homeassistant

I thought I'd pop this up here, as I've now had mine almost a year.

I've had sonoff zigbee sensors for a while, and wanted to try this slightly updated one with a display.
To cut a long story short:

• It works
• It communicates and pairs with HA ZHA integration out of the box.
• I've not had any issues at all since I bought it.
• The display is clear
• The bracket sticks to the wall, then the sensor magnets into the bracket. The sensor also has a fold-out stand for placing on a surface.
• After almost 1 year on the included battery, it's showing 60%
• I paid about £12, they're now around £14

Battery use should obviously be taken with a pinch of salt, but I would not be surprised if it's still trucking after 2 years.

Accuracy is fine for consumer level gear

I also discovered (after updating to HA latest) that temperature and humidity thresholds can be set on the device.
And that it will show symbols on the display when these limits are breached. By default, it shows a snowflake when it's under 19'C.

So, yeah. For areas where people are likely to want to check the temperature quickly, they're neat little dooberies.

I built a new house last year and moved in this January. This is my first time living in a house that's air tight enough to have an air exchanger. Through the winter it was fine - I just left it run its own Eco mode and everything seemed good. I'm finding spring really frustrating though - most days are nice and warm and we open windows, most nights are cool and we close the windows. I don't like wasting electricity by running the air exchanger all day when the windows are open.

I've considered window sensors and a smart plug on the air exchanger, but I don't really want to install 13 window sensors.

Are there air quality sensors that are accurate, and reliable, enough for me to turn the air exchanger on whenever the CO2, or whatever it is that make a house feel stuffy, level gets high enough?

My air exchanger is a very basic "builder" model and won't do this itself. It has an air quality sensor and changes the fan level to what it thinks we need, but it won't turn off when we don't need it.

I would like to start using floorplans/maps with various device actions on them. This means I need locally stored images, that can be seen over the network.
I managed to upload images to HA, but as they need to be accessed with a token, I either need to refresh the token every day (no), or have an image with a long-lived token (also not a good idea).

How have other people done things?
Is it worth spinning up an http image host?
Or maybe throwing files into an nginx folder inside HA?

Thoughts on a postcard :)

I've been running Home Assistant for about a year now and always installed every update as soon as it's released and never had any issues at all.

Yesterday some time in either the zwave js 15.6.0 or core 2025.6.0 update (I am too complacent and did them both in quick succession without testing anything) I lost my Zooz 800 zwave controller. Reloading HA didn't bring it back. I had unplug and replug the Zooz USB stick and then reload again.

Not a big deal, just sharing FYI.

I've got several Amcrest cameras connected through Frigate (running standalone) to HA but I'm not sure how to properly setup the camera card so that the 'thumbnail' shown on the dashboard cards refreshes every so often.

Previously I had them connected directly to HA via the Dahua integration and set the camera streams as both the thumbnail image and as what's displayed when you click the card and this all worked fairly well (the thumbnail would refresh every few minutes) but now after switching to Frigate, the thumbnails have remained static since the day it was initially set up and never refresh and I'm not sure how to fix this.

The cameras are all PoE and connected to an Amcrest NVR which does the main recording while Frigate just sees the substream and uses it for object detection and remote viewing through HA. Clicking the camera cards allows me to view the stream but for whatever reason the thumbnails never refresh.

This isn't specifically Home Assistant, but so many people seem to be using Frigate with Home Assistant it feels close enough.

I recently got my first camera. I tried ZoneMinder for a while, but have given up - just overwhelmed with false positives for fog, rain, insects etc. and not being able to tune them out. Most people seem to be going Frigate so I'll give that a go.

I don't really want to use a USB TPU (no real reason) and my current server has no Mini PCIe or M.2 slots. I recall seeing people say they had bad experiences with PCIe M.2 adapters.

Does anyone here have any experience to share about any specific adapter?

I recently setup my ZigBee network in Home Assistant, using a Conbee III with deConz on my Synology NAS.

I purchased a few Aqara Temperature sensors and a couple of Mini Switches.

