Home Assistant

This page is for the Project Home Assistant . Feel free to add/change its content!

Project Home Assistant
Status	In progress
Contact	Freerk, Mark, Ruud
Last Update	2025-02-11

Home Assistant

Introduction

Home Assistant is free and open-source software used for home automation. It serves as an integration platform and smart home hub, allowing users to control smart home devices. The software emphasizes local control and privacy and is designed to be independent of any specific Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. More information about Home Assistnat can be found on its Home Assistant Wikipedia page.

Hardware

See stub at Freerks homepage

Home Assistant can run on many different hardware devices. A small PC, Raspberry Pi, in a virtual machine on a host computer and for instance on a Network station.

Especially the latter is a great idea. Network stations like the HP 630 can be had for less than 100 euro on Marktplaats. The beauty of these devices is that they don't have any moving parts and come with an SSD which is perfect for HA. While Raspberry Pi 3 or above will also work the downside is that the memory card which holds the HA software will not last as long as an SSD fur to the read/write operations of the software.

Makerspace currently has a HP 630 as the base for Home Assistant, added to this is a Zigbee dongle as explained on Freerks homepage.

ESP Home

ESP Home has become an integral part of Home Assistant and makes it easy to dive in to the world of Internet of Things (IOT).

An abundance of Sensors and output devices can be integrated with Home Assistant.

Currently under investigation is a Sensorbox for air quality in the broadest sense.The Sensorbox seems the perfect candidate to get our feet wet in Home Assistant and ESPHome and build something useful that can be used in the Makerspace and @Home.

A number of Makerspace participants are into the process of sourcing all the components and building a couple of these sensor boxes.

The sensorbox is a project that hinges on Home Assistant and runs their ESPHome framework, making it easy to visualize the collected data and automate actions based on what you're seeing, e.g. turning on ventilation or air filters. : However, it also means that you should have a Home Assistant running. : Nonetheless, there is also a ready-to-flash firmware available that configures the Sensorbox for standalone use without Home Assistant

To Be Done

install add on NodeRed

Action: Freerk

install MQTT client

read/write MSL MQTT broker (space.makerspaceleiden.nl:1883)
Action: Freerk

buy additional stuff

smart switches etc.
Action: Mark