// Home Automation
Deep dives into Home Assistant, hardware reviews, and automation blueprints.
// Blog
How I built a daily 06:00 spoken briefing in Home Assistant using Google AI TTS (Gemini), calendar.get_events across three family calendars, EV charge status, Waze commute traffic, live electricity price, and a garbage collection countdown.
My Home Assistant SQLite database hit 963 MB in six days. Here's the exact recorder config that cut daily growth by over 70% — with the full YAML and the reasoning behind each exclusion.
How I automated the radiator in Louise's room to turn off when the window opens and back on when it closes — built as a reusable Blueprint so the next room takes 30 seconds to add.
// Hardware
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 — 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 MyŠkoda: battery state, charge control, HVAC pre-conditioning, and price-aware smart charging automations.
Climate
5 zones with auto-discovery in HA. Presence-based setback and animated breathing cards on the dashboard.
vendor site →Audio
Living room speaker unified with Google Nest Audio via HA scripts — 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 — devices pair directly into HA without a separate hub.
vendor site →Appliances
Washer and dishwasher visible in HA via Home Connect. Push notification when cycles finish.
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 →