Category: Smart Home
Setting Up Let’s Encrypt with Node-Red & Home Assistant
Privacy is important in the smart home, and one of the primary reasons to use Home Assistant is because it is totally under control of the …
Going Further with Home Automations in Node-Red
In my last post about using Node-Red to make automations with Home Assistant, I showed some very simple flows for turning lights on and off. While it …
Useful Sensor: Cardinal Wind Direction for Home Assistant
As someone who cycles to work most days, I keep a pretty close eye on the weather. One thing I like to know is which way …
Home Assistant: Making My Plants Talk with IoT Sensors and a Python Script
Living in an urban city without a garden, I have been exercising my green thumb by accumulating more and more houseplants. I have them tucked away …
Useful Sensor: Motion Last Seen & Meta Motion Sensor
You know what’s great about motion sensors? They are very, very cheap to build yourself. All it takes is an esp8266 module like the Wemos …
Basic Node-Red Flows for Automating Lighting with Home Assistant
Smart light bulbs are probably the first thing everyone getting into home automation buys. It is easy to see the applications for them – have the …
Auto-Downloading Youtube Videos for Plex Media Server with youtube-dl
Recently it appears Youtube has decided they want to become cable TV, complete with the unending commercials for American pharmaceuticals. Since I cannot stand watching any …
Hardware: Odroid XU4 as Plex Media Server
As part of my efforts to be cloud non-dependent, I have a NAS full of several terabytes of music, movies, and TV shows. Plex is of course everyone’s …
Big List of Useful Home Automation Nodes for Node-Red
An ongoing list of nodes I have found useful for constructing home automation flows. I have not included device platform nodes, as all state tracking and …
Presence Detection Part 1: Home Assistant & Bayesian Probability
One of the most useful things to track for home automation is whether anyone is home or not. If you want the lights to turn off …