A Baby Who Wouldn’t Sleep Started Maayan’s Home Assistant Journey

A temperature sensor, a smart plug and a baby who wouldn’t sleep started Mayan’s Home Assistant journey. Phil and Rohan explore how that first nursery automation grew into Zigbee heating controls, local white noise, custom lighting and a whole-house dashboard.

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Show notes for this episode are available at https://homeassistant.fm/HA254

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Chapters

00:00:00 — Welcome

00:02:00 — A sleepless baby starts everything

00:05:17 — Smart plugs and temperature sensors

00:08:25 — Tuya reliability and appliance safety

00:11:15 — Heating controls and nursery white noise

00:14:24 — Sonos, Spotify and local playback

00:17:22 — Choosing Zigbee over Wi-Fi

00:19:00 — ESP builds and fireplace fan safety

00:23:00 — Making custom Home Assistant hardware

00:25:20 — Projector lights and movie controls

00:27:28 — Smart-home controls

00:30:00 — Buttons, voice and kitchen tablets

00:33:55 — Night lights that help kids sleep

00:37:00 — Shared calendars on Home Assistant

00:40:00 — Organizing busy family schedules

00:43:26 — Automating a louvered pergola

00:46:30 — Hacking the pergola remote

00:49:40 — Tracking louver position

00:52:40 — DIY trade-offs and remote reliability

00:55:45 — Holiday mode and home security

00:58:40 — Solar hot water and load shifting

01:01:45 — Heat banking and energy choices

01:04:20 — A Frigate-powered AI cat trainer

01:07:30 — The mini PC running everything

This episode was made possible thanks to our sponsors

Home Assistant Link by Nabu Casa

Easily connect to Google and Amazon voice assistants for a small monthly fee that also supports the Home Assistant project. Sign up for your free trial in your Home Assistant system: https://my.home-assistant.io/redirect/cloud/ or visit https://nabucasa.com

Zooz

If you're looking to upgrade your smart home - you can’t go past Zooz! Zooz offers a range of affordable and innovative devices, including water leak sensors, water valve controllers, smart plugs and scene controllers.

For the best prices on all Zooz products, head over to https://thesmartesthouse.com

Apollo Automation

Apollo Automation are the makers of open source smart home sensors built for the Home Assistant ecosystem. They're an official Open Home Foundation commercial partner and their devices are built with local control, privacy, and reliability in mind, giving you full control and flexibility right out of the box.

Want Phil to help with your smart home?

You’ve heard him troubleshoot Home Assistant on the podcast. Now you can book him to troubleshoot yours. From broken automations and confusing YAML to dashboards, devices, and complete smart home setups: https://smarthomecto.com

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Hosts

Phil Hawthorne

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Twitter: @philhawthorne

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Rohan Karamandi

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Twitter: @rohank9

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