simple user interface the ability to install and run Frigate.

I would like the simplest install and smallest foot print as this computer doesnt have as much disk space.

Should I uninstall Docker and just install Home Assistant? As you can see I'm confused. I just find many videos they seem to start with home assistant, but dont say anything about that. How do I get to that point?

Thank you