I was able to get them to pair just fine, but they won't remain online for more than a couple days. They then drop off and I can't even reconnect them easily. I need to try to pair them again like 10 times before they come back online.

At this point I don't know if the problem is my network, the Conbee III, deConz, or the Aqara devices.

I don't know much about ZigBee, but a couple things that I tried so far were:

1. Use a USB extender instead of connecting the Conbee III directly to my NAS.
2. Bring the devices as close a possible to the gateway. I don't have a big home, so I don't think distance is a factor here, but still, I put of the sensors right next to the gateway, and it would still drop after a while.

Do you have any hints on things to try to get this fixed, or at least identify the problem?

I have recently setup a reverse proxy with the nginx addon for my home assistant server. Everything works well with the exception of the local calender integration. For whatever reason it throws an error "Could not retrieve events for calendars: " when connecting through the external URL. I also get a failed login attempt but only if I open the calender tab.

Does anyone know why it does this and how to fix it? I would like to use the home assistant calender for my family and acces is while away from home.

As I'm currently doing a re-wire, it's a great opportunity for me to put some metering in the house.
I'm single-phase, but I plan to monitor multiple sections of the house, which are each wired for 100A independently.

I'm currently eyeing up either the Shelly Pro 3EM – 120A or the 50A.
As it will fit nicely in the consumer unit, and supports Ethernet.

I previously looked at the Aeotec clamp devices, but they seem to be difficult to find with multiple 100A connectors.

Emporia Vue was also a consideration, but I'm always a little hesitant to buy products that require custom firmware to even work properly, when others are available. And I'd also like to avoid using 2.4Ghz wifi for connectivity.

I'd love to hear any experiences people have had with similar devices, good or bad. And how the integration with HA went.

I am using the teslemetry integration to dynamically adjust my charging amps to match the surplus production from my solar panels. I have an automation that checks surplus production every 2min and adjust amps only if needed.

But teslemetry seems to trigger the wake up command every single time I want to send a command to my car, regardless of the cars sleep state. This means that teslemetry is burning through my command credits in an absurdly short amount of time as every wake command costs a ridiculously 20 credits.

How can I stop teslemetry from triggering these expensive and utterly unnecessary wake up commands?

Can someone please paste the configuration yaml for an M5Stack Atom Echo that is currently working as a voice assistant satellite for Home Assistant using open wake word? (remember to redact your private data)

I installed a bunch of these Echos following these instructions back when they were first introduced. They have tiny little speakers which are essentially useless, but I routed the output sound to a media player in the same room. At that time the only option was to use open-wake-word - Nabu Casa even provided instructions and virtual-gpu resources to train your own wakeword, which I did.

The Echos worked great with my own custom wakeword for a long time!

Then sometime within the past year they stopped working. Their "wake word" entity is unavailable. I know Home Assistant came out with micro-wake-word, but I wasn't aware they ended (or broke) the open-wake-word functionality. I'd love to get my Echos working again - I'd prefer to use open-wake-word, but if the only way they're going to work now is with a pre-set wakeword, that's better than no voice assist at all!

Thanks for any help you can provide.

A few years ago a friend gave me an "Urban Shop" glitter lamp as a gift. It was a neat twist on a lava lamp that used LEDs and glitter with a motor that spun the fluid using a magnetic string bar.

While it was a great vibe, it used three AA batteries and the stirring would cycle on and off regularly causing the noise to start and stop, which I found more distracting than just leaving it on.

I found that the on-off switch was actual an on-on switch without a second connection, so I took an old USB cable and hardwired the second switch terminal so that I could power it from a power supply or batteries.

This was a drastic improvement to me, but I didn't like the cord always being attached and the motor cycling was still annoying. Eventually, the lamp ended up on a shelf for a later date.

Today, I pulled the lamp down because I finally tried ESPHome because I keep hearing about it in other people's projects and wanted to finally try the full smart conversion of this lamp. After several hours of trying to reuse the existing surface-mount LEDs and wiring, I gutted the whole damn thing and installed my own 5mm LEDs, rewired the motor, and added a button for controls and wired everything into a Raspberry Pi Pico W I had bought years ago.

