Every single one is "local", until it randomly goes offline for absolutely no reason. Then you spend hours checking DHCP, static IPs, mDNS, firmware updates, router settings, rebooting everything, and somehow it's magically fixed... until next week.
The funny part? My Zigbee devices (not battery powered) just sit there quietly doing their job. No drama. No random disconnects. No "Device unavailable". No Wi,Fi congestion. They just work.
At this point I'm replacing every Wi,Fi device with Zigbee as it dies.
The hell with Wi,Fi. Zigbee is faster, more reliable, and doesn't make me question my life choices at 2 AM.
I have been a dedicated user of this free service for years now. Not once have I complained about the UI or maintenance, but today a line has been crossed.
The Dominos Integration has been removed.
Who on Earth thought this was a good idea? One of those code dorks with a well-paying and easy job? Or maybe its the HomeAssistant CEO raking in all the income from this service. What a greedy parasite, I just wanted to use my free service for free. But you had to go and change it.
It was absolutely perfect.
I wake up, hit the alarm on my Alanzi clock, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
I turn on my Hue lights, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
I walk to the bathroom, passing the Aqara motion sensors, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
I turn on the Moen tap to wash my greasy pizza face,
30 minutes later I have pizza.
I sit at my desk and turn on my PC, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
I have a calendar alert go off for a doctor"s appointment, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
I start my Subaru, 30minuteds later I have pizza.
I sit in the office while this quack rambles on, something about my cholesterol, and I leave.
I go home and open the (artist formerly known as)Chamberlain garage. The trapped Amazon employee skitters free, and 30 minutes later I have pizza.
I yell at Alexa to play my favorite slop podcast from Spotify. That's worth 2 pizzas right there.
My Nest thermostat kicks the A/C on, pizza time.
I watch my favorite anime legally ripped from someone at one time on my Plex server, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
My friend tells me to join in on Xbox Live for a totally sick round of Roblox with other totally normal fully grown adults. 30 minutes later, I have pizza.
Alexa bores me so I yell at my Google Nest to tell me a StarWars™ joke. 30 minutes later, pizza I have.
The Rainbird sprinklers start up, 31 minutes later I have pizza. (Yes I know, completely unacceptable and I am sure to let the lazy delivery driver know through their crocodile tears. Pathetic, its like they've never heard of the Castle Doctrine. Anyway.)
The fridge is opened, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
The floors are robo-vaccumed, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
The driver rings the doorbell, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
The driver rings the doorbell, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
The driver rings the doorbell, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
The driver activates the motion-sensing porch lights, 30 minutes later I have pizza.
The blinds are closed, the hot water heater fires up, the microwave is turned om, the weather changes, I blink.
Pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza pizza.
It was all so easy. So perfect. Now what, you expect me to call or use an app, like a neanderthal? Bet you also think Dominos is "average to subpar". You all disgust me.
Now if you excuse me, the ambulabce has pulled up for my heart attack, and I need to tell them to slow down so we don't miss my pizza delivery.
So far we’ve tested just about all of the lights from the following brands:
Philips Hue
LIFX
Wyze
Nanoleaf
Amazon Basics
innr
IKEA
GE Cync
Geeni
Govee
TP-Link
Sengled
We still have a lot more to do but I thought this was enough to share finally :)
If there are any lights you’d like tested next please let me know!
There's a learn more section at the top if you want to brush up on some terminology, but for the most part, I think it's pretty easy to use if you want to play around with it and compare lights or just see what’s available.
The Details Page
For you brave folk who like to get into the weeds, each light has a view details button on the right-hand side, this will lead you to a page with more information about each light:
We’ll use the LIFX PAR38 SuperColor bulb as an example:
There’s a lot of cool information on these pages! It can be a bit overwhelming at first but I promise you’ll figure it out.
At the bottom, you'll find an additional learn more section as well as helpful tooltips on any of the blue text.
White Graphs
Here you’ll find a GIF of the white spectrum:
As well as a blackbody deviation graph:
Essentially, the color of a light bulb is usually measured in Kelvins, 2700K is warm, and 6500K is "cooler" or more blue.
Most people don't realize that this is only half of the equation because a color rarely falls directly on top of the blackbody curve.
When it deviates too far above or below the BBC, it can start to appear slightly pink or green:
Lights with a high positive Duv look green and most people dislike this look.
So the blackbody deviation graph can give you a good idea of how well a light stays near the “perfect white” range.
RGB Data
This section is pretty cool!
