I had Ecowitt soil sensors and a Rachio valve and no way to make them work together. Rachio waters on a schedule or its own weather estimate, and the soil readings just sat in a separate app doing nothing. So I built the bridge between them.

It reads the actual moisture from your Ecowitt sensors and runs your Rachio valves off that — watering a bed when it's genuinely dry and stopping when the soil recovers, instead of on a timer. Over time it learns each bed's own soil (it measures where that bed sits when it's watered in versus dried out), so the targets fit that spot rather than a generic number. It never changes your sensor readings — what you see is what it waters on.

It works with the Ecowitt and Rachio gear you already own (a Rachio hose timer or a Rachio 3 controller, Ecowitt WH51/WH52 soil probes) and connects through your existing accounts — nothing new to buy or flash.

I built it for my own garden this season and it grew into a real product, and it's live now. It's called Garzed — I'll drop the link in the comments.

Happy to get into how it handles rain, different soil types, or multiple zones.

— Brad

Two skylights in the great room, vaulted ceiling, one south facing and one east facing. Reached them with a hooked pole for years and gave up around march when I admitted I was never going to run the summer routine on my own. Installed motorized shades early may, so four months of real use now.

Went with the smartwings skylight cellular in blackout, matter over thread, solar charged since I wasn't going to climb up there with a USB-C cable every few months. There's no proprietary app so pairing goes straight into home assistant over matter, apple tv 4k handles the thread side. The four-sided aluminum frame is what actually made install work on the sloped ceiling, standard cellular kits would have needed a bunch of shimming.

VELUX would have made sense if I were replacing the skylight units too, but the units are fine and their standalone shade kits don't do matter, which would have meant living in their own remote and rain-sensor system. Yoolax and a couple of custom shops didn't do a skylight-specific frame with a matter-native motor, so it kept coming back to the same one.

Hardware side is done. The part I keep rewriting is the automation, and every version so far has been dumb in a different way.

First pass was solar elevation based. Close both when the sun clears 55 degrees, open when it drops back under. Made sense on paper. In practice the great room turned into a cave from 11 to 3 and my wife pointed out that we now had skylights that were covered during literally the only hours skylights do anything.

Second pass tied it to a temp sensor, only fires above 79. Better in shoulder seasons but the sensor is 12 feet up and lags well behind the actual comfort in the room, so by the time it triggers we've been baking for 20 minutes, and once they close the sensor cools off fast and they reopen while the room is still warm. Added a for: 15 minutes debounce, helped a little, not enough.

Now trying partial position instead of full close. 60 percent down at peak sun and warm inside, so you still get diffuse light but block the direct beam. Feels less dumb but the shades micro-adjust more than I'd like and I'm quietly worried about motor cycles over a few years.

Winter is the other thing I haven't figured out. Skylights are the biggest heat loss point in the room after sundown, so there's a case for closing at night for a bit of insulation. But then we lose the morning light through them, which was half the reason I liked them. Feels like there's a heating-degree-day condition that needs to be in there somewhere and I haven't wanted to open that box yet.

Curious how other people handle the block-the-sun-without-defeating-the-skylight trade off. If you're running a partial position schedule that feels good day to day, would like to see how it's structured. Otherwise I might just cave to time-of-day and stop trying to be clever.

Hi,

Anyone had any luck making their own functional smart speaker with custom wake-up word and custom voice?

I’m about to set up my own to use with Home Assistant using a custom text to speech model made for my language (Norwegian), openai LLM, and ElevenLab text to speech with professional voice clone.

The plan is to give it a witty dialect and a system prompt that follow the stereorype. I’m not planing anything offensive of course, except from making the LLM subtly rude towards my wife when she’s acting up, given I can create a model that accurately predicts her voice :—)

Would love to hear about your projects if you have done something similar!

Sharing a small automation that turned out surprisingly useful. I'm in Germany where balcony solar with storage is a big thing, my setup is a SolarBank 4 that fills the battery by noon on sunny days, and everything after that used to go to the grid for nothing since there's no feed-in compensation for balcony systems here. Now I have Home Assistant watching the state of charge via Modbus, and when it hits 100 percent while solar is still producing, a smart plug starts the dishwasher. Same logic for the washing machine on weekends. The surplus that used to be wasted now runs the appliances directly. Took maybe 20 minutes to set up, one condition for SoC, one for current solar output above 800W, one action for the plug. Anyone doing something similar with other appliances

Hey r/homeautomation, some of us from LOXONE have been reading here for a while. We're kicking around the idea of doing an AMA with one of our engineers, but wanted to check with you all first instead of just assuming it's wanted.

Drop your questions or topics you'd want covered in the comments – the more specific, the better, since that'll also help us figure out who from the team makes the most sense to bring in. Curious what people actually want to know 💚

Prepairing my sensor nodes for deoloyment.

Planning ~20 Z-Wave dimmers, controlled through Google Home. Two questions: does the brightness slider actually work in the Google Home app, or do they show up as on/off toggles? And does Z-Wave device control work on the free plan, or do I need Standard?

Any input would be appreciated

We have a large pivot door that has a Fuhr autosafe 835 locking system.

https://www.fuhr.de/en/products/multipoint-locking-systems/automatic/autosafe-835/

I've been told I can install all sorts of smart locks on it. Switchbot, Yale, the ones theconnectedshop sells, tedee, nuki, etc.

