Home Assistant automation, local smart devices, sensors, and privacy-first home control.
A smart home is just one of the amazing things that can be controlled and built with your own homelab. Let's take a look at a privacy-first install built for your smart home control.
Build a Kodi home theatre with suitable playback hardware, organised media, supported server add-ons, shared-library choices and reliable maintenance.
When it comes to managing our plants and gardens, we have looked at the self-hosted service called Plant-it before. Today we look at an alternative: HortusFox.
Running Home Assistant in your homelab is a must for most self-hosters. But should you run it in your Proxmox instance or on your Raspberry Pi? Let's take a look at a detailed comparison between the two options.
We all need some music in our life - be it from purchased music albums or internet radio. Lyrion will fulfill this requirement in your homelab setup with ease.
Learn Node-RED’s visual flows, how it complements Home Assistant and n8n, and the message, security, persistence and testing basics for dependable automation.
Plan a Frigate recorder with a verified camera stream, authenticated access, current recording settings, deliberate detection tuning and tested footage recovery.
Explore n8n's homelab workflows, licensing, persistent Docker setup, credentials, webhook configuration and practical automation checks.
Build useful ntfy alerts with private topics, restricted users, tested delivery and a clear plan for remote access, updates and recovery.
What Home Assistant’s Matter certification covers, how controllers and Thread border routers differ, and how to verify a supported device on your network.
Understand Tuya’s platform role and check the exact device’s cloud, Zigbee, local Wi-Fi or Matter support before planning home automation.
Choose a compatible PiSugar battery module, check its power limits, install the correct manager and verify graceful shutdown and recovery for a portable Raspberry Pi project.
Build an attended irrigation prototype with compatible GPIO control and DC power, verify one bounded pulse, measure water flow and plan sensor and restart behaviour.
Understand Pico 2 W’s Wi-Fi 4 and Bluetooth features, current ESPHome support, firmware choices and practical power, antenna and project-planning limits.
Choose Home Assistant Cloud, a VPN or an HTTPS proxy; check current HTTP settings, precise proxy trust, DDNS, certificates, app access and recovery.
A plain-language guide to Bluetooth versus Wi-Fi, Classic and Low Energy, audio compatibility, version features, sensor use and pairing privacy.
Complete Home Assistant onboarding, match the retained screenshots to current menus, add a first device and prepare usable backups on OS or Container.
Run Home Assistant Container on Linux with persistent configuration, consistent networking, device checks and a practical backup and update plan.
Running Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi is an affordable and flexible way to set up a smart home hub. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast or a beginner, this guide will walk you through the process.
Today we start a series on Home Assistant to help one and all get their home set up and controlled remotely, easily and affordably.
Compare Raspberry Pi computers and Arduino microcontrollers through specific board examples, sensors, timing, power and beginner-friendly project choices.
How Target Wake Time coordinates sleep and traffic, which devices can use it, and why battery savings depend on the implementation.
Build a Raspberry Pi DAKboard display using DAKOS or a browser, with current plan limits, private URLs, readable layouts and verified restart and sleep behaviour.
Choose a Raspberry Pi camera for stills, motion or monitoring, with clear lens, NoIR and cable guidance, modern capture commands and third-party driver caveats.
Guest Wi-Fi explained: separate visitor passwords, router and AP isolation settings, safe sharing, and practical checks that guests cannot reach your private devices.
Explore the Deco M9 Plus’s tri-band Wi-Fi, Gigabit ports and smart-home hub, with practical compatibility, backhaul and support checks.
Understand PoE standards, source-versus-device power, active and passive compatibility, and switch budgets before powering cameras, access points or phones.
Explore Deco Voice X20’s combined Wi-Fi 6 mesh and Alexa speaker, with accurate hardware, separate account linking, privacy controls and placement checks.
Understand port forwarding, public-IP and CGNAT limits, stable LAN addresses, precise rules, external testing and service-specific security for a home network.
Learn how Dynamic DNS updates a changing address, what it cannot fix, and how to verify a provider or securely configure an optional DNS updater.
Assess the Deco BE95’s quad-band radios, multi-gigabit ports, backhaul choices and client requirements before planning a home mesh upgrade.
Home Assistant Green offers a simple dedicated hub. Check its hardware limits, radio options, local and cloud integrations, voice processing and backup needs.