Does anyone have feedback on how well these work?

I have fire alarms on different floors of the house and I'm wondering if this device will be able to listen for the alarm from another floor. The alarm is still quite loud throughout the house but the instructions say it needs to be right next to an existing alarm.

I'd rather not have to buy a bunch of these if possible.

For quite a while I had been longing to measure the waterlevel in my well.

The first attempt with a HC-SR04 failed due to distance (4 meter deep well) and problems of how to mount it in the well. Then I came across the JSN-SR04 sensor. It's all running on an esp2866 (I found it to have better wifi than the esp32). Several parts re-used from old projects. Added small solar panel to keep it all self contained. Data is sent to homeassistant (mqtt) and a bit of log/debug data to syslog.

Due to circumstances had it been lying on my desk quite a while, but finally, today I was able to install it!
I screwed a drainpipe cap to the lid of the well and mounted the sensor in another. A simple pipe connector in between works like a charm.

My home assistant setup is super simple: pre-configured Home Assistant Green box, Zigbee dongle and some assorted Zigbee devices scattered around my home. I have the Home Assistant app on my phone to see the Dashboard while I'm at home, but since I never configured the box to be accessible from outside of my network, I obviously can't see the Dashboard if I'm not at home. Very basic stuff so far.

A few weeks ago, I built a little automation. I shoved a vibration sensor into my doorbell box (it's one of those that uses an electric motor to hit an actual bell) and when it detects the doorbell ringing, it flickers my light and sends a notification that says "ding dong" to my phone. The purpose is just to hear the doorbell ring when I have headphones on. The lights work perfectly fine, the notification is a bit delayed sometimes because I probably don't give the App enough permissions to hang out in the background all the time. I've never felt like fixing it though, since the lights are good enough by themselves.

Now I'm on my first longer trip since setting up that automation and I've noticed that I occasionally get the "dong dong" notification on my phone. First few times I've ignored it, because I assumed it's just old notifications that got queued while I was home but didn't fire until the app was allowed to sync. But the notifications started coming in at way too reasonable times and I checked in with my husband at home -- turns out they're actually completely correct and I'm getting actual real-time notifications for the doorbell ringing.

But like - how?! I thought my Home Assistant Green box isn't set up to send anything to the outside world?! I can't see my dashboard from other networks, so why would notifications be any different? Does anyone have any ideas as to why I'm getting those notifications?

edit: Thought it would make sense to include a screenshot of my settings; As you see, my home assistant URL is a local IP address. I have no idea why my phone would be able to talk to that? It can't talk to my local-IP-only Jellyfin server either, so why would this be any different?

One automation for each battery was getting crazy. A temperature sensor in most rooms, motion detectors and a handful of door/window sensors. This blueprint creates an automation that manages all batteries dynamically. Really is amazing.

What blueprints do find useful?

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/low-battery-notifications-actions/653754

After a power outage this weekend, when HASS came back up I lost all automations related to my Sonoff Orb 4-Way smart switch, and one of my GE 800 Z-Wave switches no longer responds, though it still works manually pressing the switch.

I’ve re-entered the automations, but I can’t get the switch so come back to home assistant. Is the only path forward deleting, resetting it, and re-adding it? I’ve never had this happen. I’m not 100% sure the power outage caused the issue. I updated the core this weekend also. I think that was before the outage, but I hadn’t checked to see if everything was there after the update/before the outage.

ETA: Thanks for all the help. Wound up removing, resetting, and re-adding it. Entity ID is the same, so I expect existing automations should still work.

I finally found out you can use the Android Debug Bridge integration to play specific YouTube videos on Smarttube (adfree youtube app)!

This is triggered when I get home, along with my lights turning on. I have additional actions to set the volume low as well.

You just need to have ADB enabled on the TV and enter it's IP in the integration setup (leave port as is)

Now I am wondering if I can set it up to play my favorite shows in Stremio, starting where I left off last.

action: androidtv.adb_command
metadata: {}
target:
  device_id: 31ecf6603ac8b90769db6a689d0bbeb9
data:
  command: >-
    am start -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d
    "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT0uftcDICg" org.smarttube.stable

I was having zigbee device dropping issues and I've been looking at the zbt-2. I was hesitating due to the price. I went to take another search this evening and there's one listed at a huge discount. I'm not going to post the link here as I'm unsure of the rules, but it's easy to find on Amazon.ca.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but...

