The Jimmerness - Adventures in Home Automation

Setting up an alarm system is fairly intrinsic to a lot of Home Assistant implementations. If you're looking at ADT, Simplisafe...other options, you get their system and their controls - and you pay a monthly subscription for the good stuff. Home ownership, you get a discount on your home insurance if you have a security system that hits a third-party reporting service. Home Assistant doesn't get you there until you add something like Noonlight. Noonlight will be a future addition - this is already a long process. Materials: Door Sensors (I used Ecolink Zwave Plus [DWZWAVE2.5-ECO], $30 for each set of sensors - so $60 for front/back door) A Z-Wave USB for Home Assistant (I used Nortek HUSBZB-1, $50) Speakers (I used some early-model Sonos speakers) Probably a tablet to act as a disarm/arm location (I used Amazon Fire 7 (2019) $50 on Amazon) - you can also use any phone with the HA app, or any computer. Steps to get it working: Get your door sensors connected to your Z-Wave coor...

The project: "I need a button for the bedroom, so I can get your attention when you're downstairs." I looked for a button that was inexpensive and could link up to my existing home assistant setup. Sadly, it took awhile to get a Tradfri - they were frequently low or out of stock at the IKEA 60 minutes away. I eventually just mail-ordered two when they got in stock. Nice size. Good weight. Uses Zigbee. Did not come with real instructions (probably supposed to install the app). Zigbee pairing modes for Home assistant and IKEA Tradfri Configuration > Integrations > HubZ Smart Home Controller (add it if you don't) > Configure. To have Home Assistant go into pairing mode, click on "ADD DEVICE" in the lower-right corner.  Eventually I figured out you needed to click the button next to the battery 5 times in succession to be in discovery mode. A small red LED will blink through the front case when it starts trying to pair. First Roadblock I use a Nortek HU...

 I managed to set up motion detection previously. Currently, there's a live feed of the camera on Home Assistant, as well as my Synology NAS. My NAS also saves 10 seconds around the motion event trigger - if I get a home assistant motion detection alert on my phone (or on my watch through my phone), I can boot up a connection on my NAS, browse over to security feed, look at the timeline...but that's time. If I'm asleep in bed, it's kind of crazy to boot up your computer just for that. There were different solutions for this - the Amcrest app or Home Assistant solutions through Node Red and/or automations. I want to keep solutions in-house as much as possible, so that left Node Red and automations. You will need to have the home assistant app installed on your phone. I hit a roadblock fairly early and often...how do I identify the picture taken, where is it stored, and how to send it. This solution came up as I was looking at blueprints for something else. Honestly, it w...