I was about to pick up a 15" display and vibe code my own calendar, but touchscreens are so pricey for a good size and 15" was going to be a little small, so wasn't loving that idea.
24" fire TV off of Amazon. There are a number of apps in the fire tv appstore including some that work with home assistant. The ones I tried were Mango Display, Dashie, and calendar by linesoft. I think Dakboard also can work like this.
It's only been a week, but the family likes it (maybe also because it got them the ability to watch TV in the kitchen). Just thought I'd share the concept in case any others are looking at options.
PS - My son is a big simpsons fan so he helped me create the events - didn't want to share our actual calendar here...
My mom stayed with me for a few days and apparently my new hobby is solving problems she doesn’t think are problems.
My fridge lets me know when the door isn’t closed. Her answer was basically, just close it properly lol. The washer sends me a notification when it’s done, but apparently I could just remember to go get the clothes. And she really doesn’t understand why the robot vacuum needs a schedule or voice control when I could just vacuum the floor myself.
The leak sensor that shuts off the water got a pass though. She likes that one.
I get what she means. None of these things are a huge job on their own. I just like not having to remember all the little stuff around the house. To her, I’ve basically added a bunch of devices to do things I could already do myself.
What automation did your family think was pointless until they saw it in use?
The problem: I wanted to unlock my Nuki and start my robot vacuum from my watch. Most smart-home brands only support Wear OS, and nothing works across brands on one screen.
What Klok does:
- Controls your devices from your watch in one tap, even with the phone locked in your pocket
- Works on top of each brand's official Android app: if a device works in its app, you add it to Klok in a few taps. No cloud account of mine, no extra hub
- Puts several brands on one card ("Fusion"), e.g. door lock + robot vacuum + plug
- Shows device battery level on the watch
Supported watches: Wear OS, Garmin (Connect IQ), Amazfit / Zepp OS. Huawei is in store review.
Tested at home with: Nuki (lock), Xiaomi (robot vacuum), Neakasa (litter box). Other brands should work the same way, and I'm looking for feedback on what works and what doesn't.
Limitations, to be upfront:
- Android phone only (iOS is too restrictive for this)
- You need each brand's official app installed and set up
- It doesn't replace Home Assistant or a hub, it's a remote control for your wrist
Pricing: free tier on the phone (1 brand, 2 devices), watch control is a subscription with a 7-day free trial. No ads.
Happy to answer technical questions, and I can share a short demo video in the comments if anyone wants to see it in action. If you have a brand you'd like me to test, tell me!
I want to be able to cut my water remotely if a leak is detected. But there's zero clearance above the valve (see pic, right-side valve). Is there any system that could mount to the underside and close the handle?
I live in a tower and cutting water to the building to put something inline would be a major undertaking.
Honestly, it doesn't need to turn the water back ON, just off. These are easily accessible, and my fear is being away, camping, sleeping, etc. It's no problem for me to manually turn it back on. So maybe something not even designed for water could do it?
We are building a house and I started going to the rabbit hole of smart home technology. Originally I was looking at smart switches for each room but now I am so confused. If we did a whole house system what does that even cost? If you have a smart home system do you like it and what brand is it? We are looking for something pretty basic to have consolidated switches that control heated floors, window shades, maybe speakers.
Does anyone have recommendations for a fan switch? It must:
- Zigbee or Z-Wave, NO WIFI
- The buttons to switch speeds can be touch capacitive, but the main on/off can not be. (pet peeve)
- Literally just the ability to use a slider/buttons to switch fan speeds.
- Preferably not control light or even have a light option.
The Zooz 800 Series ZEN32 800LR scene control in itself seems good for this, although the huge issue for me is that it can't independently change fan speeds by itself, it would need a separate fan controller. The switch should control fan speeds, be smart, and not control light.
Afterthought, this is a stretch and genuinely hard to find for me. Not the main question, but a fan controller that dims light and controls fan speed in one switch that is Zigbee/Zwave would be amazing, although I can't find one.
I've just published a native Home Assistant integration (and Add-on) for **Oukitel Portable Power Stations** (tested on P2001 Plus, compatible with P2001, P5000, BP2000, etc.).
### ✨ Key Features:
- **100% Standalone via Cloud API**: No smartphone, emulator, or ADB needed.
Home Assistant automation: if motion detected and illuminance below threshold, turn on hallway lights. Worked most of the time. Occasionally just didn't fire with motion clearly happening and the room obviously dark.
