My house has Ethernet in every room, that’s about it. 
1 Like
My home assistant locks the door at 10pm and during night if someone goes out and forget to lock it. You better have keys with you when you go for quick beer after 10pm 
I use it to monitor windows and external doors, if they are closed, coz kids like to not close them and if it’s heating season I’m not happy about that
Brightness of light in toilet, is set to only 10% during night, so my eyes do not bleed when I wake up to get rid of all that beer I have had when house locked me out.
Endless possibilities!
Oh, and one more thing to consider for you guys: I run it in docker container inside my NAS.
4 Likes
I bought one of these mini PCs a while back, and use it to run Proxmox
I have Adguard, Home Assistant, and a few other VM/Containers running on there.
There’s a pretty nice little site that can help you get things running in Proxmox very easily
I don’t really have anything in Home Assistant yet because I’ve struggled to get clear answer on what the best things to get are for switches/plugs/etc…
But it was at least a start… 
4 Likes
I have 3 esp’s somewhere here and one of those learner kits, maybe I will finally do something with them
1 Like
I have it in proxmox using the same scripts Mike used. I thought it was borked at one point and it took me forever to figure out I had two instances running with the same ip and hostname on my network…
IMHO, starting with HA goes through these steps:
- Connect 1-2 smart devices to get remote control and monitoring in one place.
- Add in a few more things until it becomes a pretty frequent thing to open to control.
- Find yourself doing some things repetitively, like dimming lights after sundown and decide to automate them
- Automate almost everything until you’re no longer opening the webapp to control or monitor things
- Spend any time interacting with HA updating and debugging automations
Because of that, the experience of a new user and an experienced one is pretty different. It does a great job at both. But the new user is focused more on interface and the experienced user is more focused on automations.
Some devices that haven’t been mentioned that I use:
- Ikea smart blinds. They need a zigbee dongle to connect o HA. They open to wake up the kids and then close in the summer when the sun hits them. They stay open in the winter until dusk.
- My smart power meter from the power company reports usage pver my wifi to HA.
- Automatic sprinklers. Mine are running on esphome
- OK to Wake Bulbs in the kid rooms. These were clutch when the kids were too young to read a clock. They turned blue at 630 am to let them know it was ok to get out of bed and bother their parents
- Custom printed remote controls for the kids. They run on esp32s and USBC no batteries. The kids control their lights in their rooms with them.
1 Like
I would really like to automate the light switches in my house as a starting point, but it’s been hard to find ones that work, and just look like a normal light switch.
Also, I have an older 2-story house and almost every room has a switch plate like this
which I haven’t found any smart switches like that, and editing things in this house isn’t simple
1 Like
Perfect spot for some shelly relays if you have room in the box. Then you keep the same switch and it just acts inline. Switches still work and you get wifi control
2 Likes
I don’t know how big those are, but I would guess that there’s a 0% chance I could shove 3 in there based on how crammed these boxes usually are. Especially with 3 switches in a double gang
yeah 3 might be a little tough but they are pretty small.
The Sonoff S31 plug in that video is rated at 16 amps.
I ran a compressed air line from my basement shop up into the garage, but always had to remember to power up the compressor before I could use it from upstairs. Added a smart plug and now can fire up the air pump from anywhere.
Ran into a sale of exterior rated wi-fi plugs at Costco a while back. Now have one for the string lights around the back deck, the one on the compressor, and another that we’ll use for outside holiday decorations on the front of the house.
2 Likes
I think you can get smart switch for up to 4 light sources. Do not repeat my mistake and buy one with power monitoring…
Why was that a mistake?
err… because I do not have monitoring? 
1 Like
Ok I think I read it wrong. To me it read like it was a mistake to buy switches with power monitoring.
2 Likes
What great replies, thanks EVERYONE!
1 Like
Hm, I think it can be read both ways. So let’s make it clear:
EVERYONE!!! BUY SMART SWITCHES _WITH_ POWER MONITORING!!!
EDIT:
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!
2 Likes
SONOFF SwitchMan Zigbee Smart Wall Switch | ZBM5 Just put a single gang sonoff in my room to run a fan. Just needs a zigbee dongle on the home assistant server, but I was already using one for some plant sensors.
1 Like
I keep seeing stuff about Zigbee, but I haven’t read enough about it. In the amount of time I’ve had to actually look at all these things, it’s not always easy to know what is compatible with HA, what requires a hub or not or what that means, what is still supported or not, etc…
Given the price of all this stuff, it’s hard to pull the trigger on any of it without knowing I’m heading down the right path, or that I’m not buying the wrong stuff, and going to have to rebuy later.
1 Like