Why This Blog Exists (and What Runs My House)

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I lead a solution consulting team by day, which mostly means working out what a customer actually needs and then proving it with something that runs, rather than a slide claiming it would. That instinct doesn’t switch off at home. The house ended up automated for the same reason the demos get built: it’s faster to try the thing than to argue about whether it would work.

This blog is where I write that down.

What this is going to be

Notes from a house that genuinely runs on Home Assistant, written by someone who figured it out the annoying way. Specifically:

• Setup decisions, with the reasoning — not just what I bought, but who each choice is wrong for
• Automations that survived, which is a much shorter list than automations I built
• The failures, because a dead SD card taught me more than any tutorial did

What it won’t be: breathless reviews of gear I’ve never plugged in. If something appears on this site, it runs in my house or it isn’t here.

Why local-first

Home Assistant runs on hardware I own, in my house, and keeps working when the internet doesn’t. That matters more than it sounds like it should. Cloud-dependent smart home gear has a habit of getting worse over time — features move behind subscriptions, apps get rewritten badly, and occasionally a company shuts a product down and your hardware becomes a paperweight.

Locally-controlled devices don’t have that problem. They also respond faster, because the round trip is a few feet instead of a few thousand miles.

What actually runs here

The house has been through a couple of iterations. The short version:

• A dedicated always-on box for Home Assistant, on Ethernet rather than Wi-Fi
• SSD boot, after I killed a microSD card the hard way
• A Zigbee radio on a USB extension cable, well away from any USB 3 port
• A pile of smart plugs doing unglamorous work — lamps, chargers, the coffee maker

Nothing exotic, and that’s rather the point. Most of the value comes from a modest setup that stays up, not an elaborate one that needs babysitting.

If you're starting from scratch — a hub and something to switch is a genuinely complete starting point

• Home Assistant Green — The shortest path to a working setup — plug in Ethernet and power and you're running tonight. Skip it if you actually want to learn what's underneath, or if you plan to run other services on the same box.
• Kasa Smart Plug — The easiest first automation — no radio required, works over Wi-Fi, and integrates locally. Great for lamps, chargers, and anything you want to cut power to on a schedule.

See all the gear I run →

Start here

If you’re new to this, read these in order:

1. Getting Started with Home Assistant — hardware choices and installation
2. Five Practical Home Assistant Automations — your first week
3. Automations Worth Setting Up First — the ones that stick

The gear page has the full hardware list, with honest notes on who each item is wrong for.

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Questions, disagreements, or a setup you’re proud of? Comments are open, or email me at [email protected].