The state of home automation has come a long way from when I started my home automation journey. This is what I had to do just a few years ago to simply control the lights in my house use an android app called Automate from Llamalab, which listens for “ok google” catchphrase Automate invokes relevant […]
This project is a journey from an idea to a working prototype. When I started this project in 2017 with just a simple idea, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it’s been such a fun learning experience for me. Prototype This is how it started in 2017. I started with […]
Although this is a constant work in progress, I will try and summarize my home assistant setup. This will hopefully provide an overview of how I have organized the configurations and what custom components I use. My goal for this post is to help anyone get started with a basic setup and use my other […]
I always wanted to have energy monitoring for my house, but I had been putting this off because it seemed so intimidating for obvious reasons. The good news is there is no rewiring needed. I bought an Emporia Vue energy monitor which installs in the home’s electrical panel using CT sensor clamps that go around […]
This post continues from my first post on reverse engineering a private API. In the previous post I explained how I had to jailbreak my iPhone to bypass SSL pinning used by the mobile app for secure communication with its server. I was so excited to finally get everything working and see the HTTPS network […]
Last year, I backed an Air purifier from Kickstarter developed by Mila Cares team, who promised to provide public API on launch. My goal was to write an integration component for the air purifier with Home Assistant like I have done in the past with Snoo smart sleeper and Mint finance. However, I wasn’t surprised […]
When I became a dad, I wanted to track my daughter’s sleep quality without any intrusive way and without buying any additional trackers. We were already using a Snoo smart sleeper that is a responsive bassinet that adds sleep by responding to a baby’s cries with white noise and motion to soothe fussing. The important […]
If you are wondering what this ugly-looking thing is, it’s the multisensor I made using some electronic components I already had from previous DIY projects. As I started getting into the Smart home hobby, I quickly realized how expensive it gets with so many sensors I have to place around the house (e.g. motion, temperature, […]
As I am integrating more and more services I use on the daily basis with Home Assistant, I was a little disappointed that there is no existing integration for my favorite personal finance application. Upon some research, I found out this was something considered for Home Assistant core components but later removed because it had […]
If you are like me who has 100s of articles saved to read for later and uses “Pocket” to browse offline, you might find it difficult to organize this list without tags. Pocket lets you add tags manually, but that means every time I add an article, I have to add tags and there is […]