The home assistant API can be used to build external tools to manipulate information in home assistant and control elements in it. This can be useful for triggering automations with custom code. It can even be triggered using curl on linux, allowing for simple scripts executing home assistant actions.
Continue reading “Enabling the Home Assistant API”Home Assistant Automated Christmas Lights
I have a number of windows with Christmas lights in them. I would like to use smart plugs and home assistant to automate them turning on and off during the winter season since I’m pretty lazy when it comes to decorating. This should be pretty straight forward to do once we have the current month sensor setup in home assistant to use as a condition.
Continue reading “Home Assistant Automated Christmas Lights”Motion Sensing Lights with Home Assistant
I’ve already setup some fairy lights on the stairs which come on just before sundown and stay on until bedtime, but I started wondering, can I use them as night lights on the stairs for when I don’t want to turn on the main overheads, and can I do that all with motion sensors. For this project, I’d like to take my lights from here and add motion sensors so they turn on for some time period after being triggered and act as automated stairway night lights.
Continue reading “Motion Sensing Lights with Home Assistant”Novelkeys Novelty Big Switch Macro Pad
After putting together the EspDeck 9 key pad, and talking to the wife of other places we could make things better, the bedroom fan and lights came up. I mentioned that we could use smart switches for them and make a small 2 key control for our night stands, which she was super excited about, and then I showed her the NovelKeys big switches and it was sold, we were going to have some hilarious macro pads to control our bedroom lights.
Continue reading “Novelkeys Novelty Big Switch Macro Pad”Automated Pantry Light
I have a light in my pantry that isn’t super obvious when its on if the door is closed, and I may leave the light on from time to time by accident. The light switch is also partially buried in things hanging from the wall, so why not automate it to make things a bit easier, that is what smart homes are for. My idea is to use a smart door sensor and light switch to automate it and keep things from being left on.
Goal
- Turn on the pantry lights while the door is open
- Close the pantry lights when the door is closed
- Allow lights to be turned on with the door closed
WLED Notice of Laser Cutter Use
I have a laser cutter in my office that I use from time to time. I close the door when its running because you need safety glasses on while its running, but since I use my office for other things, the door closed doesn’t necessarily mean safety glasses are needed. To make this simpler, I decided to try and make some automations to notify when the laser is running. I want to use a WLED strip around the door and light it different colors based on laser operating status (and other statuses in the future).
Goals
- Set the WLED strip to red when the laser starts cutting
- Set the WLED strip to the previous settings (or turn it off) when the laser stops cutting
Creating Icons for Relegendable Keycaps
After picking up some relegendable keycaps for my EspDeck, I needed to start creating some icons to print it and use in them. I’m not the most proficient with image editing tools, so here’s what I did to get some made.
Continue reading “Creating Icons for Relegendable Keycaps”EspDeck Automations
Now that I have two EspDecks in my house, its time to start adding some automations. These are just going to be suggestions that people can make use of, ideas on what to use them for. There won’t be much text here, just the automation configurations and what they do.
Continue reading “EspDeck Automations”MDNS Across Unifi VLANs
I started working on some hardware projects related to home assistant using the ESP8266. in working on these I learned that the ESP devices use mDNS to advertise their hostnames for communicating with them. My devices however are on a separate VLAN that’s unable to communicate with the internet, and that VLAN was also blocking the mDNS updates from making it through to home assistant, keeping it from being able to know the hostnames. I could use static IPs for this, however I want to avoid locking all my little smart devices to static IPs.
Continue reading “MDNS Across Unifi VLANs”EspDeck Generation 2
When I started into the EspDeck project, I had enough parts on hand to build two units. I had two sampler packs of switches and two ESP8266 boards to use. So once I had the gen1 unit built, I started working on generation 2 of the EspDeck. Gen2 has a well designed case that holds the board in place, allows easier plugging in of USB, and a cleaner wiring design.
Continue reading “EspDeck Generation 2”