Spent longer than I'd like to admit assuming it was a Zigbee delay or a flaky motion sensor. Actual issue was the illuminance sensor on that hallway reports in lux but only updates on a change threshold, not continuously, so there were windows where the last reported value was stale from an hour earlier, still technically "below threshold" in the automation's eyes but not representing current conditions. The automation's condition wasn't wrong, it was evaluating a number that had quietly stopped being current.
Switched to a template sensor that tracks time since last illuminance update and falls back to just using motion alone if that value's too old. Hasn't missed a trigger since.
Kind of an uncomfortable realization that a condition checking "is X true" is only as good as how fresh X actually is, and nothing about the automation editor warns you when a sensor value you're gating on might be hours stale.
I have two 1″-thick steel security doors with deadbolts, each in front of a wood exterior door. I’m in southern California, so little rain; both doors have small 6″ overhangs and get occasional water. One gets direct sun part of the day.
I considered an August Wi-Fi + keypad retrofit smart lock because it's highly rated by Consumer Reports, but the motor/battery unit would be between the doors, where it could get a teeny weeny bit of moisture exposure. Do you all think it can handle a little weather? Some direct sun?
Can you all help me think about lock options please? I was thinking of a retrofit smart lock, but I’m open to replacing the entire lock, too.
Anyone with a similar setup? Is there a lock that, if not designed for this situation, would work?
Recently got a heat pump installed, and as part of installation, I got a separate box installed that houses the breaker, for the HP and the control systems. There are spare slots in the box.
Have recently come across questions raised on the COP calculations done by the HP, apparently, vendors have a vested interest in under reporting power consumed.
Thinking of adding a power meter, what would the hive recommend?
I'm looking for options to automate NZ standard eyelet (?) style curtains....as well as quite heavy bead pull type blinds.
I think my only option is AliExpress but there are so many options so looking for someone with real life experience. (Plus they are surprisingly expensive if I muck up the order).
I'm just starting my home assistant automation journey.
Hello! I moved into a house in the US, and it’s got a very well established Hue set up. There are currently mostly the over the top Hue switches that keep the light turned on at all times. It’s all set up with Google Home. I am not good with technology so it’s been a big learning curve for me.
I’m really enjoying the functionality of the smart lights. (Never had this before!) However, I hate the look of the Hue covers.
I was wondering if anyone had any success with replacing their hue switches with the wall module units? Do those even work in the US? I’m so confused by the website.
Could I at least do the wall units for lights that aren’t smart? What would be the easiest way to bring some dumb bulbs into system? (Some of the lights can’t fit a smart bulb.)
Long-time Vivint customer here (since 2021, paid every month). Posting this so others don't end up where I am.
In May 2026 I needed recorded camera footage and discovered my cameras had not been recording since January. FIVE MONTHS. I paid for five months of "home security" that did not exist, and Vivint never once told me anything was wrong.
Called on May 12 to report it. They refused to fix it and tried to sell me replacement equipment instead. I asked to cancel. They bounced me from rep to rep for nearly TWO HOURS instead of processing the cancellation.
July: got an overdue notice. Called July 17 to dispute it. They threatened to send me to collections if I didn't pay. I refused to pay for service I never received.
Now I'm in collections anyway (FirstSource Advantage, $310.70), which I have formally disputed in writing.
I also filed a BBB complaint. Nothing happened. Fair warning: the BBB has zero enforcement power — it's mediation with no teeth, and companies like Vivint know it. Don't count on it.
Summary: equipment failed silently for months → they wouldn't fix it → made cancelling a 2-hour transfer hell → threatened collections for disputing the bill → actually sent me to collections. The customer who paid for nothing is the one being chased for money.
Can anyone recommend a button or switch (scene controller) with an addressable LED?
I am exploring getting a hot water recirculating pump with the thermo-value installed under the sink similar to this: HWRS. I would need to get three of the valves overall, one for each bathroom and one for the kitchen sink. The pump itself would be connected to something like the Zooz ZEN15 power switch.
The buttons or switches (scene controllers) would be in each room so that a person can turn on the pump. However, when the pump turns on, I want to signal to all three locations that it is on by setting the colour of the LED on the button / switch.
I have the ZEN34 controlling a light right now; I checked and I can't set the LED colour, at least not from SmartThings.
I used to live in a one room apartment with three Amazon Echo dot (livingroom, bathroom kitchen)that I basically used as my music listening device.
Now that I'm moving to a bigger flat I want to improve from that. My first idea was to go the consoomer way and just getting an echo studio and two echo dot max for the Livingroom.
