If you’ve read part 1 and part 2, then you’ll already know how to work with MQTT (both receiving and sending commands), how to take sensor information from home-assistant as well as control entities directly in home-assistant, and most importantly, how to work with the …
Read MoreThe Beginner’s Guide to Node-red with Home-Assistant (Part 2: Switch Node)
In part 1 of this series we discussed simple configuration of the MQTT in and out nodes, how to send a payload of On or Off and how to monitor incoming information in the debug window. In this post we’re going to expand on this …
Read MoreThe Beginner’s Guide to Node-red with Home-Assistant (Part 1: MQTT)
I’ve been helping a fair few people online recently with some introductory operations in node-red. I thought I would write a kind of primer to help the beginner get up to speed with some functional flows. I see a lot of information online about how …
Read MoreXiaomi Aqara Sensors: My 2 year review
So it’s coming up to 2 years now since i’ve had the xiaomi aqara sensors up and running, and I thought i’d give everyone an update as to how they’ve performed, battery life etc, as well as some things I’ve been doing with them. If …
Read MoreCreating Custom Google Home entities for integration with Home-Assistant & Node-red
This post has been a long time coming. I’ve been looking at an easy way to create and control custom entities with Google assistant much like the way I can do with Alexa. We have both voice assistants in our household and well it was …
Read MoreUsing Node-red and Home-Assistant to check Unauthorised Computer Usage
So continuing with my Node-red tutorials, I thought I’d take a look at some workstation security related notifications. In this tutorial, I am going to select a couple of scenarios where you might want to be alerted to activity on your windows computer. First, I …
Read MoreYour Smarthome Academy: A Collection of Resources to Learn From
With the popularity of smarthomes increasing and more interest in connectivity in general, I have seen a lot of requests online from people looking for advice or resources to learn more. These people are usually at the start of their journey and are looking for …
Read MoreA Guide to using Telegram with Node-red and Home-Assistant
I thought I’d publish a post to show you how to use Telegram with Node-red. Telegram is an instant messaging platform with a great channel feature. It means that not only can you receive notifications from your Home-Assistant installation, but you can also send commands …
Read MoreChoosing Suitable Hardware for a Plex Server
Recently I’ve seen a large pickup in people looking for advice on what kind of hardware is best to use for a suitable plex server. Having been a Plex user for 7-8 years+ and a lifetime subscriber, I thought I’d share some setups that I’m …
Read MorePrivacy Essentials: Make yourself harder to track with Ungoogled-Chromium
For a complete install in video format you can check out this post here on Youtube: I recently watched a documentary on Netflix called The Social Dilemma. If you haven’t seen it yet, I strongly recommend you watch it. It didn’t tell me anything that …
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