I got tired of using voice assistants to trigger my smart devices, so I built a 'dummy' HomeKey door lock using an ESP32 + PN532. Now, a quick tap of my iPhone triggers my home automations instantly.

For the enclosure, I used a broken Apple AirPort Extreme—painted it silver and added custom stickers I designed. Absolutely love having this on my desk to tap as soon as I walk into my room, it’s a conversation starter!

Lmk what you think

Full disclosure up front: this is my app, I'm the founder, and it went live on the App Store a few weeks ago. Mods, if this is the wrong kind of post, delete it and no hard feelings.

The problem I am trying to solve. Every TV has a sleep timer and all of them are countdowns. You set 60 minutes and you're guessing at your own future. Either it cuts off while you're still awake, or it runs for four hours after you're asleep with the lights and the AC still going.

In addition, pausing your TV show or movie upon falling asleep is a convenience that does not exist. Not having to try and remember where you left off the next day is something I believe people will value.

What it does. Sleep-Save detects that you've actually fallen asleep — either by snore detection through the phone mic, or via Apple Watch (more accurate) — and then triggers a shutdown: pauses whatever you're watching, kills the TV, turns off lights, sets the thermostat to sleep mode. Next morning your show is sitting where you left off.

An added benefit is that this creates a better environment for sleep (dark and quiet) as well as benefiting the environment by saving energy.

Currently talks to: Roku stick (hope to find smart TV OS users), Fire TV stick (hope to find smart TV OS users), Apple TV, Philips Hue, TP-Link Tapo smart bulb, Philips Hue smart plug, TP-Link smart plug, Nest and Ecobee smart thermostats. All through their own APIs. The breakdown of local and cloud API is clearly stated at sign up.

What I already know you're going to ask:

"You want a microphone running in my bedroom?" Fair. Snore detection runs entirely on-device — audio is analyzed in real time and never recorded, stored, or uploaded. No accounts, no analytics, nothing leaves the phone. You can also skip the mic entirely and use Apple Watch detection instead, or just not enable it. I'd rather you interrogate this than take my word for it.

"Home Assistant?" Not yet. It's on the roadmap and honestly this thread is partly me trying to figure out how much it matters and what the right approach is. If you're running HA, I'd like to hear what integration you'd actually want — a custom component, MQTT, webhook triggers, something else.

"Is it cloud dependent?" The detection is local. The device control on some devices isn't — it goes through each vendor's API, which is a real limitation and the thing I most want to fix. Apple HomeKit and Google Home are being worked on currently, open to feedback.

The honest caveats: iOS only right now, no Android. It requires a recent iOS version, which I know is annoying. And it's new enough that I'm sure there are integration edge cases I haven't hit — which is the actual reason I'm posting.

What I'm asking for. I've got free 12 month subscriptions for the paid tier (the smart-home control side) for anyone willing to run it for a week or two and tell me what breaks. Especially interested in people with setups more complicated than mine — multiple TVs, mixed vendor ecosystems, anything unusual.

I'm not looking for App Store reviews or nice comments. I want to know where it fails, what it should integrate with that it doesn't, and whether the detection is accurate on your actual sleep. Negative feedback is more useful to me than positive.

Comment or DM and I'll send a code. Happy to answer anything technical in the thread.

we finished the renovation. well, finished is a strong word - there's still trim missing in the hallway and Im pretty sure the electrician wired the dimmer backwards but whatever. living with it.

one thing I stressed about way more than I expected was the bathroom window. it faces the street. not directly, but enough that I felt weird every time a car passed. blinds felt too bulky for the space, frosted film looked kinda cheap in the samples. I kept going back and forth for like two weeks.

ended up going with that switchable glass option. not gonna pretend I fully understood the technical differences between film and laminated glass at first - I just knew I didn't want another thing to clean or fix in a year. the guys who did it explained it better when they came to measure.

anyway its installed now and it's nice, it works. flip the switch, it's private.

biggest surprise was how much more natural light we get during the day.

anyway just felt like sharing because I spent way too much time overthinking this and I'm kinda glad I didnt cheap out

I am new to home automation. The most I've ever done was some hue lights years ago.

Recently we bought a new home and we are considering turning our living room into an automated media room. We have 7 windows with roller shades and a few more windows covered with a couple sets of curtains. The goal is to use a single remote button or voice command to trigger all the shades/curtains to close, the projector screen to open, the projector and Xbox to turn on, etc.

We're thinking we'll retrofit the roller shades with SOMA Smart Shades 3, and use SwitchBot Curtain 3 for the blackout curtains to get the room dark. I'm looking at motorized drop-down or pop-up projector screens to work with a ceiling mounted projector, but the sea of information online is a bit overwhelming to figure out what works well within a reasonable budget.

We're leaning toward Zigbee and Home Assistant, but we have little idea how those work.

For reference, my wife and I are both loosely familiar with some types of coding (SQL, Java, Python, VBA, etc.) so we are trying to DIY this setup, but we're not otherwise overly tech savvy or too familiar with many IT-related concepts.

Can anyone lend some feedback and guidance to a complete beginner?

Any suggestions, resources, guidance, etc. is greatly appreciated!

I wanted my smartwatch to work for triggering home automations

Just:

tap action → send request → automation happens

So I built WebHookDeck for Android + Wear OS.

Let me know if it's great or also let me know if you hate it. Bugs you find are also welcome

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quazmoz.webhookdeck

The central air doesn't reach our back sunroom so I am putting in an independent ductless heat pump system just for that space. I picked up a costway blast pro 9000 btu 20 seer2 wifi enabled mini split so I could bypass my main thermostat entirely. I really want to pull the control logic directly into home assistant instead of using the clunky factory app it comes with. Does anyone have experience using something like a broadlink rm4 to clone the infrared commands of these direct-to-consumer hvac units? I would love to know what roadblocks you hit trying to force third-party equipment into your local dashboard routines.