Buyer Beware! Aqara hubs use the Zigbee protocol, but lock out 3rd party devices!

A few months ago, I bought an Aqara hub and went deep into their ecosystem. I saw their hub and sensors had good reviews, plus they were using the Zigbee open protocol, so I figured I'd stick with their stuff. I had no reason to try other devices until recently.

I picked up a tilt sensor for my garage door from a 3rd party. I made sure it was also using the Zigbee protocol, so I assumed it would be compatable. Unfortunately, when I tried connecting it to the hub, I was wrong and it wouldn't connect. Turns out, Aqara uses the Zigbee protocol, but locks out 3rd party devices. [source]

If anyone has a workaround to integrate a 3rd party device with an Aqara Hub (IIRC, I have the M3?), I'd love to hear about it. But until then - I'm looking for a refund. I would have never picked up their hub if I had known about their shennanigans; and consequently, I wouldn't have picked up so many of their sensors.

I just got an Airthings Radon monitor, and the integration with HA went smoothly. As a starting dashboard I have a simple card displaying sensor values.

But I let myself get carried away and got the one with the most sensors. So expected to see history graphs so I can look at trends or events, but it never occurred to me they were all different units and scales. HA wants to create many charts, which is less easy to read.

Does anyone have dashboard ideas on how to display these?

Scenario: I have an automation called John's AC. John's AC has four separate triggers. Max, minimum lower temperature, lower temperature, upper temperature, and max upper temperature. If the room temperature is below max lower temperature or lower temperature and it warms up to either of those two triggers, the automation gets triggered and creates a log event.

Question: Is there some way to make triggers enable and disable other triggers in their conditions? What I was thinking about doing is having upper temperature and max upper temperature be the only two active triggers. If either was hit, John's AC would then turn on and the triggers for lower temperature and max lower temperature would be enabled until one of those two triggers was hit, at which point John's AC would turn off, and those two triggers would be disabled. until upper temperature got hit again.

Admittedly, it's a lot of work, just to avoid a couple of log messages, but just for shits and giggles, I wonder if it's possible.

I'm thinking about getting started using Docker and an older Raspberry Pi. I'm already hosting a grafana service on it, so It can't be fully dedicated to ha. So curious what everyone is using.

I would like to turn on mood lighting automatically when I'm taking a shower, what's the best way to detect that?

• I've considered humidity sensors, but that will take a while to kick in and not immediately when the shower starts.
• I've also considered a water leak sensor but those are not meant to be trigger every day for a long time like 10-15 minutes. That would kill the battery, right?
• Smart valves can kind of work, but it feels like overkill because I don't care about the valve functionality.

I would prefer the solution to be battery powered (don't want to be messing with too many cables around a shower), but I can't seem to find one.

Like the title says. Anyone using Claude? How is it working for you?

I used SweetHome3D + Gimp to recreate my whole home!

Lots of measuring and downloading textures and models, but I finally have a digital 'clone' of my home!

The lights all react to changes in color and brightness, and are clickable. I made the buttons transparent so it looks cleaner.

Thermostat is in the center, if clicked it opens the thermostat options. The background glow of the temperature turns blue when cooling and red when heating (black when idle)

My 3D Printer can be turned on by clicking on it too, plus it shows the current progress if it is running.

I'd love to see other people's floorplans for ideas, comment with a pic if you have one set up!

I'm running my own HA locally, in my house, but I would like to be able to access it also when I'm not home. So I've put it on my Zerotier One VPN, which works fine. Except for two things:

1. HA no longer knows when I'm home - it thinks I'm always home;

2. Other people in my household would also like to have remote access, but it's unrealistic to have them install and use the VPN.

So - can I just open it up, and rely on long, complex passeords? Or is that a complete no-go?

Im falling down a hole here. Long story still long, but it started when got a Tuya remote and trying to integrate it. Im currently using the plain old Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA). The new remote got recognized fine, I could see button presses in events but I didnt know hot to use those to trigger events (nothing shows up when try to create an automation).

