Home Assistant

Exactly. That's where a bypass comes in, it prevents that flickering.

https://kb.shelly.cloud/knowledge-base/shelly-bypass

I know the feeling. I fitted a back-box for a dimmer into a solid wall while doing a job here and then went out to buy the dimmer afterwards, only to find out that it needed another 10mm of depth in the back-box. 😣 I had to re-do the whole lot, and it was a complete pain but I was happy that I did in the end. That was the reason I ended up getting an SDS drill and chisel bits.

Had a M5Stack Atom Lite, ESP32 delivered yesterday. Set it up as a Bluetooth Proxy and it worked fine. Was able to disable Bluetooth usb stick and Bluetooth devices still worked. Was a little fiddly powering up again from a usb plug. No light on it and took a while for it to become available in HA but it's working fine so far

Setup was pretty straightforward. Connected to laptop via usb c and followed instructions below

https://esphome.io/projects/index.html

For anyone who has a ulanzi clock set up with home assistant, you can set up this tv guide with home assistant and then display the channels you want on the ulanzi through MQTT.

https://github.com/yohaybn/HomeAssistant-EPG

Example below display's the tv guide every 15 minutes

alias: Awtrix EPG
description: ""
triggers:

trigger: time_pattern
minutes: /15
conditions: []
actions:

data:
qos: "0"
retain: false
topic: awtrix_123456/notify
payload_template: |-
{
"text": "Whats on TV now - RTE 1: {{ states.sensor.epg_rte_one_ie.state }}, RTE 2: {{ states.sensor.epg_rte2_ie.state }}, Virgin Media 1: {{ states.sensor.epg_virgin_media_one_ie.state }}, BBC 1: {{ states.sensor.epg_bbc_one_ni_ie.state }}, BBC 2: {{ states.sensor.epg_bbc_two_ni_ie.state }}, ITV 1: {{ states.sensor.epg_itv1_ie.state }}, Channel 4: {{ states.sensor.epg_channel_4_ie.state }}, Channel 5: {{ states.sensor.epg_channel_5_ie.state }}, Virgin Media 2: {{ states.sensor.epg_virgin_media_two_ie.state }}, Virgin Media 3: {{ states.sensor.epg_virgin_media_three_ie.state }}, Virgin Media 4: {{ states.sensor.epg_virgin_media_four_ie.state }}, ITV 2: {{ states.sensor.epg_itv2_ie.state }}, ITV 3: {{ states.sensor.epg_itv3_ie.state }}, ITV 4: {{ states.sensor.epg_itv4_ie.state }}",
"repeat": 1
}
action: mqtt.publish

mode: single

True but people's viewing habits have changed. Live tv isnt watched much these days in my household and its more of knowing something is on that prompts to watch it. In my case I have the ulanzi clocks around the house where there arent tv's in most cases and so seeing something is on might prompt someone to watch live tv.

What Zigbee energy-monitoring smart plugs are people using?

Looking at online reviews and some brands can have electrical noise. Which I don't want for something on 24 x 7 (as a Zigbee router). I’ve WIFI TPLink Tapo ones that integrate in HA, but won’t act as Zigbee routers (WIFI only).

Q2, what zigbee lightbulbs are people using? Ones that are a decent price point. Not going near the likes of Hue. Out of our price range.

Sorry, just re-read you are looking for ZigBee ones.

I got two Knightsbridge WiFi smart plugs (Tuya) and they work fine. Have one currently in a weatherproof box outside for the Xmas lights and it's been solid. Power reporting ok as well, used them earlier in the year to ascertain device usages around the house.

Stay away from their smart wall sockets though, I had 3 malfunction (the switch) over a year so gave up on them.

I have five each of these 20A ones (TS011F_plug_3 in Z2M), and also the new 13A IKEA Inspelning (E2206). The Inspelning need a firmware update to 2.4.45, or newer, to report energy usage correctly but otherwise work OK. I have a couple IKEA Tradfri bulbs, and Stoftmoln lamps. No bother with either gear, and all act as stable routers.

The white-label TS011F_plug_3 apparently have some issues, but I haven't experienced any of the ones mentioned in Z2M docs so far.

It looks a nice project, is this your repo?

I've considered going this route a number of times, mostly because an off the shelf system that would work exactly as I want is ridiculous money. At the moment I have a totally HA manged system, but maintained manual controls for use in case of HA failure. It works great but the biggest issue is sometimes getting comms back on each individual stat/ switch after a power cut can be a pain as some IOT devices boot before the router and assign themselves an IP in the absence of DHCP, mind you a UPS on the router and HA would solve a lot of that.

Yes, it's mine; my first github project.

ESPHome's integrated webserver is handy as you have that offline access, even if the WiFi is down as it sets up a local AP too.

I went static for all IP's (or static leases for things like phones), just managed out of a DHCP server (pfSense) so that I have it all documented. It means that I avoid those issues of re-IP hell during startup.

Well you got your first follow now too. Git version control is great, as you can always roll back to a previous version, you should start putting a brief description of changes with each commit, it will make it easier if you need to find where you might have gone wrong if it's multiple commits in the past as well as just keeping track of when you add features.

I have statically assigned Ip's via the Routers DHCP static reservation, but I also have 2 thermostats that go rogue if they boot first and they can't be set manually with static IP's so the reservation option is the only option. It's not a major issue, I just restart them then HA after the router settles.

Here is my Heating Config, https://github.com/Farmer-Eds-Shed/Home-Assistant-Heating-Schedule

It uses basic off the shelf WiFi thermostats and smart switches.

Ironically, it was after seeing your projects and github did I decide to sign up and start contributing; so the follow from you is even more appreciated!

Has the companion app full permissions for location and background operation?

Fair play. Some interesting projects there