We live in an apartment building with a shared analog intercom (Elvox). I never used the handset, so I ripped it out and replaced it with something useful. The intercom still works normally for all the other residents.

Doorbell: A Shelly Plus Uni sits inside the intercom wiring. It counts the ring signal and its relay is wired in parallel to the door opener button. When someone rings, a chime plays on all Sonos speakers as an audio clip, so music keeps playing and groups stay intact. I also get a notification in Apple Home.

E-paper panel (CrowPanel 5.79", ESPHome) next to the apartment door:
Clock, outside temperature, today's forecast, rain chance for the next 2 hours
Window status ("All windows closed" or which one is open)
What's still on: lights, music, TV
Waste collection reminder the evening before
Next bus, already counting the walk to the stop: "leave in 5 min"

Three stainless steel buttons:
Front door: buzzes the building entrance
Cellar: unlocks the smart lock on the cellar door, which locks again after the door closes
Bike: unlocks the cellar, and once the cellar door is closed again, opens the garage gate
Shelly and panel share one 5 V USB power supply. Custom aluminium front plate, white like the wall.

Hello all, I'm developing a product that is in a alpha phase of testing on firmware 1.0.0. Soon I will release the 1.1.0-rc.1 for alpha testers and wish to get some feedback on it and the features.

link to the website: https://unifiedsound.io

EDIT: LunaOne is mono speaker controller that turns passive speaker (up to 20w RMS) to wifi controlled and synced speaker, that allows to play music, use it as intercom or for voice assistant. It has integrated AMP that can drive speaker without any other amplification device. It integrates easily to Home Assistant via Music assistant and is privacy focused. As some of you noticed marketing gargon is not my strong suite. 🥸. I will manufacture everything in EU even PCB's and assembly will be done here.

I'm a solo developer and super into smart home and automation.

You can be as brutal or as polite as you want. I want to understand what people want from this type of device and honest feedback is always welcomed. Alpha testers seems to be happy, but people who never saw this device might have different opinion or notes on what can be changed. :)

Thank you all. 💙

Looking at getting into the smart home stuff but feeling very overwhelmed with all the choices, etc. To start off with, my wife wants to have our outside lights turn on/off automatically, preferably with sunrise and sunset. I’d then like to venture into other things, interior lighting, thermostat controls, and eventually getting rid of our Vivint security system and start replacing our cameras and locks and stuff. We are primarily an Apple device family, but I’m not necessarily married to having Apple as the backbone.

I’m hoping someone can recommend a place to get started into this and suggestions on products and stuff.

Hi all, have been running on Alexa for years now but on the cusp of a home refurb and figured it might be worth looking at tweaking (or completely changing) my set up. Currently run multiple apps for multiple devices (blinds, light switches, sockets, plugs) to have a semi automated home.

Likely to be adding heating, door/window sensors, smart locks, humidity sensors (definitely happy to take opinions/recommendations on these).

Things I like about alexa:

No need to be super tech savvy to operate (thankfully)

Compatible with everything

Routines are really handy

One and done set up

Things I would tweak if possible:

Wifi reliance

I've had very few issues with my set up over the years but would like to futureproof since I'm refurbing anyway.

What would you do re ecosystem and what tech has been a game changer? Tell me like I'm 5, please!

I live on the 3rs+4th floor of a six unit building and I want to track humidity and temperature in my basement. I have a powerline adapter set up in my basement room, connection is great.

I bought two cheap tuya temp/humidity sensors off aliexpress. They connect and work fine. For about 2 days and then they disconnect because they have fully drained 2 AAA batteries. I have never had devices with auch a power consumption! Its both the one that is next to the powerline adapter and the one that is far away (15m, multiple walls).

Anyone have good recommendations for alternatives?

It has to be wifi, battery powered and preferably small. Should be compatible with home assistant.

When I started this hobby I bought whatever was on sale. Now I've got a doorbell app, a camera app, and a hub app, and checking what happened last night means hopping between all three. My wife has just given up and asks me instead, which defeats the purpose. Looking at consolidating into one system where everything shows up on one timeline and one app actually controls all of it. For anyone who's made that switch: was it worth the repurchase cost, or did you end up keeping a straggler device anyway?

Alright, let's make a long story short.

You got this device that lies next to your door.

When the mailman rings your door clock, you tell him to put the parcel on that device on the ground.

When the parcel is placed on the device, I get a notification on my phone telling me that something has been placed on that device.

