Home Assistant

A collection of 60 posts

Home Assistant

My Top 5 For 2026

It is time for my traditional Top 5 blog/video. Each year for the past few years I have compiled a list of my top 5 home automation and smart home related things.

Frigate NVR

Create Summaries of Frigate Alerts using Generative AI

I show you how to use Ollama with Frigate's new amazing feature that summarizes alerts from your cameras.

Home Assistant

Tuning the Apollo Automation R-PRO 1

I recently (as of this writing) did a hardware video on the Apollo Automation R-PRO 1 PoE mmWave multisensor. I didn't spend any time on the tuning aspect of that device in that video as my plan was to create a separate posting/video for tuning. I also

Home Assistant

Local Conversations with Home Assistant Voice Assist

It is now possible for Home Assistant to ask YOU a question and you be able to answer conversationally. This does not require that you use an LLM. It is all handled locally.

Frigate NVR

Re-Use Your Old Android Tablet with Frigate

If you have Frigate NVR and an old Android tablet, now you can have a live stream of your cameras running on that tablet in just a few minutes using Periscope for Frigate.

Home Assistant

Apollo Temperature Sensors

Level up your temperature monitoring with these ESP based Home Assistant compatible temperature and food sensors.

2025.1

Finally! Serious Backups for Home Assistant

Super easy local AND off-site encrypted backups for Home Assistant. You need this!

Home Assistant

Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition

Local Voice Control Has Never Been Easier! Home Assistant has released the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition Hardware. It is designed with privacy in mind, is open source, and seamlessly connects to Home Assistant. 💡Watch the associated video to see the device in action. I was fortunate enough to receive

Home Assistant

More New Things for My Home Assistant Dashboard!

It's time to update my Home Assistant Dashboard with new Section Heading entities, Windrose cards, mini-graph cards, and Uptime Kuma alerts.

Home Assistant

Node-RED vs Home Assistant Automations

It's time to move from Node-RED to native Home Assistant automations. I show you step-by-step how to move one of my more complex automations.

backup home assistant

Better Home Assistant Backups Using Auto Backup

Making backups is SUPER important. I show you the EASY way to back up Home Assistant with Auto Backup.

Apollo Automation

Monitor Your Air Quality with the Apollo Automation AIR-1

Check the air quality in your home or environment using this amazing AIR-1 sensor.

ZEN55

Get Smart Alerts from Dumb Smoke/CO Detectors

My new house (circa 2023) was built with wired, interconnected smoke/CO detectors. These devices do not tie into any alerting other than sound. Unless I am in the house at the time of an alert, I won't know anything is going on. 💡Watch the video for this

SMLIGHT

SMLIGHT Zigbee Coordinators. So Many Options!

I review some of the SMLIGHT Zigbee coordinators that you should use in your smart home with Home Assistant, Zigbee2MQTT, and ZHA.

ApolloAutomation

Apollo Automation MSR-1 Presence and More Sensor

This all-in-one very compact sensor is a great addition to your home automation and Home Assistant Setup. It is ESPHome based so can be used in all types of systems.

Home Assistant

Top HACS Integrations and custom cards for Home Assistant

💡Watch the related video HERE! I recently did a video on the top (critical) Home Assistant add-ons that power my smart home. Based on your feedback in the video, I am also going to cover my top HACS integrations and frontend components. If you are not familiar with HACS, it

Zooz

Zooz ZEN37 Wireless Remote

💡Watch the video on this topic here! I have always wanted to try a wireless Z-Wave button device. I recently came across the ZEN37 from Zooz. There are probably many options is this arena but I have the Zooz ZEN32 wired scene controller and the ZEN37 fits right in with

assist pipeline

Custom Voice Control Sentences in Home Assistant

Create your OWN sentences for LOCAL VOICE CONTROL in Home Assistant with Node-RED or basic YAML configurations.

Frigate

Frigate NVR Updates

It's been a while since I did any videos or blog posts on the Frigate NVR. Someone mentioned to me some new functionality that might be in version 13 (which is in beta as of this writing) so I thought I would check it out.

Linptech

Human Here? My First Presence Sensor

Trying out the Linptech 24g MmWave human presence detector and Home Assistant.

Home Assistant Voice

Hands-Free Control with Wake Words

Home Assistant continues to make great strides in local voice control for their platform. That latest installment "Year of the Voice Chapter 4" has some nice surprises, the most exciting of which is the ability to use a wake word. 💡The video for this blog can be found

Automation

My Top 5 Automations in Home Assistant

Smart homes run on automations. Here are my TOP 5 in Home Assistant and Node-RED

2023.7

Conversations and Service Call Data in Home Assistant

Make your IoT work for you. Conversations and Sentence Triggers with Automations in Home Assistant.

Home Assistant

Using Your VOIP Phone to Control Your House

Home Assistant has been working on local voice control and adding functionality to extend that to more than just the typical smart speakers. They do this through integrations and what they call "assist pipelines". 💡Watch my related video here. Assist pipelines include speech-to-text and text-to-speech. For those, they

Home Assistant

Finally! Adding Fan Speed Controls

I recently moved to a new house and one of the things about the old house that drove me crazy was having ceiling fans that ran all the time, even when no one was home. I vowed (with the proper approvals) to add fan controls to my Home Assistant setup.