UPDATE: well, I've belatedly realised I've left out a key piece of information. I need to buy a pair of locks - one for a regular wooden entrance door, and one for a security screen door in front of it.

Turns out hardly anyone (reputable) makes a decent smart lock for screen doors, except the Yale Unity range, but those aren't Z-Wave compatible.

Guess we're sticking with keys for a while longer...

---

Hey folks - the time's come for me to consider diving into smart locks.

I've been running HA for many years now, and have resisted the urge so far, but a few recent incidents have me thinking smart locks are the next upgrade I need to think of.

My requirements, equal in priority, are:

• Must be usable via HA (automating my locks is the primary reason I'm considering this move)
• Key lock backup (I'm petrified of flat batteries stopping me from entering)
• Ability for HA to report on battery level (see above)
• Local network only (prefer IP, but will consider Z-Wave - anything that calls home in the cloud is a hard no)
• Code and/or fingerprint entry (unique code per person, at least 6 codes)

I say "consider Z-Wave" as I don't currently utilise any Z-Wave devices. The main reason for this is that I run HA (Home Assistant) on a (heh!) HA (high availability) Proxmox setup, and I hadn't sat down to think through how that would work with a Z-Wave USB hub across two nodes.

But, after some cursory research, it seems there's enough options out there that will let me control Z-Wave remotely via MQTT, so I can use one of my RasPis to host a Z-Wave hub just fine.

There's been plenty of positive comments on other posts regarding Schlage's locks, so I'll probably start my research there. But I'm very keen to hear of anyone's experiences with any smart lock brands - good or bad - to help guide my research.

While I'm at it, I'm open to recommendations on a Z-Wave hub. I have zero Z-Wave experience, but I gather it's reasonably straightforward to use. Simple enough requirements:

• Usable on a RasPi running Rasbian
• Decent enough range - has to reach the smart locks through a couple of internal walls, from the garage to the front door (about 6m/20ft)

Cheers in advance for any advice offered!

Windows and macOS have similar clients (Hass.Agent for Windows and Home Assistant for macOS).

I've found these kinds of clients useful because I can remotely wake-up or sleep computers, track how long they are turned on for, and automatically pause my lights and music when my webcam turns on.

I still get updates for things I have installed, but I haven't seen any new integrations or themes added in some time.

I hope I can explain this correctly; I am only somewhat familiar with docker.

I have a script that I run after Home Assistant OS updates; it updates the alpine operating system with some extra packages and creates three symlinks in /usr/local/bin for three scripts in /config/shell_scripts. Up until now, it's run perfectly when I run it manually over ssh.

Then I decided to create an automation to run it automatically after an HAOS update, and while the package updates work, the script says those symlinks exist already so it doesn't create them; they do not exist, HAOS deletes them after an update (and Core updates might too, but I usually update them together so never checked).

After a lot of frustration, I logged into Home Assistant with root on the 22222 port and found it's checking and finding the previously created symlinks from earlier HAOS updates inside /mnt/data/docker/overlay2/../usr/local/bin and /var/lib/docker/overlay2/../usr/local/bin. At least, that's my guess; googling docker and overlays has been a trip.

So my question: how do I structure the script so that the symlink check is within the docker container's version of /usr/local/bin so it will create the symlink?

I get the answer is probably super obvious, but I am not seeing it. The only other thing I can think to do is export /homeassistant/shell_scripts to PATH but while that works over ssh, I haven't tested that running as a shell script service and I really want to automate this process.

