Smart plugs allow you to measure power usage and turn pretty much every electricity powered device smart(er). Which is the best one? The Aqara smart plug makes a pretty good case for joining your Home Assistant and ZHA DIY smart home with its small and sleek design and the included Read more…
WLED is a really powerful free software solution to control your LEDs in a smart way. It used to be complicated to set up bit that has changed. Here is how to get your LED setup ready in just five minutes. What is WLED? If you are looking to build Read more…
Dimmable lights are the heart of many smart homes. I tested a small Zigbee smart knob from Moes that can be used to easily control lights, curtains, temperature and much more via your existing Zigbee network. How well does it work? Here is my test with ZHA and Home Assistant. Read more…
There are a lot of smart relays on the market. The In-Wall Relay Switch Lite from Evvr tries something new: it does not only have a small form factor and very good built quality but also a small “Sub-Assembly” that makes it work with any plain old light switch. I Read more…
If you are looking for a simple solution to make your dimmable lights smart the Tuya smart dimmer switch might be the right solution. I tested this Zigbee switch with Home Assistant, ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT. The Tuya smart light switch The Tuya smart light switch (sometimes sold under the Moes Read more…
Smart lightbulbs are great but they get quite dumb really quickly when you toggle the light switch. The Aqara H1 switch can fix this issue. It works with Zigbee in Home Assistant, either with ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT and has a special decoupled mode for usage with smart lights. The Aqara Read more…
I wanted a giant map of the world on my wall so built one. Around 2,5m by 2m in size and with smart background LED lights. Here is how its done. The idea It all started with one of those ideas again: how about some nice combination of “art” and Read more…
Need a nightstand matching your bed? Build one! I built a matching bedside table for my oak bed customized to match the space and including LED lights (of course) Designing the bedside table Some time ago I bought a new bed made from nice oak wood matching a lot of Read more…
Blueprints are a powerful feature of Home Assistant that makes sharing and using automations simpler. Unfortunately using the target selector in a condition is not supported by default. I needed this for an automation of mine and found a way. Blueprints and the target selector Blueprints are one of the Read more…
I have used a couple of Wifi based hardware controllers for LED of any kind in the past. Now I am looking for a Zigbee LED controller that just works with my ZHA Home Assistant setup – and I found a great solution. The different types of LEDs and LED Read more…