To avoid repeating myself, look at other articles in here where I realised that Home Assistant was for me to be the successor to my long-cherished Node-Red-based home automation system (especially as they’ve now formally discontinued support for my beloved NR-UI v 1). Little did I realise just how much…
Month: June 2024
Reolink Argus 4 Battery + Solar 180 degree Camera
I LOVE getting new stuff from Reolink – their WiFi, powered video doorbell takes centre stage on my front door here in Spain and as I’ve recently discovered, integrates into Home Assistant via the Reolink plug-in no problem. It also works on their Android APP, their PC APP and a…
mm Wave vs IR vs ESPresense – Big Decision?
As some of you know, I have a number of radar detectors including those shown here in the form of the Sonoff SNZB-06P, Aqara FP2 and many others. I also have endless simple IR detectors from AliExpress and elsewhere. One of the latter sits next to Alexa in our living…
More Aliexpress Zigbee lights
This week I received a package from AliExpress – some dirt cheap Zigbee E27 lights I ordered on impulse. I instinctively order 12w as minimum as anything lower than that is going to have vrey dim colour LEDs. Ok, you take a chance with AliExpress offers and you have to…
Sonoff SNZB-02D Zigbee LCD Update
Update June 2024: The article below about the SNZB-02D LCD Smart Temperature and Humidity Sensor was originally written in March 2023 – It’s now over 15 months later and the sensor has been sitting on my shelf along with many others on test. A lot has changed recently including my…
The New GL-iNET MARBLE WiFi 6 Router (updated)
I LOVE getting new stuff from Gl-iNet – I’ve been writing about them since the original OpenWrt-based MANGO GL-MT300 router (which recently gave up on me after being dragged from house to house, country to country over the years). For years I was a Draytek fan but once Gl-iNet started…
MORE Home Assistant Learning – Restart Mode
For one of my first automations in Home Assistant (starting to replace my Node-Red home control code) I picked a new Aqara no-neutral switch I’ve just fitted to our just-redesigned bathroom wall – to turn the bathroom light on and off – manually or remotely. I wanted a 20 minute…
Home Assistant June 2024 – Alexa, Google Home and more
I wrote earlier this week about Home Assistant – sorry this isn’t going to be a linear set of articles as I’m not learning linearly – and of course the HA product is changing by the month. Last week I had a pretty boring set of dashboards – still LOTS…
Quicky – iHORN Window/Door Sensor HO-031ZB
Back in 2022 I wrote about a bunch of iHorn products then took it no further as I didn’t get very far integrating them into Zigbee2MQTT and hence my Node-Red-based home control. Well, today I noticed in a spare moment, the iHorn HO-031ZB sensor pair in a box – wasting…
Remember “The Last One”? Now we have ChatGPT !
I remember “The Last One” well (with a little DATE help from Wikipedia)… the 1981 program which would render all programmers redundant? The Last One was released over 40 years ago by the British company D.J. ‘AI’ Systems and took input from a user to generate an executable program in the…
The Aqara E1 Camera and New H1EU No-Neutral Wall Switch
Evey now and then I get the urge to update blog entries as I find out something you might find useful. My latest piece of info is about the H2EU switch below – original article March 3 2024… Firstly the Aqara E1 Camera Claimed features – Accurate person tracking, multi-platform…