Screenshot of full script attached; here's the short version I'm using for testing. This has been checked with and without variables for paths.

``` #!/bin/bash

variables

bin_home="/usr/local/bin" shell_home="/homeassistant/shell_scripts"

add packages

pkgs="coreutils figlet iproute2 iw jq procps-ng sed util-linux wireless-tools" apk add $pkgs echo "Packages Updated"

ln -s "$shell_home/lib_comp" "$bin_home/lib_comp" ln -s "$shell_home/ipa_status" "$bin_home/ipa_status" ln -s "$shell_home/ssh_text" "$bin_home/ssh_text"

echo "Done" ```

I'd like to use my smartphone WiFi SSID to determine if I'm home or not. When I'm home the alarm (kinda, just notifications from some sensors) needs to be shut off and a light needs to be turned on. Since the sensors update can be forced at maximum 1 minute (but I'd prefer to leave it at 15 minutes to preserve battery) and since 1 minute is too much, is there a way to send an intent to HA companion app to send a sensors update? I would use Tasker to send the intent.

I've a VLAN dedicated to IoT devices and, of course, HA can't discover them. Is it possible have them discovered by HA via MQTT? Create them manually it's a pita because they're a lot and I would have to create sensors/switches + battery level + RSSI Thanks!

I love playing with my HA and associated devices. I suspect that most of you reading this get a bit of a jolt every time you add and incorporate a new sensor, camera, integration and get to play with it.

I have all the door/window sensors and locks/covers, every angle of my exterior covered with cameras, alarm, network devices, appliances, sprinklers, household devices covered.

Any ideas for a new thing I can play with?

So I'd like to have a video doorbell set up so that it communicates locally with my HA, raising an event when the button is pressed, allowing me to watch its audio and video stream live, and speak back to whoever is at the door. Ideally either from the browser or my phone, when I'm at home or not.

I don't care about motion sensing or AI or even NVR functions really. What software do I need? Should I bother going through the process of setting up Frigate or is there something simpler that would do the job?

Sorry if this is a newb question; I'm coming in cold. I've had HAOS running on an RPi4 for months, but I haven't invested in any smart devices to connect yet.

I'd like to start with some (ideally open source) smart gauges just to check the temp out front and back. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

I have been using the BlueIris NVR integration (from HACS) for quite some time, and it works great for triggering BI from HA. I've trying to do the opposite now: Fire off automations in HA whenever BI detects motion on one of my cameras.

I've never used MQTT before, so I'm learning as I go, but I think I have most of my setup configured properly. I've installed Mosquitto and the MQTT integration in HA. I've configured BI to connect to HA, and running "Test" in the "Edit MQTT Server" menu in BI shows a good connection and no errors. I've set my cameras to post an MQTT event when the alert is triggered (and I've verified that the alerts are in fact being triggered).

Nothing happens in HA, though. The "Motion" sensor for my camera in HA stays at "Clear." In fact, the history shows no change at all, ever.

I have the events in BI set up as follows: On Alert: MQTT Topic - BlueIris/&CAM/Status and Payload - { "type": "&TYPE", "trigger": "ON" } On Reset: Exactly the same, but change ON to OFF.

I've tried change the MQTT autodiscovery header in HA from "homeassistant" to "BlueIris," and it made no difference. The Mosquitto logs show a login from HA, so I feel like I'm close, but I'm not sure where else to look.

Edit: I installed MQTT explorer, and I've verified that the messages are making it to Mosquitto, and they appear to be correctly formatted.

UPDATE: I set the MQTT integration to listen to the MQTT messages coming from BI, and sure enough, they were coming through just fine. For some reason, the BI integration just wasn't seeing them. Digging through the system logs, I saw some errors "creating a binary sensor" coming from the BI integration. The only thing I can think is that because I didn't have MQTT set up when I first installed the BI integration, something went wrong with the config (although I had already rebooted the system several times). I re-downloaded the BI integration and re-installed it, and now everything works perfectly.

Hey guys,

I made an automation that powers off my bluetooth speaker (using IR blaster) when ChromeCast is powered off for more than 10 s. Automation is working fine, but sometimes ChromeCast changes state from OFF to Unavailable and back to OFF in just a few seconds. I have no idea why is that happening, but it triggers automation and turns ON the speaker (it is the same IR button for ON and OFF) and gets it out of sync.

What condition or trigger should I use to make it work only when ChromeCast state changes from ON to OFF and ignores Unavailable to OFF?

There is my automation:

```

alias: Turn off JBL description: if CC is off for 10 sec trigger:

• platform: device type: turned_off device_id: bc1049ea43a53092952d364749c3fb4c entity_id: ae0ea35649746ed5cea16f8d6ca54dd3 domain: remote for: hours: 0 minutes: 0 seconds: 10 condition: [] action:
• service: remote.send_command metadata: {} data: num_repeats: 1 delay_secs: 0.4 hold_secs: 0 device: jbl command: "off" target: device_id: 4f1f3a13324e03646ff6b03aed27f2fe mode: single

```

thanks in advance

Curious to see how many people here are using Wyoming Satellites, and if so, what are you doing to build/house them?

I have a sample one working on an old pi and a computer speaker hooked up, with my primary Blue mic. Obviously this isn't long term, and I'm looking at building a few of these.

So, what do you use? Raspberry pi? Some sort of hat on it? What sort of casing do you use? Any really cool implementations? I'll take all ideas and suggestions!

It even has a demo right there on the phone. Also nice to see the version of the latest release at the top. This is the home page at https://www.home-assistant.io/

Based on https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/releases/tag/1.39.0

Hello,

I'm looking for a ZigBee keypad and RFC tag for my alarm. I'm using zigbee2mqtt and alarmo. Any suggestion ? Thanks !

I'm wanting to add a bunch of energy monitoring stuff so I can both track costs, and maybe implement automation to turn stuff on and off based on power costs and timing.

I'm using some TPlink based plugs right now which are like, fine, but I'm wanting to add something like 6 to 10 more monitoring devices/relays.

Anyone have experience with a bunch of shelly devices and if there's any weird behavior I should be aware of?

Assume I have good enough wifi to handle adding another 10 devices to it, but beyond that any gotchas?

Thanks to Smart Home Junkie's video (invidious link), I had my Atom Echos as voice recognition boxes with all audio output redirected to a media player of my choice (because the audio on the Echo is super quiet).

Whenever ESPHome updated, I updated my Echos to get the recent ESPHome updates, and then reinstalled the custom yaml for audio redirection.

However, with ESPHome's recent 2024.6.4 update, trying to install the yaml triggers errors that don't seem to make sense. For example, here's a section of the yaml: ``` microphone:

• platform: i2s_audio id: echo_microphone_kitchen i2s_din_pin: GPIO23 adc_type: external pdm: true

speaker:

• platform: i2s_audio id: echo_speaker_kitchen i2s_dout_pin: GPIO21 dac_type: external mode: mono

voice_assistant: id: va microphone: echo_microphone_kitchen speaker: echo_speaker_kitchen noise_suppression_level: 2 auto_gain: 31dBFS volume_multiplier: 2.0 vad_threshold: 3 on_listening: - light.turn_on: id: led blue: 100% red: 0% green: 0% effect: "Slow Pulse" on_stt_vad_end: - light.turn_on: id: led blue: 100% red: 0% green: 0% effect: "Fast Pulse" on_tts_start: - light.turn_on: id: led blue: 100% red: 0% green: 0% brightness: 100% effect: none on_tts_end: - homeassistant.service: service: media_player.play_media data: entity_id: media_player.${media_player} media_content_id: !lambda 'return x;' media_content_type: music announce: "false" on_end: - delay: 100ms - wait_until: not: speaker.is_playing: - script.execute: reset_led on_error: - light.turn_on: id: led red: 100% green: 0% blue: 0% brightness: 100% effect: none - delay: 1s - script.execute: reset_led on_client_connected: - if: condition: switch.is_on: use_wake_word then: - voice_assistant.start_continuous: - script.execute: reset_led on_client_disconnected: - if: condition: switch.is_on: use_wake_word then: - voice_assistant.stop: - light.turn_off: led

external_components:

• source: github://pr#5230 components:
  • esp_adf refresh: 0s

esp_adf: ```

On lines 3 and 10 I define unique IDs for the device's microphone and speaker.

But ESPHome won't compile, telling me:

• on line 46: Too many candidates found for 'id' type 'speaker::Speaker' Some are 'echo_speaker', 'echo_speaker_kitchen'.
