Houseware | Danny Tsang

Apr/24

Monitoring Boiler Flow Temperature

Filed Under Home Automation, Houseware, Infrastructure at 1st April 2024 0:01 by Danny

Tags: bosch, COP, eco, esp32, esp8266, ESPHome, green, home assistant, home automation, iot, smart home, temperature, worcester

Overview I have a basic gas boiler in a conventional setup. After watching Heat Geek channel and their videos on heat pumps, I too wanted to look at how efficient my boiler was running. I did not want to make … Continue reading →

Jul/22

Home Assistant Continuous Integration Workflow

Filed Under Home Automation, Houseware, Infrastructure, Software at 4th July 2022 0:01 by Danny

Tags: ci, continuous integration, development, home assistant, home automation, smart home, software version control, source code, travisci, yaml

Overview Development pipelines such as version control to deploying changes automatically. In Home Assistant’s case, you can make changes in YAML text files anywhere and Home Assistant can pick up the changes and automatically load them. Tools I use GitHub … Continue reading →

Jul/21

Home Assistant: Condition Based Auto Entities Card

Filed Under Houseware, IOT, Virtualization at 5th July 2021 0:01 by Danny

Tags: automation, hassio, home assistant, iot, smart home

Overview I was looking for a way to show / hide information based on states or attributes of an entity. Example use cases: Show any windows / doors which are open. List any low battery devices. Pre-Requisite Optional: Home Assistant … Continue reading →

May/21

Bed Sensor With Home Assistant

Filed Under Hardware, Houseware at 5th May 2021 0:01 by Danny

Tags: esp32, esp8266, Force Sensitive Resistors, FSR, home assistant, microcontroller, tasmota, tasmotizer, wemos, wemos d1, wemos d1 mini, wemos d1 mini pro

Overview I had got a set of Ikea FYRTUR which I managed to pair with the SmartThings v3 hub. The goal was to automate the blinds, lights and heated blankets. Instructions and details are provided here as is. Existing Method … Continue reading →

Mar/21

Home Assistant Introduction

Filed Under Container, Home Automation, Houseware, Infrastructure, Linux at 1st March 2021 0:01 by Danny

Overview I have been using Home Assistant for 6 months and it has been an amazing investment of time and energy. Home Assistant is like the controller or brains behind any home automation. As a community project, it has it’s … Continue reading →

May/15

Living With Hive (Home)

Filed Under Houseware, Review at 25th May 2015 0:01 by Danny

Tags: ha, hive, homeautomation. boiler, house, remote

Overview Hive is a British Gas creation which allows remote control of your home water and heating control by replacing your thermostat and timer controls. It’s a step into home automation which we have had for over a year and … Continue reading →

Oct/12

British Plug Cap Phone Stand

Filed Under Hardware, Houseware, Mobile Phone at 9th October 2012 21:04 by Danny

Tags: British, phone

Fairly self explanatory:

Jul/09

Current Cost CC128 Envi Review

Filed Under Hardware, Houseware at 9th July 2009 0:01 by Danny

Tags: cc128, current cost, electricity, energy, envi, green, home automation, kilo watts, sensors

Overview A home automation article popped up in my RSS feed and lead me to this cool device. It’s a combination of a display and sensor which allows you to monitor and track the amount of electricity is being used … Continue reading →