Home Automation - mostlychris

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Home Automation

A collection of 15 posts

Zooz ZEN37 Wireless Remote

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

Human Here? My First Presence Sensor

Human Here? My First Presence Sensor

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

My Top 5 Automations in Home Assistant

My Top 5 Automations in Home Assistant

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

More Voice More Voice More Voice (Local Control)

Home Assistant Voice

More Voice More Voice More Voice (Local Control)

I recently made a video and blog post about controlling Home Assistant entities via a VOIP phone that I have on my desk. This was in answer to being able to use a standard analog telephone with an analog telephone adapter. I wanted to see if the VOIP phone would

Conversations and Service Call Data in Home Assistant

Conversations and Service Call Data in Home Assistant

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

Home Assistant 2023.5 Broke Ecowitt

Ecowitt Integration Home Assistant

Home Assistant 2023.5 Broke Ecowitt

I'm a long-time weather enthusiast and I like having the awareness and insight that a hyper-local weather station brings. In this case, directly from my backyard. The recent update to Home Assistant 2023.5 broke the HACS Ecowitt integration that I had been using for years. It turns

Using Home Assistant Local Calendar to Schedule Stuff!

Using Home Assistant Local Calendar to Schedule Stuff!

Home Assistant added a local calendar to their list of integrations in December of 2022. In January, they made some updates that make it even more useful. Calendars don't usually get much love since they are so utilitarian. However, this calendar allows you to automate things easily so

Find Missing Entities in Home Assistant

mostly chris home assistant

Find Missing Entities in Home Assistant

The longer I run Home Assistant, the more I find that I have missing, unavailable, and orphaned entities and services. It's hard to keep tabs on all the changes that happen when an integration or add-on is updated. Sometimes changes to entities or services are required. Even though

Using the Cloudflared Add-On

Home Assistant remote access

Using the Cloudflared Add-On

I wrote an article and made a video on how to remotely connect to Home Assistant and other internal network resources using Cloudflare Tunnels. I got a ton of feedback on that asking why I didn't use the Cloudflared Home Assistant add-on instead. The simple answer is that

Frigate NVR with Docker and Home Assistant

Frigate NVR with Docker and Home Assistant

I have been using Frigate for a while now and recently I moved my whole Frigate setup first from Home Assistant as an add-on to a VirtualBox VM, and finally to a Dell Optiplex Micro running Frigate in a Docker Container. This post and related video are at the request

Home Assistant Release 2022.11

Home Automation

Home Assistant Release 2022.11

Home Assistant version 2022.11 is now released. With that, some of your WTH (What the Heck?) suggestions and feedback have been introduced. If you don't know what WTH is, it's a month in which the Home Assistant team takes in suggestions and feedback outside of

Home Assistant Remote Access with Cloudflare Argo Tunnel

Home Assistant Remote Access with Cloudflare Argo Tunnel

Home Assistant sits inside your local network (I hope) and that means it is behind your ISP router and connection. There are MANY ways to connect to Home Assistant in this type of setup. By far, the easiest way is to sign up for a Nabu Casa account and then

Home Assistant Repair Center and MQTT

Home Assistant Repair Center and MQTT

If you are not familiar with the Home Assistant Repair center, you should be. It's a fantastic tool that helps you know when there are potential issues with your Home Assistant instance and suggests corrective actions. Take a look at my video if you want more details. Recently,

Home Assistant 2022.9 Release Highlights

Home Assistant 2022.9 Release Highlights

It's that time of the month again. The time when the hard-working Home Assistant developers release the latest update of Home Assistant. The team at Home Assistant/Nabu Casa do a good job of pointing out all the new, shiny things in their release party, which you can