I found some Zigbee2MQTT blueprints that look like they might work. So I went to install that. Z2M failed starting and is telling me I have a version 12 and I need to update my firmware. So I go to find out the manufacturer wants me to update via a webpage https://smlight.tech/flasher/#home

How the hell do I do this on a headless raspberry Pi? I gotta install a fucking DE for this? ZHA doesnt recognize there is a update needed, hell I cant even tell what firmware version is installed (not that there is any indication what version the update will install).

This is frustrating as hell.

So I love DIY. I have built some crazy projects and while rebuilding a house while I live in it I have the opportunity to integrate some really cool things.

It's also getting to the point where I need to backup and document what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. As an added benefit I can easily share it with others. I'm currently doing a complete code rewrite so that I can have each device yaml pull from a single base configuration yaml file in a similar fashion as a secrets file and eventually contemplating a master IP file as well with a complete static IP setup.

Right now I have an example secrets file that I am using along with my base-config.yaml. I also have three projects included: my pulse output water meter configuration that includes the ability for a ESPHome usage alert, my 240V electric water heater controller, and the ESPHome configuration yaml that allows the dust integration of the CircuitSetup.us split phase energy meter. I have also included a prompt that you can use with an Ai to calculate the voltage and amperage gain calibration.

I will say that many of the projects deal with voltages and currents that are dangerous and should not be attempted without full understanding of proper electrical safety.

I've been using my water heater controller for over 5 years without issue. My energy meter has been in use for 3 years and my water meter has been in use for a little over a year.

I will also be including the yaml I'm using for some other projects and prebuilt devices I have converted to ESPHome in the future. My hope is that even if you don't use this for a project that is the same that the yaml will potentially help others with their projects.

Hi everyone. I recently started my Home Assistant journey by replacing Google Calendar and Keep Notes with Home Assistant. A couple of light bulbs burnt out and I want to replace them with bulbs that I can use exclusivity on Home Assistant and bypass the manufacturers app entirely. What brand should I look for?

These are standard wall mounted lights in my kitchen and my laundry room.

Edit: I'm looking to replace burnt bulbs anyway.

I’ve been working on a custom integration to connect Navidrome with Home Assistant.

Navidrome is an open-source music server based on the Subsonic API, and the goal of this integration is to expose its state directly inside Home Assistant.

The project is currently in a testing phase. It already provides some sensors (for example, scan status) and a basic media player.

The media player does not allow playback control (play, pause, etc.). It only displays information such as the current track title and cover art. This is due to limitations of the Subsonic API used by Navidrome, which does not expose playback control in a direct way.

There are still things to improve, but it’s already functional for testing. Feedback is very welcome 🙂

Hey all Just getting started on some smart home stuff - I'm looking to get some strip lighting and there is a lot of stuff out there and honestly I'm not sure what I should get. Ideally it would be RGB but I'm OK with white/warm light.

The ZBT-2 can do both ZigBee and Thread, and I haven't got any pre-existing devices so I can go either of those.

I thought about getting some IKEA lighting because I believe they use Thread now?

What's the prevailing wisdom out there?

I constantly forget to take showers due to depression. I know I'm not the only one 😂 summer is early here in Texas and I don't want to be the stinky dude

Uses the humidity readings of my bathroom to determine whether I was in the shower:

• A running 1 hour average of the bathroom humidity is measured.
• If the current humidity is 8% above the average, it is triggered as "wet".
• Then it marks down the last time, and then converts that to "days & hours since" last shower.

I have a badge at the top of my main dashboard that will let me know how long it's been. It's already been useful. If I see anything over 2 days I know it's past time for a shower

I got a false positive from washing my hands when it was set to trigger by 5% increases, so I changed it to 8%.

Happy to share my code if anyone wants to do the same!

Edit: code in a comment below!

Looking for ZigBee or 433MHz soil sensors!

Hello to #HomeAssistant gardeners! I'm unsure what's good right now as far as those go. Smaller sensors are better, not as small as coin cell, and especially if I can get illuminance as a sensor.

Just unsure what to pick. Reviews are mixed on so many options it feels like. Some complain ThirdReality's are too huge, some complain of disconnects.

Right now I've a generic larger ZigBee one and a tiny BLE MiFlora, and open to others.

@homeassistant