Automatic lights are magical. You walk into a room and the lights just turn on… to add this magic to your smart home you need motion sensors. Many motion sensors. Here is everything you need to know about them and my experience on how to find and install cheap and Read more…
Do you want to wake up with sunlight on your face? Automated smart blinds are a great addition to your smart home and can make this possible! Unfortunately most solutions are really expensive and often not very usable. For the past years I have been on a quest to find Read more…
You built your own smart lighting system? But it really is not smart yet. Lets add some smartness to the system. You don’t want to be pressing buttons all the time anymore, right? Here are some ways to make you light setup smart(er). Rules in Openhab I am controlling my Read more…
Recently it has been super hot in Germany – more than 30°C for weeks and it is not looking to get much cooler. Technology to the rescue! I bought a smart fan that I promptly integrated with my smart home system. Here is how to do it. Finding a fan Read more…
A simple DIY smart wardrobe with lights that turn on and off automatically is awesome. Using the digital LEDs to their full potential and adding WLED custom animations is even better. This is how I upgraded my wardrobe lights. The smart wardrobe lights In an earlier article I described how Read more…
A simple way to add some awesomeness to your wardrobe is to add lighting. Smart wardrobe lights look great and help find things more quickly. I build a cheap do-it-yourself solution which has some great effects not found in off the shelf solutions. All of this is done for around Read more…
You are looking to create scenes in OpenHab and don’t know how? Well you are not the only one! While OpenHab is a pretty awesome home automation platform the concept of scenes is just not properly supported. Most solutions are overly complicated but here is a simply solution for simple Read more…
One of the main problems with smart homes is how to improve usability by allowing control via “legacy” switches instead of relying on Apps and voice assistants. One great way of doing this is by adding smart relays to your existing wall switches and keep using them. For any case Read more…
Battery powered smart home devices are great. Usually small and unobtrusive and usable everywhere without the need for wires. Unfortunately batteries run out of power at one point and quietly loosing an important sensor is not so great. Here is how to build a battery level warning system to avoid Read more…
Do you have water pipes, a washing machine or a dishwasher? Awesome perks of modern technology but also a risk. Flooding your house or apartment is neither cheap nor enjoyable. While there is no 100% way to avoid this possibility an early warning system with a water leak sensor will Read more…