Now I have a lamp that can be controlled locally from the button, can be reprogrammed from my computer without moving the lamp, can be controlled from Home Assistant, and performs exactly how I want.

What I want to achieve:

I'm subscribed to Home Assistant Cloud, and I want better location history but integrated to Home Assistant.

What I've tried:

I've tried to setup the server integration, I have traccar running successfully, but I don't know how to reach traccar without exposing it to the internet too, is that even possible? I know there's a script that feeds a HA device's location to Traccar, but I would prefer to use the official integration if possible.

Questions

Can I avoid exposing Traccar server to the internet without using a VPN?

I've got a non-smart washer, but after a recent power outage I noticed that it resumes the wash cycle at it's current point when power is cut then restored.

Enter an IKEA smart button and smart plug.

I load the washer, get it started then press the button to kill power and enable an automation (currently on have 4 am and 3 pm).

At 4am or 3pm, the automation turns the power back on and disables itself.

Next step is monitoring the smart plug power monitoring to send a notification when the washer finishes.

So I have my AC connected to a smart plug and I'm trying to figure out what would be the best way to go about automating it.

Currently, I have it set to run every hour on the hour for 20 minutes if the time is between noon and 8 p.m. Which covers the hottest part of the day.

However, what I could do is have it run every other hour instead and have a couple of night runs along with the daytime runs.

Doing it that way would eliminate most of the 16-hour period currently that exists between the ending of one day and the beginning of the next.

Edit: Also, is there an easy way to automate every other hour using the time pattern or would I manually have to set up triggers for 2am, 4am, 6am, 8am, 10am, etc. using the fixed values?

Edit 2: looks like i can use "/2" to accomplish that

This morning my kid asked the voice assistant to "Turn off the computers in this house".

I heard it, thought well that's a strange request but seems harmless because how is home assistant gonna turn off computers.

Me a little while later, "why is shit broken? What's happening!"

Turns out dumb me had adguard exposed to the voice assistant, it switched off all the adguard settings including the DNS rewriting that is the cornerstone of many of my self-hosted services.

I've since revoked that access.

I would like to use device names such as "NBR-NW1 (John's AC)" which is shorthand for "North Bedroom North Wall1 (John's AC)". However, it appears as though when I ask the assistant to "turn on John's AC", it does not match it to anything.

I'm tinkering with our ventilation over-pressure function in combination with an inline fan I run when 3D printing or soldering, to get the fumes and particulates out while simultaneously not creating a massive vacuum inside. The plan is to control it with MQTT from HA to a PLC that controls the ventilation via RS-485.

Therefore I'm looking for a simple but clean looking smart plug that I can integrate with HA to let me know when the fan is on (pulling power, actual wattage is irrelevant) to automatically enable this function.

I know Sonoff makes some, but I always prefer personal advice over random search results.
Preferably Zigbee or WiFi (offline) as I don't have any Matter/Z-wave hub/dongle. Compact design and black would be nice, but not a must. Stability and ease of setup matters more than added functionality.

Does anyone have any personal experience to share?
I'm grateful if you do. Thanks!

I've got an extra tall living room, and without a 15' ladder there's no way I can actuate the pull down shades. I would be annoyed to have to climb up to change batteries a few times a year. What I would ideally want are some kind of window shade or blinds with a remote or HA controllable, and a little solar panel to collect the juicy rays of the sun.

I have found hard wired shades, battery powered shades with remotes, and zigbee etc shades, but not exactly what I'm looking for.

Any suggestions?

I don't actually HAVE any automation at home beyond some hated Alexas, but these shades would be a great place to start.

Thanks in advance.

I currently have a lot of my light automations setup by first having an automation that turns the light on at a certain time, then another that turns the light off at another time. This works, and it has for years, but I'm imagining there must be blueprints or other methods to do this on/ off behavior in a single automation rather than having them in pairs (this is not scaling very well).

Anyone have suggestions? The image is a blueprint I have for turning lights on/ off based on a time window which is very handy, and I'm hoping there's something similar out there for my needs.