• on line 57: Too many candidates found for 'id' type 'speaker::Speaker' Some are 'echo_speaker', 'echo_speaker_kitchen'.
• on line 77: Too many candidates found for 'id' type 'microphone::Microphone' Some are 'echo_microphone', 'echo_microphone_kitchen'.
• on line 90: Too many candidates found for 'id' type 'speaker::Speaker' Some are 'echo_speaker', 'echo_speaker_kitchen'.

There are no other occurrences of the word "speaker" or "microphone" in the conf yaml (and I'm not including other yaml files).

I'm assuming most of this config is default, and the only things I care about are forcing pin 21 for the speaker (line 11) and redirecting audio to my media player (lines 45-52).

I am talking about this kind of livestream.

It looks nice, with all the different layouts and so on.

I have been using the Kasa (TP-Link) branded smart switches around my house, but now that I have a few third reality zigbee sensors for my doors and so on, I am seeing the value of using more outlets/switches that act as zigbee repeaters. Do any of you have pretty reasonable (and cheapish) smart light switches or outlets I can invest in? The Amazon offerings are in the $50 each one which is pretty steep, though I guess I could just do one each room and do the rest with Kasa stuff.

I would like to expand the zigbee mesh network so I can use the devices where I actually want them without using smart outlet devices plugged into real outlets all over the place. If there was something that was $20 or less each item that would be super excellent. The wife and I plan to move in the not too distant future and I'd like to replace the "in the wall" stuff so that HA works throughout the house and I don't have plugs / dongles / wall warts all over the place.

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Hi,

Is there anyone using Amcrest IP4M-1041B with Home Assistant? I've a few questions about software and integration.

1. From what I hear, this camera can be setup 100% offline, connected via cable to any computer and by using a built in WebUI the camera has, is this true?

2. It offers pan, tilt or zoom. Does it work really good with HA? Can it be operated without any Amcrest software / internet connection?

3. The features above allow you to set preset locations, can that be done on HA / WebUI / without the Amcrest app as well?

4. Does it really operate all features offline and is it reliable? Eg. motion detection works as expected / doesn't miss events?

5. What's your overall experience with the camera? Does it compare to let's say a TP-Link tapo?

Thank you.

I'm looking to replace a few in-wall light switches for lights that are not easily replaced with smart bulbs. I currently use Home Assistant with z2m for all my smart lights and switches, so zigbee switches would be preferred. Does anyone have recommendations for smart in-wall switches?

Hey guys. Im running Home Assistant in docker container for few years and I'm super happy with it. The only way I access my server when not home is wireguard VPN. I noticed that I'm still receiving notifications even when not connected to VPN. I wonder how is that possible?

I don't have sub for HA Cloud or Nabu Casa. I also don't own a domain, using duckdns for wireguard connection and reverse proxy (npm). I thought I have 100% local setup, but I guess there is a Google or HA server in between. I don't want to disable the feature, I just want to know where is my data being sent

Thx

Looking for a solution on how to determine when to close and open skylight blinds. I can just do hours of the day but would like it to be a bit more intelligent.

Anyone looked at using something like the math used for solar panels? I was thinking that when max solar power was generated in the summer that is when they are closed to keep heat out.

Ideas?

They've improved the Everything Presence Lite.

I missed it in the release notes, but there's a breaking change in the ota component in ESPHome 2024.6.0. I figured I'd save folks some time and share the fix here.

If your OTA config looks like this;