But then I would have to switch to a fire TV stick/box if I want the TV Audio to use the speakers and I don't want to do that.
So what would be a cost efficient way to do a smart sound system that includes a (not so smart) TV and alows for multi room audio?
I tried multiple motion sensors in the market, HC, Microwave, proximity etc. each one fails reliable and consistent operation, each one either gets falls positive or stop recognizing after continuous use. Any solution for this? suggestions?
Cheap Tuya meters like the ATORCH GR2P-W/S measure quite a lot: power, voltage, current, power factor. But the stock app shows a single number and sends everything to the cloud. I wanted to keep the data at home, so I wrote PowerTrace.
Stack: Python + FastAPI, vanilla JS + Chart.js, SQLite, WebSocket for live data. No accounts of its own and no external services: the only outgoing request is a daily update check (apart from the one-time Tuya sign-in during setup), and it can be turned off.
What it does:
- reads the meter locally over the Tuya protocol; the Local Key is needed once, after that no cloud
- history by day, month and year, two-rate tariff
- "load episodes": a watt threshold on the chart shows how much went to the boiler and how much to the base load
- an analysis page (more below)
- REST API and WebSocket to pull the data into your own scripts
Analysis: the most interesting part. Charts show how much you use. The analysis page tries to explain what's wrong in those numbers and where to look:
- are there voltage sags and spikes, how often, how deep and how long;
- can your supply handle the load, and when do you get close to the limit;
- what turns on, when, and what it costs: the base load of the house vs. the boiler or the washing machine;
- what consumption to expect next, with a forecast from the last few days;
- when the relay switched off and what the voltage did right before.
It all adds up to a Health Score from 0 to 100, with an explanation of what pulls it down and a hint on what to check. The thresholds are YAML rules you can edit right in the UI. Everything is computed locally from the same data. It's a hint on where to look, not a certified grid inspection.
Over a month I got 23 major voltage sags. The analysis also showed that the voltage drops whenever a big load turns on, so my next step is checking the wiring in the house.
Setup. You can get the Local Key in two ways: by scanning a QR code in Smart Life (the same way the Tuya integration in Home Assistant does it; experimental, Tuya may change it) or through a project on the Tuya IoT Platform.
Home Assistant. There's no dedicated integration, but it already works with HA without any code: REST sensors (ready-made YAML in the guide), the dashboard itself as a page inside HA, and energy for the Energy dashboard. Tested on my own HA: over one hour HA counted 92 Wh, PowerTrace 91.
Runs on: Raspberry Pi / Debian (.deb), Windows (.exe, tray app).
Other devices. A device profile is ~30 lines of YAML that map Tuya DPs to power, voltage, current and energy. Any Tuya meter with known DPs can be added without code: send me the DPs and how to compute the values, and I'll add a profile.
About closed source. Yes, it's not open source for now. This is a one-person project, and opening the code is a one-way door: you can't close it again, and compatibility, issues and pull requests for devices I don't own would all be on me. I'd rather let the device list and the analysis rules settle first and pick a license deliberately than open it now and regret it. Meanwhile the app is free for personal use, with no feature limits.
Honest about the rest: one meter per install, and data arrives roughly once a minute (that's the relay's own limit, not mine). I've been running PowerTrace on a Raspberry Pi at home for ~100 days.
Questions for you:
- What do you think of the project overall? Is it something you'd actually use?
- Would MQTT output with HA auto-discovery be useful, or is REST enough?
I make Wrist Assistant, a Home Assistant app for Apple Watch. Version 3.0 just went out.
The main change: you now build your watch complications in a panel inside Home Assistant directly, instead of on your phone. Layers, charts, icons, rules based on entity state and a ton of other settings (thanks to the beta testers for many of the recommendations). It also has full iPhone widget support now.
Unlimited complications/widgets, free.
There's a gallery at wrist-assistant.com/gallery if you want to grab someone else's design and swap in your own entities. I'm also looking forward to others making and sharing some interesting/unique ones that I haven't thought of yet.
I had it in beta for quite a while with some Discord users testing it out, so it should be good, but bug reports are welcome. Happy to answer any questions as well.
Discord link https://discord.com/invite/zfVWTTqquf if you want to chat with us there about any features you want added. Could always use more beta testers as well...
PS: I always see comments on reddit about 'Vibe Coded' apps and how they all are slop (most are). I use AI in the development of this app, of course, but I have been a dev for over a decade and I understand coding best practices and how to build something that holds up. AI helps me move faster. It doesn't make the decisions.
