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Home Assistant Backup in 2025
Two years ago, I wrote about backing up Home Assistant to a Synology NAS using NFS shares. While that method still works, the Home Assistant team has gone all-in on backups and massively improved Home... - · 4 min read 1877 views
Automate Reolink camera notifications with Home Assistant
Automate Reolink camera notifications with Home Assistant to overcome app limitations such as geo-fencing and scheduling. Create custom notifications based on location, time or other conditions by configuring simple YAML scripts, increasing the flexibility and intelligence of your home security system. - · 6 min read 5523 views
How to Integrate Reolink Cameras into Home Assistant
Smart homes are increasingly using temperature and humidity sensors for automation, and I've installed over 10 throughout my house, including the garden, loft, fridge and pool. ZigBee sensors are ideal for this because of their low power consumption and reliable communication, allowing them to run on batteries for months or even years. - · 5 min read 5462 views
ZigBee Temperature and Humidity Sensors: A Comparison
Smart homes increasingly use temperature and humidity sensors for automation, and I've installed over 10 throughout my house, including the garden, attic, fridge, and pool. ZigBee sensors are ideal for this due to their low power consumption and reliable communication, allowing them to operate on batteries for months or even years. - · 8 min read 12134 views
The digital notepad box - a DIY e-ink project
Inspired by the Home Assistant community, I built a desk-friendly e-paper display using ESPHome. This blog post details my journey from gathering components to creating a custom home automation dashboard that delivers real-time data in a sleek wooden case. Discover how rewarding and accessible e-paper displays can be for your smart home. - · 5 min read 2225 views
Home Assistant 2024
Since sharing our initial insights into the Home Assistant setup at my first post about our Home Assistant setup, a lot has transformed. It's time for an update. This article will walk you through the changes, replacements of devices and integrations, additions of new elements, and the tried-and-true components that have proven to be reliable. - · 5 min read 22081 views
Home Assistant backup to Synology NAS
Regularly backing up your Home Assistant configuration is critical to protecting your smart home deployment. This article explains how to back up your Home Assistant to a NAS. - · 6 min read 18443 views
Going Green: SolarEdge & Home Assistant
The third part of my Our Own Electricity series describes how I integrated our photovoltaic system into Home Assistant. - · 5 min read 10389 views
Green grass with Home Assistant
Home Assistant controlled garden watering part 2 - are you ready? In my previous post, I explained how I measured the level of water in our garden cistern using ESPHome. In this post, I will describe... - · 6 min read 36581 views
Arlo Cameras in Home Assistant
Home Assistant & Arlo cameras go together very well. I'm using them since our entire setup got migrated from OpenHab to Home Assistant and I'm happy with the integration. - · 3 min read 442 views
Mini plant watering project
I would like to show you my new 30 min, no coding holiday plant watering project. - · 3 min read 2540 views
Home Assistant: You have got mail
Today I want to share a little holiday project I am building this week: a mailbox sensor to make a dumb mailbox smart and notify us when we get new mail. I'm talking about real physical mail - letters, postcards, newspapers, etc. that get dropped into our mailbox. - · 2 min read 863 views
Our home sweet smart home
Our Home Assistant setup is pretty simple - everything currently runs on a single board computer - smooth and stable for over 12 months. This is our setup. - · 3 min read 1465 views
Home Assistant - Homematic HM-Dis-EP-WM55 e-paper display
My second Home Assistant project is about the integration of the Homematic HM-Dis-EP-WM55 e-paper display in my HA setup. I am sharing some reusable scripts for this or similar devices. - · 4 min read 1030 views
Home Assistant - The big move
This project is about the change I did from OpenHab to Home Assistant for our smart home automation system. Ok maybe the headline sounds a bit too sensational but change our entire home automation setup from one system we used for 2+ years now to a completely new one requires quite some heavy lifting.