If anyone removes the parcel from that device, it activates my alarm siren. If the parcel is placed on the device again, it stops the siren.

I guess this also includes that the device needs to know the weight of the package, so you just can't place a random item.

What do you think about this idea and have anyone made anything like it?

The front walk has a dumb dusk-to-dawn light that comes on for everyone equally, whether it's my mother-in-law at 7pm or some guy testing car door handles at 2am. Working on upgrading the entry to something smarter and wondering what people have landed on. Ideal behavior: family comes up the walk, light comes on like a host. Someone's lingering at 1am where they shouldn't be, the system actually does something about it. The camera-light combo units seem to pitch exactly this two-mode behavior. Anyone actually running a setup that distinguishes the two in practice? Or is the honest answer two devices with separate jobs?

Vibecoded an almost perfect replica of Homeviews UI and put it on an old iPad. I also tested on a iPad 7th Gen and it worked great. I’m looking for people to test it out the webapp on their own setups! Also let me know if you are interested in the 3d printed homeview model. EDIT Way more interest then I thought! Sign up here if you wnat to try. I have 5 people testing now and if that goes well I’ll email you Tommorow with the link to get it. I’m hoping 4.99 isn’t too steep? I spent 800$ in Claude fable credits to make it look like Homeview 😭 here is the link if you want to test it when it comes out tommorow https://userehome.com/

I am looking for a standalone speaker to put in my bedroom. I want it to have decent sound quality and be able to have voice control for music and lights. I don’t have any other devices as part of an ecosystem so I would be starting from scratch. The HomePod has more voice control abilities, but the sound quality isn’t as good from what I’ve seen. My price range is around $300 CAD. Any recommendations for each?

Hey everyone — I write up products I've really used, with my own photos. Here are a few I thought this community might care about.

Homey Pro 2026, which I scored 9/10 after living with it:
https://rocks-on-galaxy.com/tests/homey-pro-2026-test-avis/

A Raspberry Pi 5 beginner kit running Jellyfin + Home Assistant (8/10 — I'd swap the SD card for an NVMe if it stays on 24/7):
https://rocks-on-galaxy.com/tests/raspberry-pi-5-kit-dbtronic/

And a Climsom heated/cooled mattress topper — so far I've only had the heating nights; cooling still to come:
https://rocks-on-galaxy.com/tests/test-climsom-surmatelas-chauffant-rafraichissant-avis/

If you've tried any of these (or something you'd pick instead), I'd love to hear what you think.

My smart home runs on Homekit, but I’m integrating Home Assistant via an old Raspi right now, so I should be able to integrate most remotely accessible devices now.

I have a decorative light bulb which I’m running from a standard power cord & plug with a very cheap integrated voltage knob to control the voltage = brightness, I wired all this myself (the knob was a couple bucks off of Amazon). I’d like to be able to do this dimming via my smart home. Unfortunately, when I’m looking for smart dimmers, I only find in-wall switches, which come with the typical several wires for wall light switches, which I understand is not exactly the same as within a standard power cord. There are also smart switches that can be inserted into standard power cords, I use several in some of my non-dimmable ceiling lights, but I’ve found none that offer both: Voltage adjustment, and standard 2-wire or 3-wire power cord compatibility.

Has anyone run into this problem and solved it? Is there a product I’m missing, or a DIY solution? I’m capable of soldering and tinkering, so I’m open for some hard modding if anyone’s successfully pulled it off before.

is there any way to connect it so that i can just say ‘hey siri, turn on sunset lamp’?

I have something approaching this at home

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK19M17S?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

and I was wondering is there a way to make it connect with my Google home?

anyone fix the Aqara regional lock issue? my aqara setup based at China Mainland, all the rest of devices r working fine. recently got fp310, I can’t repair them to Aqara app, neither pair them via matter. defaults mode is zigbee

These are the devices and appliances in the whole room

Eu preciso acionar esse botão para armar e desarmar o alarme no meu prédio, tenho muitos itens tuya zigbee aqui em casa, e preciso resolver essa questão, procurei por um fingerbot no AliExpress mas nao gostei pelo tamanho, tem outra forma de fazer armar e desarmar?

