Home Automation

Smart Home projects and automations

Solar Upgrade Solis 1.5kW inverter and Raspberry Pi RS485 Logging

A new solar PV inverter installed with Raspberry Pi RS485 data logging

17 May 2022 26 min read

Failed TP-Link Kasa Smart KP115 WiFi Plug with energy monitoring relay replacement

Repairing a Failed TP-Link Kasa Smart KP115 WiFi Plug which has a dead relay

13 March 2022 5 min read

Home Assistant Setup in 2022

This post details our journey with Home Assistant since we first tried the software in 2016 and various upgrades with our hardware sensors and software to automate some of our home.

18 February 2022 9 min read

Amazon Echo Show 5 2nd Gen Smart Display Teardown

Tearing down an Amazon Echo Show 5, 2021 2nd generation smart speaker and display

30 November 2021 20 min read

Saving power on the home network

As part of our ongoing quest to reduce our energy usage and carbon footprint, we have installed a compressive home energy logging system which uses various sensors to monitor our energy consumption, generation and environment data, which are collated in Home Assistant and also on our home logger

07 November 2021 7 min read

Adding a Zigbee Smart Thermostatic radiator valve to Home Assistant

Controlling our loft radiator with a Zigbee controlled thermostatic radiator valve and Home Assistant.

13 September 2021 6 min read

Adding Gas Meter Energy logging to Home Assistant

Adding new MQTT sensors to Home Assistant to log Gas meter usage data

03 September 2021 3 min read

Shelly EM Power Logging with Home Assistant

Adding Shelly EM power monitoring in the loft with Home Assistant

26 August 2021 11 min read

Mastervolt Soladin 600 Wi-Fi logging adapter with ESP32

Adding remote Wi-Fi data access to our Mastervolt Soladin 600 solar PV inverter using an Espressif ESP32-WROOM-32UE module

20 August 2021 9 min read

Washing Machine notifications via Home Assistant and Sonos Smart Speakers

Audio notifications for when the washing machine needs to be emptied via Home Assistant and Sonos speakers

15 August 2021 4 min read

Sonoff POW R2 Smart Switch power consumption mod

Modifying a Sonoff POWR2 Smart Switch with energy monitoring to reduce its power consumption when being used to monitor a device's energy usage

15 August 2021 6 min read

Home Data Logger Zigbee Sensor Upgrades

We have added several new Zigbee sensors to our smart home system which runs Home Assistant and the sensors talk to the home Linux server using Zigbee2mqtt

15 May 2021 6 min read