``` ...

ota: password: "*************" num_tries: 3 safe_mode: on

... ```

Now you'll need to add a platform key to start a list, and either comment out the other option or move them to a new component.

``` ...

ota:

• platform: esphome password: "*************" #num_tries: 3 #safe_mode: on

... ```

edit: Here's the PR introducing this change https://github.com/esphome/esphome/pull/6459

No major question here, just thought you might find this interesting. It's an example of the kind of (off-the-wall) things you can do with HA that aren't immediately obvious. When I was starting out with HA, I enjoyed reading these examples, because it gave me ideas for my own setup. And, I wrote many automations that should really be scripts, so hopefully this will help someone avoid that and recognize the power of scripts early.

At home, my laptop from work sits (closed) on a stand under the monitors. I have a docking station for it, but the docking station doesn't have a power button to start the laptop (the official Dell docking stations have a power button, but other brand of docking stations don't). So, since I got that stand a few weeks ago, I've been pulling the laptop out and opening juuuuuuust enough that I could reach the power button, then closing it and sliding it back into the stand. There had to be a better way that didn't involve buying an expensive Dell docking station.

The docking station power is on a Sonoff S31 outlet (flashed with Tasmota, not that that's important here) that is remotely controllable. Long ago, I set up HA automations that turned on the S31 when the laptop was detected on the network, and shut off the S31 after the laptop dropped off the network at the end of the day (leaving in a time delay so it didn't shut off if there was a momentary network glitch). So, I'd boot the laptop, and a moment later the docking station would kick on and connect the mouse and monitors to it. And the end of the day, I shut down the laptop, and a few minutes later the docking station shuts off automatically.

I recently discovered the Wake on LAN integration. So, after setting that up, I wrote a script that turns on the S31, waits a while*, then triggers the Wake-on-LAN for the laptop...and it boots up! With HA, I can start the boot process while I'm still relaxing in the living room before starting work; in theory I'll go into the office and it'll be ready for me to log in.

Heck, if HA knew for certain it was a workday, it could boot the laptop for me.....hmmm. Maybe something to think about for the future.

*How long? Well, 30 seconds seems to be too short; the laptop doesn't respond to the WoL command after just 30 seconds with power applied. It did work this morning when I waited several minutes to try it again. I just changed the delay to 1 minute and will see how that works tomorrow.

I also added a repeat loop (starting after that 1 minute timer) with three components:

• A condition that looks for the laptop being "Away" on the network. (If it is "Home" on the network, the condition will end the script.)
• If it is, then it tries the WoL command again.
• Then waits 30 seconds and repeat.

The repeat loop counter is set to 3, for a total of 4 attempts to start the laptop. I'll check the traces and see when it starts working, and set the initial delay accordingly, so that in general it shouldn't need the repeat loop.

If people want, I can post (sanitized) YAML. But I do like explaining the process rather than just posting code.

It's been written by a self_admitted noob at integrations, but it effortlessly pulls in all data from my Sleep As Android alarm clock and even introduced me to features of the app I didn't know existed, and I've been using it for years.

By following his instructions (I skipped the watch bit) Home Assistant now know when I'm sleeping and awake.

I've been considering some kind of bed load esp board for a while but now I don't have to. I know when I fell asleep last night and even when I was snoring.

More importantly, Home Assistant knows these things and I can now have a more reliable Good Night automation that knows when I'm sleeping, even when I get kicked out of bed and have to sofa sleep.

HACS has a problem with hitting the GitHub rate limit when you first install it. It’s not really that big of a deal. You usually just need to wait an hour for the local database to populate.

It used to be optional to link your GitHub to HACS to bypass the rate limiting but now it seems the installation requires it.

I’m not a fan of this as somebody who uses Homeassistant for its privacy values and am kind of frustrated HACS removed the ability to install without a GitHub API key.

Is there a manual way to override the API linking process?

Working on the @homeassistant setup this weekend now that the pantry is getting closer to being finished.

Trying to setup an automation to run the robot vacuum in the utility room every third time the litter box goes off. Cannot seem to get the zones working though.

Any thoughts? \#homeassistant #smarthome #homeautomation

Based on https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/releases/tag/1.38.0

I don't have yet any preferences. Cheap, easy to set up, secure. What do you use and can recommend?

Summary: > This video is about creating better smart home automations. The video introduces 6 heuristics that the creator uses to evaluate automations. These heuristics are: > > * Insider Knowledge: Automations should not require users to have any special knowledge to use them. > * Anti-ambiguous: Automations should be clear and easy to understand what they do. > * Failsafe: Automations should not cause any harm or negative consequences. > * All or Nothing: Automations should allow users to easily opt in or out of the experience. > * Accessibility: Automations should be usable by everyone in the household. > * Learnable: Automations should be easy for users to learn and understand how to use them. > > The creator argues that automations should be designed to be used by everyone in the household, not just the person who created them. The video uses the example of an automation that dims the lights and closes the blinds when a TV is turned on. This automation would be inconvenient if someone wanted to watch TV during the day, and it would violate the All or Nothing heuristic. > > The creator proposes a solution to this problem by adding a toggle switch that allows users to enable or disable the automation. The automation also includes a voice message that announces what actions can be taken. This solution satisfies all of the heuristics and makes the automation more user-friendly. > > The video concludes by asking viewers for their feedback on the heuristics and whether they can think of any other important heuristics that should be considered.

I woke up this morning at 6 am with IBS cramps. I tried to go back to bed but I'd woken fully up so by half 7 I was sat at my PC with a brew for some uninterrupted tinkering.

My espresence has been a bit finicky since ai set it up. I've been moving the nodes around to find better positions with slight improvements but nothing making it properly stable.

Well this morning was even worse than usual. I'm sat in my front room with my sensor flitting between the floor above and below me but never on the floor I'm on.

I moved the sensors again. I played with dwell time. I changed "wait until" up. I even dived into the rabbit hole of tuning the base stations by increasing rssi and absorbsion, which actually seemed to do the best at improving it.

So at this point my phone has been sitting on the desk for a few hours while I fine tune all this, when my wife comes down the stairs. Her beacon is firmly set to "frontroom" when she sits down but mine is bouncing around the house. Odd.

Then I finally figured it out!

The damn phone is sat on a wireless charging stand on my desk. This must be interfering with my Bluetooth!

I take my phone off the stand and voila, it's in a stable place in espresence.

So that's how I wasted 2 hours this morning.

I say wasted, I did manage to get it more stable on the charging stand before I realised, and this seems to have helped it's stability when it's off the stand. In fact, all my messing about this morning has made espresence correctly report my location ever since.