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From Node-RED to Native HA YAML: A Real Migration Postmortem
I ran most of my Home Assistant logic in Node-RED for two years. In early 2026 I migrated everything to native YAML automations. Here's what triggered the move, what was harder than expected, and what I'd do differently.
Read more Esp32
Five ESP32 Devices I Built for My Smart Home (And Which I'd Build Differently)
RATGDO garage controller, gate alarm, electric-fence monitor, vacuum-water-relay, and a battery-management board for a 12V dashcam install. What worked, what I'd change, and the ESPHome configs that drive them.
Read more Security
Layered Home Security in Home Assistant: Contacts, Locks, Gates, and Alarmo
How I combine a RATGDO garage controller, ESP32 gate alarm, two Z-Wave deadbolts, contact sensors, leak shutoff, and Alarmo into a coherent security setup that sends one notification per event instead of six.
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Z-Wave Lock Code Management in Home Assistant: Why I'd Skip Keymaster Now
I run two Z-Wave deadbolts with Keymaster, slot-aware unlock notifications, and date-restricted PIN codes. After a year and the 2025.8 breakage, I'd recommend Lock Code Manager instead. Here's the comparison and the YAML.
Read more Automation
Auto-Pulling BlackVue Dashcam Footage With Home Assistant and Docker
How I get BlackVue DR970X and DR900X dashcam footage off the cameras and onto my NAS automatically every time the cars come home — using BlackVueSync, ping sensors, and a small HA package.
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Presence Detection at 326 Lines: What Finally Worked After Three Rewrites
Why my first two attempts at home-versus-away detection in Home Assistant kept misfiring, what the working version actually does, and the failure modes that took the longest to track down.
Read more Energy Monitoring
Tesla Solar in Home Assistant Without the Cloud (Mostly)
Pulling instantaneous production, daily / monthly / yearly totals, and useful alerts out of two Tesla PVI-45 inverters into Home Assistant — what works locally, what doesn't, and the YAML I actually run.
Read more Energy Monitoring
Getting a Span Gen3 Panel Working in Home Assistant (And Getting the Patch Merged Upstream)
How I added local gRPC support for Span MAIN 40 / MLO 48 panels to the community span_panel integration after Span dropped the documented REST API in Gen3 hardware.
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