Posts tagged with smarthome

Follow this detailed technical guide to set up and configure evcc with real-world examples. Learn how to integrate your solar inverter, EV charger, and vehicle for optimal solar surplus charging.

Two weeks into using evcc for solar EV charging - here's my complete introduction to this open-source charging controller and why it's a game-changer for electric vehicle owners.

Learn how to automate secure access to your EV charger using Home Assistant! This tutorial shows you how to automatically unlock and authorize charging only when your specific car is detected. Ditch the RFID cards and ensure only authorized vehicles can charge effortlessly.

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.

The third part of my Our Own Electricity series describes how I integrated our photovoltaic system into Home Assistant.

Part 2 of my "Our Own Electricity" series gives an insight into our electricity production and consumption. After I explained our setup I will share details on the installation costs, our break even calculation.

Discover how we cut our electricity bills and achieved energy independence by installing a 9.45kW solar system with battery storage. Learn about our motivation, technical setup, and real-world journey to producing your own clean electricity.

Automate your lawn sprinklers for effortless, intelligent watering using Home Assistant. This guide details how to connect your system to create smart schedules based on weather and soil conditions. Get a healthier, greener lawn while optimizing water usage.

Watering our lawn and plants around the house wasn't one of my favourite things to do. This had to be done better - fully automatically and without intervention.

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.

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.