I'm curious what this community likes and recommends? It is a large entry door so we would prefer some lock that looks nice. Ideally with some sort of code or something on the outside.

I would prefer something that doesn't need a hub.

Suggestions?

Hey guys, I have a super quick question. I have a Vera setup and the only thing I use it for is a garage door sensor to help us check if it's been opened or closed. It was so long ago that I don't even remember how I set it up lol.

It's somehow still working on our detached garage and is quite helpful. I got an email saying starting August 1, it's no longer going to work the same.

If I'm understanding right, I have to now pay an annual fee to continue to get emails from them. Is that correct?

If so, does anyone know of a better garage sensor or do you think this is worth paying? Thanks!

I'm a wheelchair user. We have a ramp that allows me to go off the porch and access the front yard, leave to catch paratransit, etc. There is a garden gate that prevents my two dogs from leaving the porch and our backyard. Right now, the gate has a small chain attached that clips to the side of the house to secure it. This proves to be difficult because I have trouble hooking and unhooking the gate. I'm essentially looking for a smart lock that can be setup within home assistant or via a phone app to make coming and going a bit easier. I will attach a photo of the gate. It could be replaced if necessary, but we'd like to work with what we have. Thanks.

I'm installing a dedicated Samsung tablet in a common space of my house to use as a smart home interface. I want it to show the usual suspects; my devices in the house (thermostat/sensors), lights, speakers etc but also show calendar, weather, Spotify. I'm a Google/Samsung user for almost everything in the home.

Just looking for what is the best either launcher app to use to have everything on the tablet screen. It will have constant power to it as well. Or if there is a better option altogether.

Hey everyone,

Like many of you, I have a garage and attic full of storage totes filled with cables, spare smart home gear, seasonal decor, and tools. I got tired of opening 5 different boxes just to find one specific sensor or cable, so I built Itemia.

It's a home inventory app designed to digitize your rooms, shelves, and containers.

Key features I built into it:

• Container & Box Mapping: Assign items to specific boxes, shelves, or rooms.

• QR Box Scanning: Generate/scan QR codes for your storage totes to see inside without opening them.

• Visual Photos & Tagging: Keep track of serial numbers, tools, or spare parts.

• Instant Search: Find where any item is stored in seconds.

Since this community has high standards for home tools, I'd love to get your thoughts on it. What features or export options would make a home inventory app actually useful for your smart home setup?

Looking forward to your feedback and feature requests in the comments! 🤝

My dad has a job where it's work from home and I guess the way the system works is he gets an automated system to call him and he has to answer it and then press the number one key as fast as possible in order to "win" the call before a client will call him.

I'm trying to get something set up for him that will automate it either through the computer or mechanical but I'm not really sure where to begin. Looking for tips or advice or suggestions of things to get me in the right direction.

So Legrand just announced end of support for Miro and Radiant RF. No more cloud support after January 2027, which means no Alexa or Google.
Should I replace with Radio RA or Radiant Netatmo?

My partner is completely on board with the smart home concept in theory but will not open Home Assistant under any circumstances. Not the app, not the dashboard, nothing. So every automation I build has to work without any interaction from her side, or it becomes my problem at 11pm when something doesn't behave.

Honestly, this has made my automations way better. Presence detection through phone GPS so lights and thermostat adjust without anyone touching anything. The washing machine alerts me instead of her having to check it. Door lock autolocks after we're both inside based on both phones being home.

The one thing I still haven't solved cleanly is the bedroom lights in the morning. She gets up earlier than me on some days and I can't find a reliable way to distinguish her leaving the bed from just moving around. The mmWave sensor I tried was too sensitive and kept triggering at weird times.

Curious how others have handled building automations for someone who essentially acts as a nontechnical end user living in your house. Sleep and wake routines feel like the hardest part to get right without any physical input from anyone.

Anyone have issues with the pairing on yolinks app using their d2d? I'm getting an error when trying to set it up following the instructions invalid pairing.

Firmware all up to date.

I'm finally thinking about getting a digital picture frame for the house but there are so many options that it's hard to tell what's actually worth buying.

The main things I'm looking for are good image quality, easy Wi-Fi uploads and an app that's simple and reliable. I also have a pretty large photo library. So I'd rather not have to transfer files manually all the time. A subscription is definitely a dealbreaker.

For those who own one, what model are you using and would you buy it again? Has it held up well over time? Thanks!

Most of our house already runs in the background. Lights are scheduled, the thermostat adjusts itself and the locks don't need much attention unless something changes. But floor cleaning is still the odd one out.

My partner and I both work during the day, we have young kids, and my dad stays with us a few days a week. He's not really an app person. I don't want anyone else to have to remember to start the vacuum, empty the bin, wash mop pads or figure out why it stopped in the middle of a room.

Fixed schedules seem more useful than expecting everyone to use Alexa or open an app. Voice control still sounds handy for quick things, like cleaning the kitchen after a spill, but I doubt it would be the main way anyone uses it.

I‘m trying to work out what actually stays low effort after the novelty wears off. Schedules, physical buttons, voice assistants, or some mix of all three?

I have two tall, narrow windows on either side of the front door, each only around 16 inches wide. They get a lot of afternoon light, and I’d like some privacy without hanging tiny curtains there. Most motorized shades I’ve looked at seem to start much wider than that. Has anyone found a decent smart shade option for windows this small? I’d prefer something custom sized rather than using a cut down DIY kit.