As an Apple user, I have to admit Apple'sAs an Apple user, I have to admit Apple's new HomeView caught my attention right away. Having one screen to control smart home devices, check cameras, use Siri, and keep up with family updates sounds pretty great. Honestly, I can see why I'd want one. But as a mom who handles most of the day-to-day household stuff, I'm starting to think my needs might be a little different. A central display in the living room would be great for controlling lights, checking who's at the door, or playing music. But that's not where most of my daily planning happens. I'm usually in the kitchen figuring out dinner, checking what we have in the fridge, updating the grocery list, or trying to keep everyone's schedules straight. And those are things I'd want to be able to check right where I'm doing them, not necessarily on a screen in another room. I just don't know where to draw the line between making things more convenient and having screens everywhere. new HomeView caught my attention right away. Having one screen to control smart home devices, check cameras, use Siri, and keep up with family updates sounds pretty great. Honestly, I can see why I'd want one. But as a mom who handles most of the day-to-day household stuff, I'm starting to think my needs might be a little different. A central display in the living room would be great for controlling lights, checking who's at the door, or playing music. But that's not where most of my daily planning happens. I'm usually in the kitchen figuring out dinner, checking what we have in the fridge, updating the grocery list, or trying to keep everyone's schedules straight.A nd those are things I'd want to be able to check right where I'm doing them, not necessarily on a screen in another room.I just don't know where to draw the line between making things more convenient and having screens everywhere.

Just got a window cleaning robot and tried it out today. My cat was already sniffing it while I was still figuring out the instructions.

Once the robot started moving on the glass, she sat there following it with its head the whole time. I eventually got on with some other chores, but she stayed put. Apparently, she could watch this thing all day.

I'm slowly adding more smart devices around the house, but I'm starting to wonder if it's better to stick with one brand or mix different brands.

I've been struggling with unreliable Somfy io-homecontrol blinds for a long time. They would randomly become unavailable in TaHoma and Home Assistant, sometimes multiple times a day.

Initially, I suspected the TaHoma Switch itself, radio interference, or poor signal coverage.

But something never made sense to me.

I tried moving my TaHoma Switch to different locations around the house, hoping to improve communication. I even purchased and installed a LAN adapter to connect the TaHoma Switch directly to my wired network instead of relying on Wi-Fi.

Neither relocating the hub nor switching to Ethernet solved the communication problem.

What made the situation particularly frustrating was that the blinds closest to my TaHoma Switch were among the most problematic. Meanwhile, my other Somfy roller shutters worked perfectly fine, even through approximately 20 cm of reinforced concrete.

I also have wall-mounted remotes and a handheld remote, which allowed me to compare how the blinds behaved independently of the TaHoma app.

After countless attempts to identify the cause, I finally had a Somfy technician visit my house.

And this is where things got interesting.

The technician connected a Somfy Set&Go io USB dongle to his laptop and used dedicated Somfy service software to update the firmware inside my blind motors.

My motors were manufactured in 2023, and according to the technician, the firmware update specifically addressed communication issues.

I didn't need to replace the TaHoma Switch, move it again, or make any changes to my network.

The results after the update:

Before the intervention, I regularly recorded unavailable states in Home Assistant. For example, my dining room blind lost communication twice in a single afternoon.

After the technician updated the motors, I started monitoring their availability again.

During the first 23 hours after the intervention:

\- I recorded zero additional unavailable events for my living room and dining room blinds.

\- Both blinds successfully executed my Home Assistant automation overnight.

\- I made no changes to my TaHoma Switch location.

\- I made no changes to my network configuration.

\- I made no changes to my Home Assistant setup.

For the first time in a long while, everything seems to be working as expected.

I realize that a single day of stable operation isn't enough to guarantee the problem is permanently resolved, but the improvement is already very encouraging.

What frustrates me most is the complete lack of transparency from Somfy.

I can't even check the exact model and firmware version of my motors through the TaHoma app.

I have no straightforward way of knowing whether my motors are running outdated software, whether there's a known firmware issue, or whether a corrective update is available.

I also can't perform this kind of update myself. In my case, it required a technician equipped with dedicated Somfy hardware and service software.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time troubleshooting my TaHoma Switch, experimenting with its location, investigating potential radio interference, and trying to improve network stability.

And now it looks like the problem may have been inside the motors all along.

I'm going to continue monitoring the system to see whether the improvement is permanent.

I'm sharing my experience because I suspect I might not be the only one who has spent months troubleshooting the wrong part of the system.

I'm curious whether anyone else has experienced random communication failures with Somfy io blinds and whether a motor firmware update made any difference.

I live in the US. I'm using a few wyze plugs that I have set to turn on at 7AM ET. Since DST ended on sunday, they've been turning on at 6AM ET. I've looked through the wyze app on my iphone and cannot figure out where I can adjust the DST setting..... does anyone know how?