Running a lot of Docker containers for your smart home and other software needs generates a lot of logs. A simple tool for log aggregation to view all of them together can help a lot. Professional software like the ELK stack is complicated to set up but there is a 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…
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…
Home Assistant dashboard are great, but Grafana is even more powerful. So why not combine them and embed your Grafana graphs directly into your Home Assistant dashboard? It is actually pretty simple. How to push your Home Assistant data into Grafana To get your data from Home Assistant to Grafana Read more…
Network wide DNS ad blocker like Adguard Home and PiHoleAds can be a great solution to a big problem. Ads can be really annoying and even a huge security risk, but many modern devices like smart TVs are out of your direct control. Network wide ad blocker can get around Read more…
If anything goes wrong in your smart home (or with your server) it would generally be great to get notified as soon as possible. Sending notifications with the versatile Pushover service is a simple way to do this. Here is how you can also make your smart home text you. Read more…
The Roborock S50 is a great cleaning robot with a great price. I have been using it for quite some time. Unfortunately it is always trying to climb on small ledges (like chair bases) just to get stuck there. Why did Roborock not make the front bumber height adjustable? Anyways Read more…
Blueprints are an awesome new feature in Home Assistant that allow you to build & share generic automations for similar situations. You build a smart home to be able to automate common tasks but sometimes you do not have the time or knowledge to create them. That is where you Read more…
Moving Docker data to an external SSD fixes a major flaw with my smart home system. Many people out there, including me, are running a small home server on a Raspberry Pi – usually running on a SD card with very limited space and a potentially very limited lifetime. Fortunately Read more…
Home Assistant has a neat UI but many often needed pages are only accessible via a nested menu. Fortunately the Home Assistant sidebar is customizable with some tricks. I found a solution that allows adding new items for much used pages like integrations and automations. How to re-arrange existing entries Read more…