Living wall, green wall, vertical garden – some plants on your wall are great! What makes it even better is that you can mostly automate the process of caring for these plants. Here is how I mounted my living wall frame, how I added plants and how I added automated Read more
I had wood left over, I built a waveform lamp. Some projects are meticulously planned, for others it is just intuition and a good idea. I had some wooden pieces left over from my bookshelf built and decided to experiment a bit. The result is a very unique lamp in Read more
Living wall, green wall, vertical garden: there are many names for it. Putting some plants onto your walls is a recent trend that can result in beautiful rooms with better air quality. Ready made solutions are really expensive and do not necessarily match the look I was going for. So Read more
Setting up your own smarthome server with HomeAssistant and more is easy with Docker(-compose). Upgrading Home Assistant to keep everything up to date afterwards can be a challenge though. Here I will show a couple of ways to quickly update your containers. A smarthome server based on Docker My personal Read more
Usually any smarthome or IoT device you put on your own network has full access to everything else. Fortunately VLANs are a great way of mitigating this potential security and privacy risk. Creating separate networks for your different devices is a great idea and surprisingly easy using professional network equipment Read more
I recently connected my smart Xiaomi fan to my Home Assistant installation but found the default card in the user interface lacking in design and functionality. So I used this as an excuse to finally create my first own card. Here is how it works and how you can use Read more
Summer is here! A fan can help you fight the temperatures, a smart fan can do it even better. Here is how you can integrate Home Assistant with the affordable Xiaomi Mi smart standing fan 1C. The Xiaomi smart fan I bought this fan last year and already described how Read more
Big discount campaigns like the upcoming Amazon Prime Days can be a good time to update your smart home. But how to select smart home gear? Don’t blindly buy whatever is offered – instead find the devices best suited for you. This is how I select my smart home devices. Read more
To make your smart home network more reliable and secure you can build a network based on prosumer components like the Ubiquiti Unifi line. Everything in your smart home relies on a robust network, so I decided to built a new & better network including several Wifi networks, VLANs, a Read more
Books on a shelf are great – books falling of a shelf less so. Here is how to 3D print some simple bookends to secure your books. The open bookshelf I recently built a set of new bookshelves from oak and black pipe. While I love the open design I Read more