Building a local smart home is easy until you try to replace the speaker
…Rules and conditions ensure these products can't just go and open new connections without my say so. But if there's one device I found troubling to keep within the network…
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My old router is now the only thing standing between my smart devices and the internet
2d agoI replaced the Jellyfin client with Moonfin on all my devices, and the themes sold me
5d agoI gave every device in my house a fixed address, and troubleshooting connections became easy
1w agoThese 5 smart devices taught me that cloud dependency isn't worth the convenience
1w agoI quantized a local LLM on my home server and ditched cloud AI for smart home control entirely
…With Home Agent fully configured, I added it as the Conversation agent and began pinging it about random devices and entities, which the integration detected flawlessly. So far, my LLM pipeline works…
My old phones replaced three smart devices in my Home Assistant setup
…That way, I don’t have a bunch of entities belonging to the same device on the UI, and I can even group multiple devices under the same module, making the overall…
Retrofitting old appliances is the smart home upgrade that actually makes sense
…For a dumb garage door, ratcloud makes a small wired device called a ratgdo that enables Home Assistant integration. For something really crude, you can even use a lux sensor and point…
CarPlay’s ChatGPT integration is way more useful than I expected
…This is where CarPlay's new ChatGPT integration comes in — I can now turn to the AI assistant when I have a burning question or need to look up a fact while…
I used to avoid OneDrive until I discovered these 4 features
…Sign in to your XDA account Microsoft OneDrive is one of the most frequently disabled services on any new Windows device. For many users, it's one of the first steps after…
I connected my local LLM to Home Assistant through MCP, and now my smart home manages itself
…It’d even hallucinate the names of my entities, apps, and integrations – to the point where it even made new ones on the spot. Gemma 3 (4B) was better, but it would…
Home Assistant's ePaper ecosystem finally has an open standard worth building around
…it doesn't show some hardcoded vendor logo, but a QR code, the device ID, and the firmware version. OpenDisplay isn't finished. The custom HACS integration still has features the core…
Home labbers say to ditch your ISP router, but the Fritz Box 7530 has WireGuard, dynamic DNS, and even a media server
…The Fritz Box Tools integration, which is a core Home Assistant integration, gives you device tracking, presence detection, and network control directly. What this actually means in practice is that you can…
Home Assistant is the only self-hosted app I'd never give up, and here's why
…being pulled by various devices, including PCs, parts of the home lab, and everything else that connects to an outlet. Then there's the solar PV integration, which is what I feel…