Homebridge vs Home Assistant Hub Showdown
Homebridge bridges devices into Apple Home. Home Assistant is the full local automation platform. Here's which one to pick — or why you'd run both.
Tag: home-automation
All the articles with the tag "home-automation".
ESPHome: DIY IoT Without Cloud
ESP32 boards + ESPHome's YAML firmware = your own cloud-free smart sensors and switches. Sensors, OTA updates, and Home Assistant integration in 30 minutes.
Zigbee2MQTT vs ZHA
Two paths to running Zigbee in Home Assistant — Zigbee2MQTT for power-user flexibility, ZHA for plug-and-play. Coordinator hardware, range, and the migration myth.
Home Assistant on Proxmox
Running Home Assistant OS as a Proxmox VM beats Docker for full Add-ons, USB passthrough, and Supervisor features. Setup, USB sticks, and zero-headache backups.
Photon vs ESPHome: ESP Firmware Compared
Particle Photon 2 vs ESPHome for ESP32 projects: cloud lock-in, OTA updates, Home Assistant integration, and which firmware wins for self-hosters long-term.
Zigbee Coordinator Showdown: Sonoff vs ConBee vs SkyConnect
Sonoff Zigbee Dongle Plus-E vs ConBee III vs SkyConnect — pick the right Zigbee USB coordinator for your Home Assistant home lab or apartment setup in 2026.
Owntracks + Home Assistant: Private Location Tracking
Stop feeding Google your daily commute. OwnTracks + MQTT broker + Home Assistant gives you real presence detection without the surveillance capitalism overhead.
BirdNET-Pi for Self-Hosted Bird Identification
Turn a Raspberry Pi and a cheap USB mic into a self-hosted bird ID station using BirdNET-Pi and Cornell ML audio models running entirely locally offline.
Scrypted vs Frigate for Self-Hosted Cameras
Scrypted bridges your IP cameras to HomeKit and Google Home. Frigate adds AI object detection on your own hardware. Here's how to pick — or run both at once.
ESPresense: Room-Level Bluetooth Presence in Home Assistant
Track which room you're in with cheap ESP32 nodes and BLE signal distance — real room-level presence for Home Assistant automations that actually work.
Plex Meta Manager: Posters, Collections, Sanity
Stop staring at a Plex library that looks like a clearance bin. Kometa (formerly Plex Meta Manager) automates collections, posters, overlays, and bulk ratings.
Jellyseerr Tagging Workflows for Real Libraries
Stop guessing whose request is clogging your 4K library. Jellyseerr tags + Sonarr/Radarr + Maintainerr = real per-user quota control that actually holds up.