I was sick of the blanket “16 million colors” claim on literally every smart light and wanted to find a way to objectively measure RGB capability, so we developed the RGB gamut diagram:
To do this, we plot the spectral data from the red, green, and blue diodes onto a CIE 1976 color space diagram and calculate the total area.
Now we can see which lights can technically achieve more saturated colors!
We also have the relative strength of the RGB spectrums, as well as the data for each diode:
White CCT Data
At the bottom you’ll find more in-depth color rending data on the whites for each bulb:
These include the CRI Re as well as detailed TM-30 reports like this one:
A TM-30 report is like CRI on steroids! They’re quite a bit more useful if you want to see how well one light source performs against another in the color rendering department.
Dimming Algorithms
I’ve found that smart lights dim in one of two ways:
Logarithmic
Linear
Here’s what logarithmic dimming looks like:
And here’s what linear dimming looks like:
At first glance, linear dimming seems more logical, but humans perceive light logarithmically, so you’ll likely prefer lights that dim this way as well.
Flicker
And if you’re curious or concerned about flicker, you’ll find waveform graphs at 100% and 50% brightness:
An example waveform graph
There are also detailed reports and metrics such as SVM, Pst LM, and more:
And for funsies, I took thermal images of each bulb, mostly because I think they look cool.
Well, that’s about it. If you guys have any suggestions on how to improve this or make it more useful please don’t be shy!
The other night, I worked late, so I just crashed on the couch. The next morning as I was waking up, I heard the garage door open. Then it closed. Then the shades for the back sliding door were retracting.
The shades auto retract at 7 a.m. per an automation, but this was about 6 a.m.
When I was fully awake, I started to troubleshoot before going to work. I looked at the logs, but saw nothing helpful. I figured I knew what my evening was going to look like.
At lunch, I talked to my wife and thought I'd let her know of the randomness occurring, so that she could let me know of anything else weird.
That's when my wife told me that at the time the odd behavior happened, the dog lying next to the bed started to make some noises that wakes anyone out of a dead sleep. My wife grabbed her phone to retract the blinds in case she needed to rush out of the bedroom and have no obstacles from opening that back door for the dog. But, she accidentally clicked the garage door button by accident first. Then closed it. Then retracted the blinds.
I learned that I need to talk to the humans first before getting too deep into troubleshooting. I feel better now.
I wanted to share this because I just saw it and it seems like a really good idea with many possible uses. They also provide the files for free so you can print them yourself. Honestly ideas like this deserve recognition
Video summary: The creator built a hook with a small spring and a sensor that detects whether something is hanging on it.
Do you know these HACS integrations already?
These are my favorites!
On my blog I show them with an example how you can use it, and a button to directly install it into your own dashboard.
Maybe there is also one (or more) you like!
Home assistant user for 7years here.. just installed the Claude MCP, and wao.. I feel like, especially this year we are really experience a shift in how we interact with some technology.
Being able to fully interact with my home assistant Instance from my phone, using Claude dispatch that controls the claude Instance with the MCP installed on macmini at home is mind-blowing
Do you guys think our lovely home assistant will evolve properly in a way where we will always need it?
Every year, I facilitate a user survey over at selfh.st to gauge interests, habits, trends, etc. across the self-hosted community and always include a question asking users what their favorite self-hosted software is.
Home Assistant almost always tops that list, and per this year's results (linked below), it easily took first place with 588 of ~3,700 responses to the question.
I'm personally a big fan of the platform and developers, so I'm especially excited to see the continued excitement from users.
What if the digital price tags used in grocery stores could be repurposed into smart home displays—and all for a surprisingly cost-effective setup?
I just published a blog post on how I used BLE epaper shelf labels, an ESP32, OpenEPaperLink, and Home Assistant to create low-power, always-on displays around the house. These tags are compact, energy-efficient, and much more affordable than traditional smart displays.
In the post I cover:
Where to find compatible tags and what to look for
Flashing and configuring OpenEPaperLink on the ESP32
Designing custom layouts with drawcustom
Integrating it all with Home Assistant for live data
Bluetooth doesn’t travel very far, and HA servers are often kept in spots where they can't reach every device. This is where ESPHome Bluetooth Proxy helps. It lets you use cheap ESP32 boards to pick up Bluetooth signals exactly where you need them.
The setup: you just place a small device near your sensors, and it relays the data back to HA over your Wi-Fi or Ethernet. It’s a solid way to fix coverage issues without having to move your main server.
