https://thehelpfulidiot.com • This is a web feed, also known as an Atom feed. Subscribe by copying the URL from the address bar into your newsreader. Visit About Feeds to learn more and get started. It's free. Visit website Recent posts Updated on $DATE date Smart Home Idiots don't have time for cable management. Zola2026-10-05T00:00:00+00:00https://thehelpfulidiot.com/category/smart-home/atom.xml 2026-10-05T00:00:00+00:00 2026-10-05T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/cleaning-up-six-years-of-home-assistant-with-claude/

How I took a Home Assistant install with 421 automations, a few security holes and a lot of polling, put it in Git, and cleaned it up with Claude Code without breaking anything my family relies on.

2026-10-04T00:00:00+00:00 2026-10-04T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/rewriting-my-home-assistant-dashboards-in-plain-html/

The Lovelace dashboards on the wall tablets around my house were slow and kept reloading, so Claude and I replaced them with small HTML and JavaScript pages that talk to Home Assistant over one websocket. Here's what they look like and how they work.

2022-06-17T00:00:00+00:00 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/integrating-xmcosy-outdoor-string-lights-with-home-assistant-locally/

Running XMCOSY+ outdoor string lights fully locally with Local Tuya, template lights and Node-RED, keeping colors, scenes and brightness.

2021-11-26T00:00:00+00:00 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/custom-3d-printed-mount-for-fire-tablet-2015/

Designing and 3D printing a wall mount for a 2015 Amazon Fire tablet as a Home Assistant dashboard, with the cord hidden in the wall. STL included.

2021-10-18T00:00:00+00:00 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/update-2-a-wired-sonoff-zigbee-alternative/

Pairing Zigbee devices caused the ZB-GW03 to reboot under Zigbee2Tasmota. The unofficial tasmota32-zigbeebridge firmware fixes it.

2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/update-a-wired-sonoff-zigbee-alternative/

A pair of Tasmota rules that work around the ZB-GW03 failing to reconnect to Home Assistant's ZHA after a power loss.

2021-10-03T00:00:00+00:00 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/controlling-home-assistant-with-an-old-remote/

Using a Flirc USB IR receiver to turn old infrared remotes into Home Assistant controllers via keyboard events.

2021-10-02T00:00:00+00:00 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/how-to-use-zigbee2tasmota-with-home-assistant/

Using a Tasmota Zigbee coordinator directly with Zigbee2Tasmota and MQTT in Home Assistant, instead of ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT.

2021-10-02T00:00:00+00:00 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/playing-a-sound-directly-from-home-assistant-operating-system/

Playing a door chime through a speaker plugged into the Home Assistant box itself, using the VLC add-on over telnet.

2021-09-29T00:00:00+00:00 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00 thehelpfulidiot https://thehelpfulidiot.com/a-wired-sonoff-zigbee-alternative/

Compiling and flashing Tasmota onto the EACHEN eWeLink ZB-GW03, an ESP32-based Zigbee bridge with Ethernet, for a wired coordinator that works with ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT.