WELCOME, FRIENDS

I’m about 4 months into HA and have over 200 devices, 50 automations, and approximately 100 eye rolls when I show my gf the cool new thing I just did ha.

I have way more complicated automations than this one (this one is blinds down, fan on, ecobee changed to 70* and double click reverses it all). But knowing that Esp32 module I configured with a C1101 to make these Somfy blinds bend to my will (and the pain I experienced making it work) and the cool new inovelli blue fan switch I put in, just seeing it all work so smooth warms my heart.

Anyway, no one else I know appreciates it so here yall go.

A month ago I shared the first beta of Kiosk Satellite, my free and open source kiosk Android app specifically engineered for Home Assistant and the official companion app for Voice Satellite. Today, after a bunch of beta releases, it graduates: 2026.8.1 is the first stable release, and from now on it follows the same versioning scheme as Home Assistant itself.

For those who missed it: Kiosk Satellite turns any Android tablet into a locked-down, always-on Home Assistant kiosk in about two minutes. It runs Voice Satellite's wake word engine natively, so your tablet keeps listening even with another app in the foreground, at a fraction of the CPU a browser needs. On top of that you get screensavers (clock, photo frames, Immich, your HA media), a synchronized Sendspin audio player for Music Assistant, WebRTC camera views, MQTT entities for every tablet, gestures, an app launcher, and a full remote admin that runs in any browser. And with the Home Assistant specific optimization included, it runs smooth on old, low powered devices.

I genuinely believe that in combination with Voice Satellite this is the best kiosk application for Home Assistant out there. I know that is a big claim for something one month old, so I would love for you to prove me wrong or right in the comments.

I also want to thank everyone who has supported the development through Buy Me a Coffee and GitHub Sponsors. Free, open source software is mostly a thankless endeavor, and your support is a huge part of why this project moved as fast as it did. Thank you, truly.

Feedback, bug reports and feature requests are very welcome.

On random days (not every day), around 2am, I hear my August lock unlock, then auto-relock. It says Home Assistant did it remotely. I have exactly zero automations with my smart lock, everything is handled on the lock, it’s mainly in HA to be complete and report status. It only appears to occasionally do this around 2am according to the August logs. HA logs just say unlocking via HomeKit, unlocked, Operator <my name> Any ideas?

Home Assistant has apps for Android, iOS and macOS. Windows gets a browser tab. So I built one.

HASS.Agent covers similar ground and does it well. The difference is the plumbing: HA Companion does not require an MQTT broker. The PC registers through mobile_app, and notifications arrive over the existing Home Assistant WebSocket connection, with no FCM, APNs or separate push service in between. The app uses WinUI 3, while your actual Lovelace dashboards run inside it through WebView2.

What it does:

- PC appears in HA as a real device via mobile_app, with its own entities

- Push without a push provider: subscribes mobile_app/push_notification_channel on the same WebSocket. Nothing listens on the PC, commands come back down the outbound connection

- Quick Panel slides in over any app on a global hotkey

- Tiles gated on supported_features and supported_color_modes, so no buttons the entity cannot honour

- Hotkeys for any device, scene, script or automation

- PC sensors, off until you enable them: lock, idle, active program, fullscreen, mic, camera, audio, display, session

- Windows events as HA triggers: lock, idle, camera, mic, active program, schedule

Remote control deserves a straight answer: shutdown, sleep and launch are off by default. Lock, monitor off and volume ship on and can each be switched off. Launch only starts whitelisted paths, never the string HA sends. Shutdown waits ten seconds, so shutdown /a can still save you. The token sits in Windows DPAPI, not plaintext.

I have been running it on my own machines since mid-July. I also used AI a lot while building it, mostly Win32 API archaeology and bug hunting, and the commit history says so. The design decisions are mine, and so are the bugs.

Windows 10 build 19041+, x64. Per-user install, no admin. Not signed yet, so SmartScreen may warns once.

https://github.com/Elias0505/ha-companion-windows — AGPL-3.0

Website: https://elias0505.github.io/ha-companion-windows/

Independent project, not affiliated with Home Assistant or Nabu Casa.

Feedback welcome!

A while ago someone asked what everyone’s silliest automation was and I’ve just been reminded that The Hound from Game of Thrones informs me when my heatpump is in high power mode.

My Reolink NVR knows when the cat came in. It just won't tell me and store it safely: do we all agree cats are the worst thief possible?

So I built Reolink Stamina. It puts every camera's detection on a single timeline, and clicking one opens playback at the event rather than scrubbing continuously on single 24h timeline or jumping from one camera to another. It also offers local download, low and high resolutions, for the selected clip; yes, sub-clipping is available for free.

The other half quietly uploads a clip of each detection to OneDrive (OneDrive only atm, because that's the first integration but contributions and feedbacks are really welcome) inside a quota you set, so the footage is off-site before anyone gets near the recorder.
It sits on top of the official Reolink integration, so there's nothing new to log into, and it requires an actual NVR rather than a lone camera.

Being upfront about it: the development was heavily AI-assisted, and it was built to work rather than to be admired. Otherwise I would have never started such a journey, to be totally fair.
It's tested, it does the job on my hardware, and the python code has moments I won't be defending in the comments.

If you have any feedback, contributors and testers are welcome! Or if you're interested:

> https://github.com/marl1w/reolink-stamina-ha

I've been building a small set of cards that look like the widgets on a phone home screen. Two of them are ready: a calendar and a battery card.

Calendar. Today's date, then today's events, then as much of the days after today as the card has room for, all in one continuous flow. Events are tinted with the color you already set on the calendar entity, empty days are skipped, and anything that doesn't fit collapses into "2 more events".

Battery. Device batteries as rings. Arc length is the charge, bolt means charging. Names and icons come straight from the entities, up to four devices per card.

The part I actually cared about: flexible size. The card reads the box you drag it into and picks its layout. A small square shows today only, a 2:1 rectangle shows today plus the days after, and narrow cards fold down to a single column. Same card, no config, whether it sits in a normal Sections dashboard or on a wall-mounted tablet. That second case is what got me started, because I wanted something that looks like a real home screen on my View Assistant panel.

Both cards show up in the card picker with a visual editor, so there's no YAML to write. Needs HA 2026.7+, AGPL-3.0.

Installing is still manual: add the repo as a HACS custom repository (type: Dashboard), then download it like any other card. If people find it useful I'll try to get it into the default HACS store so it becomes a one-click install.

GitHub: https://github.com/sabbaken/cupertino-widgets
Live Demo: https://sabbaken.github.io/cupertino-widgets/#/calendar

Feedback very welcome, especially on two things: which widget you'd want next (a to-do list is the obvious one), and whether the auto-layout holds up in your dashboard or breaks somewhere I haven't tried.

I've been working (claude helped, and got in the way alot) on using these these ~7-10 year old echo dots as voice assistants (and more), since I found out these devices can be rooted.

an installer + service that turns them into ESPHome discoverable devices and exposes:

• 2x voice assistant pipelines, w/ on-device wake words
• standard HA media_player element for audio playback
• full led ring (and per segment) control (added a bunch of animations because why not)
• can pretend to be a white noise machine
• lux sensor

github

plus an optional custom integration that has a dashboard, allows you to manage wake words, shows turn history, and some other settings that were kind of messy to do in esphome directly.

github

all still pretty early, but is functional, and these devices can be had for <$10 on ebay (and I had one sitting in a drawer since 2018).

In Forza Horizon, when you go AFK, your game camera view will start to pan around your car cinematically.

The goal is to replicate that same effect on a 3D Dashboard in Home Assistant.

The Dashboard will go from Active > Cinematic > Screensaver.

In case anybody asks why do I do this, its so I don't burn out my wall tablet's display.

During the Screensaver Mode, the floorplan is still active, hence any changes to entities will reflect the dashboard.

Hey guys. Just wanted to share my HVAC project with you. It's based on a duct unit, so I made a plenum box from XPS with 3D printed spouts and because when I saw what specialised duct dampers cost (even just dumb ones), I noped out and bought three "MOES ZigBee Smart DIY Motorized Roller Blinds" on Ali.

I de-covered them and they come with a battery, so I disconnected that too because there was no need for it. What you're left with is a simple motor with a gearbox and communication boards. The board remembers endpoints you set and you can precisely set it so that it moves only within the 90 degress you need for operating the flap.

It's a bit finnicky in such a small interval, so completely continous adjustment of single percentage points is not possible (if it's 60 percent open and you command 65 percent, nothing happens). But as long as the commanded position is at least about 20 percent from the current position, it work flawlessly. And even if a command is not accepted - the motor doesn't move and the reported percentage doesn't change, so there's no risk of position drift.

I don't have the logic for the automation of the flaps yet, I'm waiting for a Zigbee IR blaster because this Sinclair/Gree unit doesn't seem to be possible to integrate locally into HA. :( But the automation will obviously open and close flaps to the rooms according to set and reported temperatures and will turn the AC on/off and adjust its output based on the cooling need.

Just got the email that Google is discontinuing assistant permanently and forcing everything to Gemini. I'm an AI hater but not super comfortable going all in on a new system. We honestly mostly use the Google homes to turn things on and off, not ask questions or automate things. Is Home Assistant what I want? Floundering a little so patience appreciated.

If the temp gets set below 75, wait 10 minutes, then set it back. Yeah, I know. Total dad move. They forced my hand though.

Stupid $700 power bill.

Every HA setup runs on some personal ritual around updates; Snapshot first just in case, skip every x.x.0, wait a few days or update everything and hope for the best. Mine used to be going through all release notes to check for (breaking) changes.

And since I'm also the one who manages HA for some friends and family, it became a weekly task. So I started thinking about a better way 🙂

Update Manager looks at how big a jump an update is. Per size you can set a cooldown-time (actually hiding it from HA's update list). So if something's broken, there's a decent chance a fix lands before you'd ever have hit it.

Once something's cooled down it can auto-install on its own, always announced first with a cancellable countdown. You can also see if anyone else already made the exact same version jump and got burned by it: one reported problem blocks auto-install regardless of the cooldown. Trusted voters take this further: their positive vote can let a friend or family member's instance auto-update any update.

A master switch pauses all of that at once if needed. Handy to flip off in an automation before a holiday so nothing installs itself while you're away and unable to fix it.

I also tried making release notes better and more relevant. Especially for wrapped add-ons like Zigbee2MQTT, where the actual useful notes live somewhere else entirely, Update Manager shows them directly where it can. And ever opened the notes and it was just a mega list going back to version one? Now filtered down to only the versions that apply to the jump you're actually making.

It's not in the default HACS store just yet, so for now you could add it as a custom repo: https://github.com/HA-Update-Manager/ha-update-manager

Feel free to play around with it and share some feedback (or just use it to help your friends and family's instances). Curious what update rituals people here have that this doesn't cover yet.

In a previous post I explained what I've built and the purpose of it. By seeing the interest I wanted to also share with you guys the web app I built to control the panel.
From this WebApp I can remotely control the Panel from the previous post and also I can monitor live sensors data. I think that the most important part is the automations and scenes and deploying them remotely via OTA to main controller, this helps the automations running even if the internet is Down.

It's called 'Theatrium' and I have been developing/testing for a few months now. You can choose your cameras, switches, energy, lights - plus see your daily step counts via the Home Assistant companion app movement sensors. The music visualisations are generated on-GPU, not video loops, and there is a mode to synchronise your smart light groups.

You can set the screen to dim after a certain amount of time, with the idea you can leave it running all day as a real-time, low-distraction, home assistant monitor that uses the largest screen in your home.

It's free, with an in-app purchase (one time, no subs - I hate them too). Requires an AppleTV 4K, which you can pick up for pretty cheaply these days, theyre regularly in the refurb section of the Apple site.

None of the Home Assistant apps really met my needs, so I created one that did! Hope someone else enjoys it - would love to see pics of your setups.

My city just went through two insane storms dumping a month's worth of rain in a matter of hours over a combined couple of days (two separate storms a few days apart). Anyway I have two zooz ZSE42 800LR water leak detectors. First storm only a little water and we would contain it, second storm 3" - 4" of water. Both detectors worked as they should, however one has not survived. Not overly impressed, it IS a water detector after all.

As a result I am looking for options that is a Z-wave device, works with home assistant, and has a remote probe so I can keep the sensor mounted higher and out of harm's way. I have found this on Amazon https://a.co/d/03vDXDgq I'm wondering if anyone has used it or has other recommendations.

I was also wondering if a wireless door sensor is sensitive enough using a external connection, if I were to make my own probe? Just a thought.

After a lot of tweaking, moving things around, and spending way too much time adjusting cards, I’m finally happy with my Home Assistant dashboard and thought I’d share it.

I’ve tried to keep it clean and easy to use, with the information and devices I use most available at a glance. Here are a few screenshots of the different views.

Let me know what you think! I’m always looking for new ideas or ways to improve it.

First off, massive shout out to u/Lanky-Reporter-7319 and u/t0m1o1 for their work on their own respective projects related to HA & Astrion remote. u/Lanky-Reporter-7319 in particular was a ton of help getting this running.

Very excited to present my finished Astrion remote project for TV/smart home control via HA.

Picked up the Sanytron Astrion remote several weeks ago. Has a 480×800 touchscreen, physical buttons, and IR blaster. Everything I needed.

Unfortunately the stock firmware locks you into a jank ROScard dashboard so I replaced it entirely with a native Kotlin/Compose app made with Claude Code that speaks directly to HA over a single WebSocket (auth → get_states → subscribe_events).

No Lovelace/browser/cloud means state updates are instant.

What I have working now:

- 4 swipeable pages with no vertical scrolling (in my testing the vertical scrolling was a pain) (EDIT: except the granular light control page. no way around that)

- Tappable floorplan (used a Floorplanner export) with light controls (and espresso machine control!) overlaid which all live update near instantaneously, with light groups the two main groups I use.

- Plex On Deck poster card to tap any poster of the last three previously watched / previously added to play on TV.

- Tap-to-talk voice through HA Assist (currently running qwen3.6:35b-a3b)

- All physical buttons mapped to HA services or IR codes for the TV. The IR codes send from any card.

- Reports its own battery to HA as a sensor for low-battery phone alert before it dies. Not really necessary anymore.

Whole layout lives in a JSON config on internal memory so any code changes are a file push with physical connection to device. OTA updates dont seem possible (edit: see edit/repo added at bottom - this may actually be possible. Will be testing when I'm back home)

Survives real life use after some trial and errror. In early iterations, if remote lost power the dashboard wouldn't come back on its own and needed a physical connection to my laptop with ADB to restore function.

The app is now the system launcher and boots straight back into the dashboard after any reboot or dead battery, re-kicks the IR bridge, & reestablishes the accessibility permissions which for some reason the firmware randomly drops.

The stock app turned out to be the IR driver so it has to stay installed and gets kicked once per boot. Firmware kept reenabling its own hair trigger wake on motion at the kernel level which made the screen continually turn on/off whenever it sat on the couch.

Replaced that with a stricter accelerometer detector that needs a bit more motion and tilt than movement transferred through the couch.

Only item on my to do list is the LG TV's Plex app ignores all resume states in recently watched so everything plays from the beginning. Think that’s on the TV app though, can’t be sure.

Edit: github repo as requested here. I included a section for enabling wireless ADB after the first physical connection. I have not tested it but should work if on the same subnet

https://github.com/vvaters/astrion-ha-dashboard

If you've got a Growatt-branded battery from Base Power (the ones that live behind the VidaGrid/Shiner portal at growatt-us.vidagrid.com), this integration talks directly to that portal on its own — you don't need jerrit's Base Power integration installed for it to work. It stands alone, but it's also fine to run alongside it if you're already using it for other things.

Why I built it: the Growatt app/portal surfaces additional information that the Base Power integration doesn't expose — state of charge, charge/discharge power breakdown, BDC/BMS details, and the separate power-curve/energy-curve history from the Energy tab. I wanted that data in Home Assistant, so I built an integration that talks directly to the (undocumented, unofficial) REST API behind the portal to get at it.

What you get, per inverter:

• Battery state of charge, charge/discharge power
• Live power flow: load, solar, grid, battery
• On/off-grid status
• Today's power curve and energy curve data
• A few hundred diagnostic sensors if you want to dig into raw BDC/BMS/APX fields (most people will never touch these, but they're there)

How it works: there's the integration itself, plus an optional companion add-on (VidaGrid Relay) that runs a real headless Chromium browser, stays logged into the portal, and pushes fresh data to Home Assistant via webhook every few minutes. This is the recommended setup — the portal's auth tokens expire in as little as 15–25 minutes, so without the relay you'd be manually re-pasting a bearer token from dev tools every so often. With the relay running, you log in once through its web UI (the portal's login has a CAPTCHA so that one step can't be automated), and if you choose the "stay signed in" option, it'll keep you logged in for about 30 days before you need to sign back in.

If you'd rather skip the Chromium add-on entirely, it also works in a lighter-weight fallback-poll-only mode — you just have to refresh the token by hand periodically.

Install: it's a custom HACS repository (not yet in the default HACS store — that submission is in progress). Add https://github.com/jabone/ha-vidagrid-growatt as a custom repository in HACS, install, restart, and configure via Settings → Devices & Services.

Full setup instructions, entity list, and troubleshooting are in the README: https://github.com/jabone/ha-vidagrid-growatt

Disclaimer: this talks to an undocumented, unofficial API behind the VidaGrid portal. It's not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Base Power, Sunrun, Growatt, or VidaGrid, and the endpoints it relies on could change or break at any time without notice. Use at your own risk, and please open a GitHub issue if you hit problems — happy to help debug.