Home Automation
Deep dives into Home Assistant, hardware reviews, and automation blueprints.
Rolf Szimnau
Home Automation Specialist & IT Advisor
I automate our home in southern Denmark and write down what actually works.
#dashboard#energy
Our washing machine died, so I bought a Miele for its native Home Assistant integration, then found it has no delayed-start register like the dishwasher.
#camera#security
The logbook card shows both Detected and Cleared for camera sensors. The fix: an input_text rolling log, an automation with trigger IDs, and a markdown card.
#weather#notifications
The built-in MeteoAlarm integration shows one alert at a time. cap_alerts creates one entity per DMI alert: storm, cloudburst, snow and heat, independently.
My real-world Home Assistant stack: the exact gear I run, test, and review.
Proxmox Host
Intel i5-8500, 32GB RAM, 500GB NVMe SSD. Runs Proxmox VE as the home server backbone.
Smart Home Hub
Running as a Proxmox VM with 4 vCPU and 4GB RAM. The brain of the entire smart home.
vendor site →Thread & Zigbee Radio
Dual-radio USB stick running as an OpenThread Border Router. Alongside the Google TV Streamer it forms a redundant Thread mesh. IKEA and other Thread sensors pair directly with HA without a third-party hub.
vendor site →Networking
UniFi Ultra gateway, 8-port PoE switch, and two APs covering the house, with rock-solid IoT VLAN isolation.
vendor site →Security Camera
4K PoE camera with AI detection for person, vehicle, and animal. Binary sensors feed HA automations for smart alerts.
vendor site →Robot Vacuum
Interactive floor map with room-by-room cleaning control. Custom xiaomi-vacuum-map-card in Lovelace.
vendor site →Robotic Lawn Mower
GPS + RTK boundary mowing without perimeter wire. RTK corrections via iNav NetRTK. Native HA integration with weather-aware scheduling and satellite count monitoring.
vendor site →Electric Vehicle
Integrated via VW Group Connect after moving off MyŠkoda ahead of its October 2026 shutdown: battery state, charging status and range in Home Assistant.
Climate
A single zone, auto-discovered in HA, with API quota managed through Tado Hijack. Animated breathing cards on the dashboard.
vendor site →Bathroom Ventilation
Humidity-sensing extractor fan with its own Bluetooth interface. No official HA integration, so it is bridged via a community BLE proxy project, with a staleness-alert automation to catch when the BLE link drops.
vendor site →Audio
Living room speaker unified with Google Nest Audio via HA scripts and controlled as one multi-room system.
vendor site →Lighting
Wi-Fi bulbs integrated natively. Used for circadian lighting schedules and TV movie-mode scene automation.
vendor site →Lighting
Matter-compatible bulbs bridged to HA without a separate hub. Solid local control with no cloud dependency.
vendor site →LED Lighting
Bias lighting and LED strips via the Govee Home integration. Scene-synced with media playback.
vendor site →Smart Devices
IKEA Thread sensors running on the shared Thread mesh. Two border routers (HA ZBT-2 and Google TV Streamer) provide redundant routing, so devices pair directly into HA without a separate hub.
vendor site →Appliances
Dishwasher visible in HA via Home Connect. Push notification, plus a button that schedules the cycle for the cheapest electricity hour.
vendor site →Appliances
Washing machine on the core `miele` integration, no HACS. Voice and push alerts when a cycle finishes, plus a homemade scheduling workaround for the delayed-start register Miele doesn't expose.
vendor site →Smart Heating
Wi-Fi panel radiators with native HA integration. Per-room temperature control without a gateway.
vendor site →DIY Sensors
Custom ESP32/ESP8266 sensors for temperature, humidity, and more. Full local control, no cloud.
vendor site →LoRa IoT
PricelessToolkit sensor 200m away via LoRa. Instant push when mail arrives. Running 1+ year on a single battery.
vendor site →