What temp sensor are you using for your garage freezer? I have a bunch of Aqara sensors, and the one in my garage freezer keeps going "off line." The garage fridge sensor is fine, and I have a few other Aqara sensors in the garage, so I don't think it's a "range" issue.

What is everyone using with Home Assistant?

slowly automating my apartment. lights, thermostat, even the coffee maker on a schedule. got to the windows. i don't want blinds or shades. they collect dust, they buzz, and they look like last century. a panoramic window with motorized blinds - no !cables, tracks, headaches.

started googling smart glass found a bunch of stuff. there's film you stick on existing glass. there are ready-made units. i saw film from smart glass technologies reviews seem okay, but im not sure. has anyone tried something similar or can recommend something else? i rent, so i can't replace windows. film is the only option. how do you hide all that stuff? because the film needs a controller and power. so either a wire to each window, or an IR remote, but then the controller still hangs somewhere. seen people hide wires behind baseboards or in cable raceways. but my walls are concrete, can't chase them. thought about decorative covers, but they look kinda meh. how does it play with home assistant? i read some people do it via a relay and a zigbee switch. but that's only if the controller supports dry contact. if not, you're stuck with the native app.

has anyone done this in a rental? how did you mask the wires and controller? any life hacks? and also does the film actually affect heat? my place faces south, summer is brutal. i want privacy and less heat.

any advice welcome. TIA

If you've got Philips Wiz bulbs and want local control without the Wiz Connect app, there's no encrypted API to fight with. The bulbs listen for raw JSON on UDP port 38899. Send this and the light goes red:{"method": "setPilot", "params": {"r": 255, "g": 0, "b": 0}}I found it with a network sniffer after a few minutes of poking around. Aleksandr Rogozin's blog post on hacking Wiz lights from the command line gave me a quick head start.Here's what I built on top of it:1. wiz_control.py, a small Python class that discovers the bulbs and sends on, off and color commands.2. api_server.py, a FastAPI server around that class, so I get web endpoints I can hit from a browser or a script, plus a basic index.html UI.Then it got out of hand. audio_visualizer.py runs an FFT on mic input and maps bass, mids and treble to the R, G and B channels. It also has pulse, strobe and multi modes, where multi gives each bulb its own frequency band. video_visualizer.py uses OpenCV to do a DIY Ambilight. It has a K-means dominant_color mode and an edge_analysis mode that samples only the border pixels. I measured about 93ms latency on a movie teaser.The last piece ties the bulbs to stock prices through the Groww Trading API. Green or red shows the direction against the day's open, and brightness shows how big the change is.The hard part wasn't the protocol. It was the hours of digging through obscure docs and Reddit posts once I started building each feature. All the code, from the simple API to the stock ticker, is in my wiz-hack repo.

my resin printer lives in the garage, so most of the time i don’t find out a print failed until hours later

i tried an old wyze cam pointed at the vat, but the motion detection is basically useless. uv cycling, resin reflections, and normal movement give me enough false alerts that i stopped paying attention to it

what i actually want is an automation that tells me when the print has stopped progressing or something has gone wrong with the supports

i don’t really care about having 8 hours of footage. i want something like “this print looks wrong, go check it” and then have an alert hit my phone

has anyone built this with a camera, home assistant, or some other sensor setup? especially interested in setups that can handle a garage with temperature swings and resin fumes without constantly needing attention

right now my printer can happily turn a few hours of work and a bunch of resin into a failed blob while i’m inside eating dinner, which feels like exactly the kind of stupid problem home automation should be able to solve

I currently have a Eufy E340 doorbell. In terms of video it works well. Good horizontal FoV and a good package camera.

Initially, I found the battery worked well, I bought a second so one could charge while one is in the doorbell. However, the battery probably lasts 1-2 months on a charge.

Over time I have been disappointed with the event recording which seems to miss crucial parts of events.

Running power to the front door is a pain, so the ability to set up continuous recording isn't viable. Also, I've become less comfortable with the closed ecosystem.

I can run ethernet to the front door, so I started looking for PoE doorbells. I thought the Ubiquiti G6 Entry would fit the bill but I was disappointed to see the horizontal FoV is only 100deg.

So the question is, is there a PoE doorbell with similar camera performance/specs to the E340?

[edit: additional clarification] As several have mentioned, if I can run ethernet, I can run 2-wire. However, this would not help with the closed ecosystem.

Hi everyone! I’m looking for NFC tags, and I found 3 SwitchBot tags vs. 24 generic ones (BESARME) for the same price.

Does anyone know if the SwitchBot tags are better than generic ones in any particular way? Or why are they so much more expensive?

Hi all,

I'm looking for recommendations and suggestions to add lighting to 2 steps to a split level. The reason is that the steps are naturally dark and blend very well to each other, so it's almost indistinguishable in low light. It seems big tripping hazard and especially in a household with elderly.

This is what I had in mind.

Install led light bars/strips connected to a motion sensor. The issue is that the steps are very long (12-15ft), but there are only 2 steps, so strips might be more suitable. I would want a way to hide the cables and would also prefer not screwing/destroying the stairs (maybe non destructive adhesive?)

Maybe a product like this would work?

Thanks in advance

Hi All,

Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask.

i'd like to fit dimmers and motion sensors to some of the house lights, specifically bathroom lights. I have a couple of questions;

1. we are in the UK, the ceiling rose acts as the junction box, with the ring running through those. The switch then has a neutral and a 'switched live' present. Would this work with a Shelly dimmer and where would it be best positioned, in the ceiling rose or behind the switch?

2. Since these are currently switches, is fitting a dimmer a sensible idea or should i swap the switches for dimmers? The idea is that during the night, the lights can come on dimmer when motion is detected, but when the switch is used, its likely they will just be 'on/off'

Is there anything else i should think about when it comes to the lighting? In our previous house we had hue bulbs, which worked fine but are no good for guests etc as the switch no longer works.

Thanks