mqtt

OpenZWave (beta) for Home Assistant

New OpenZWave (beta) for Home Assistant

If you’re a Z-Wave user and been following the latest Home Assistant news, you might have noticed a new “OpenZWave (beta)” integration that keeps getting mentioned. This Home Assistant integration aims to improve the Z-Wave experience within Home Assistant by controlling your Z-Wave network over MQTT. In today’s article I’m going to be discussing how … [Read more…]

Cloud Free Smart Vacuum

Cloud Free Smart Vacuum – Valetudo for Roborock S5

Looking to free your robot vacuum from the cloud? Want to control your vacuum over MQTT and have full access to the map it generates of your house? Today’s article will walk you through installing Valetudo. Valetudo is a binary that runs on rooted Roborock S5 vacuums that enable users to fully control the vacuum without any cloud connection whatsoever. I’ll also walk through getting the generated map displaying in your Home Assistant instance so you can monitor your vacuum as it cleans your house!

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UniFi Video Motion Detection GIF Notifications

UniFi Video Motion Detection GIF Notifications

So you’ve got your Home Surveillance system setup, but how do you get notified when activity occurs? A text message or push notification would be great, but then you need to log into your camera system to actually view the camera to see what’s happening. In today’s article, I explain how I used the UniFi Video software, ffmpeg, MQTT and Home Assistant to send a GIF of the motion detected right to my smartphone (or anything else running Telegram).

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Using Two MQTT Brokers with Broker Bridging

Using Two MQTT Brokers with Broker Bridging

Running your own private MQTT broker on your local network? This is great for all your local Home Automation devices but would about things that are outside your network? Apps like OwnTracks can communicate your GPS to an MQTT broker but you’ll need to open up your network to the outside.

Today’s article details a hybrid-cloud solution using an external MQTT broker in conjunction with a private MQTT broker running on your local network. Home Assistant (or any Home Automation platform) can subscribe to topics on your local MQTT broker while still receiving messages from the external one.

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Create Your Own WiFi Connected RGB LED Strips

WiFi Connected RGB LED Strip

LED light strips can make a great accent to your desk, TV, kitchen or elsewhere in your home. Wouldn’t it be great to build one that can be controlled over WiFi? How about making cool animations that go with a holiday, sports team or time of day. Today, I’m giving my implementation of a WiFi Connected RGB LED Strip that you can use to add some lights and fun to your home.

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DIY Bed Occupancy Sensor

DIY Bed Presence Detection in Home Assistant

Ever want to create an automation around someone sitting on a chair or laying in bed? Using an ESP8266, load cells, an MQTT broker and Home Assistant you can create a DIY weight sensor attached to your bed to form a smart bed! This that will allow you to detect these events and trigger automations.

While you could use this to accurately measure the weight of something, I’m focused on detecting presence on a piece of furniture. You can use this data to create automations based on where people are currently located in your home.

Some hardware you’ll need:

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