Smart Home

Real-world smart home builds with Home Assistant, sensors, and integrations that survive past the honeymoon period.

Turn a cheap wall-mounted tablet into your smart home command center

Build a smart home control panel from a cheap Android tablet and Fully Kiosk Browser. Tablet picks, PoE and USB-C mounting, and room-ready layouts.

Build a DIY radon detector using the FTLab RD200M pulsed ion-chamber sensor, an ESP32, and ESPHome firmware for Home Assistant integration.

One-year review of the $59 Voice Preview Edition: fully local wake word detection, sub-second response, far-field mic array, and zero cloud calls.

Build a PV-surplus EV charge controller in Home Assistant that auto-adjusts current, talks to wall boxes and inverter APIs, and handles edge cases.

A fully local smart thermostat from an ESP32, BME280 sensor, and relay, run by ESPHome and Home Assistant. No cloud, no subscription, under $30.

Hailo-8 (26 TOPS) vs Coral TPU (4 TOPS) for Frigate: inference FPS, power, camera limits, and cost per TOPS to pick your edge AI accelerator.