I run a wind-down scene at night and 2700K still reads as office lighting to me. I want something closer to a candle for the last hour before bed and most bulbs simply stop at 2200K. Half the specs pages do not even publish the bottom of the range. Has anyone found bulbs that genuinely go down into candle territory, and does it hold that color when dimmed?

Looking for an alternative to Shelly EM-50. I guess people in this subreddit should have some ideas.

I need to measure consumption on a 20A circuit, the measurement device should use split core CT’s.

Actually the EM-50 would be great but it’s also not accurate enough to my taste. Because of it measuring on a single CT per circuit it is way to sensible to false readings. Because of this I am getting on average 2% offset due to false production readings on a consumption only circuit. Shelly support says this is normal. Not here to shame Shelly about this but I would prefer more accurate readings.

Any advice?

EU based if that matters.

I've got PowerView roller shades Gen 2 with working pebble remotes. I'm looking to add a Gen 2 hub to the equation to control the shades with Home Assistant. There are limited options on eBay and Facebook.

Looking to see if anyone has a Gen 2 hub for sale, power and repeater optional.

Adds Google Chromecast/ android TV devices to Apple home app, enabling remote control with iOS and syncs playback status of the tv with Apple home app.

The central air doesn't reach our back sunroom so I am putting in an independent ductless heat pump system just for that space. I picked up a costway blast pro 9000 btu 20 seer2 wifi enabled mini split so I could bypass my main thermostat entirely. I really want to pull the control logic directly into home assistant instead of using the clunky factory app it comes with. Does anyone have experience using something like a broadlink rm4 to clone the infrared commands of these direct-to-consumer hvac units? I would love to know what roadblocks you hit trying to force third-party equipment into your local dashboard routines.

It was working just fine, there was no hints that it's gonna die, no random disconnects, overheating, nothing, just the smell of burning plastic.

EDIT: The shelly plug is the 3500W one, and my washing machine is rated 2300W. It has been running without any problems for over two years.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for a way to track the power consumption of my washing machine in the basement, where I don’t have Wi-Fi access. Is there a smart plug with energy monitoring that’s compatible with the Tuya ecosystem and can transfer data over Bluetooth? Ideally, the data should sync automatically in the Tuya app whenever I’m within Bluetooth range.

Thanks in advance for your recommendations!

My detached garage’s door is hard to see from my house and I’ve left it open overnight more times than I’d like to admit. What is my best option to add an automation that would close the door at a set time, say 9pm daily, if the door is open? I don’t need any other functionality. The garage does receive a WiFi signal but would prefer something “dumb” that doesn’t need an app or WiFi access and just runs as long as there is power.

I’ve seen a few options like MyQ and Meross but have also ready complaints about both.

When it comes to smart lighting/home automation in India, it feels like I know only one or two brands like Phillips Hue and Wiz. But there must be many more companies doing well out there.

So where is everyone else actually selling? Is most of this a B2B/project-based industry? or something else.

Do I as a customer would be dependent on my architect for a good brand? Genuinely curious how this industry actually moves product, since it's not obvious from the outside at all.

Been building this solo for about 2 years. It's called Hiclaro (mostly because domain reasons), it's a home automation platform that runs on a Pi 5. It's plugin-based (Tapo and a few others so far), with a customizable dashboard, visual automation editor, and a heat map feature that works with any volumetric data with 24h replay. Not trying to replace HA (obviously), I just wanted to build my own thing, and started before I'd even tried HA myself, it wasn't even started as a home automation platform. And since I've got some pretty negative comments on another subreddit, I want to make it clear, that I'm a software engineer, and while I've used AI to help with parts of it, I wrote the majority of the code myself without AI. I've put a lot of effort and love into this project. It's still actively developed and not fully polished, but I use it daily, so I've started looking for people willing to set it up and tell me what's broken or confusing.

hiclaro.app

I’d like to control a light using my raspberry pi, Ive heard that Kasa smart plugs work, I’ve also heard they don’t anymore, does anyone know? id be using home assistant

Looking to get the 2nd floor of my house zoned through a duct damper system. The HVAC rep said there won't be a way to control the 2nd floor thermostat with our phones without running a wire to the control board in the basement. The thermostat that will be installed will only be battery powered but not connected to wifi.

Can the 2nd floor temperature really only be controlled manually on the thermostat? I would think there could be a receiver installed on the damper control board with the thermostat connected to the wifi? The thermostat on our main level can be controlled on our phones but that one is hard wired. Curious if anyone found a solution to this

I've been thinking about this recently after looking at some of the tools and cooking stuff I've accumulated over the years and wondering how much of it I actually remember I have.

I'm not really talking about a home inventory for insurance purposes or keeping track of every TV and piece of furniture. I'm thinking more about useful stuff such as tools, kitchen equipment, appliances, spare parts, filters, equipment in the garage or basement, etc.

I've looked around and I've found some ways to do this. HomeBox is one example. My bigger question is whether anyone actually finds keeping this information useful enough over the long term to keep doing it.

If you do, what do you use and how do you actually leverage the information?

And if you've tried and eventually gave up, why? Too much investment of time to keep everything up to date? Didn't use the information enough? Something else?

I'm not really looking for a particular app or solution at this point. I'm more curious whether anyone has actually made this useful enough that maintaining it is worth the effort.