BroadLink RM4 Mini: Smart Home Infrared Control
It’s great to have devices in your smart home that you can control over your network or with a smart home/IoT-designed protocol like MQTT, Z-Wave, or Zigbee. But what about the devices …
Home Assistant
Ring Mailbox Sensor Review: Best For Long Range?
Mail theft is a growing problem in many neighborhoods, including mine. I have a locking box and thieves have still broken into my mailbox. I’ve long wanted to use a mailbox sensor …
Smart Home Dimming with The Shelly Dimmer 2
Background on my use case I’ve been a fan of TP-Link (Kasa) smart home products for a while. They are inexpensive, allow local control, and work well. A couple of things happened …
Using a Telegram Bot for Home Assistant Notifications
Google announced they were going to discontinue Hangouts what seems like forever ago (I mentioned it in my 2020 predictions). They still haven’t completely retired it, but I expect they will soon. …
Upgrading Your Home Assistant Core Python Virtual Environment
Since Python 3.9 is available, Home Assistant announced they were going no longer support Python versions lower than 3.8. This happens from time to time. If you run Home Assistant Core in …
Finalizing My Year-Round LEDs and Holiday Lights
Earlier this year I wrote an article about installing and planning my year-round LEDs, in the summer no less! Make sure to check out that article if you want to know and …
My 9 Favorite Home Assistant Automations
I’ve been using Home Assistant for 2 years now. After my first 2 hours playing with it, I knew it was something special, and it has become the perfect smarthome hub for …