Practical, real-world tested smart home guides. No fluff, just what works.
Temperature and humidity sensors are the backbone of smart climate control. We tested 4 popular Zigbee sensors in multiple rooms — battery life, accuracy, reporting and Home Assistant integration compared.
A ducted Mitsubishi AC without Wi-Fi? Skip the €200 MelCloud adapter: an ESP32 on the CN105 service port gives full, local control for under €10.
A smart plug is the best first smart home device you can buy. We tested 5 popular Zigbee plugs under €20 on our own network — here's which ones earned a permanent spot.
We run 46 Zigbee devices on the Sonoff ZBDongle-E. Here's which coordinator we'd buy in 2026 — and when the SMLIGHT SLZB-06, ZBDongle-P, Home Assistant ZBT-2 or TubeZB makes more sense.
How we moved five years and 400+ million rows of Home Assistant history from the InfluxDB 1.x add-on to a standalone InfluxDB 2.x VM — without losing a single point and without rewriting a single Grafana dashboard.
Initially considering advanced camera AI for garage door status, we discovered a more reliable and straightforward path using existing physical sensors. This build log details how we leveraged contact and vibration sensors to achieve perfect open, closed, and moving states for a sectional garage door, integrated seamlessly into Home Assistant.
ConnectedCasa explores the integration of Zigbee-enabled Christmas lights with Home Assistant, offering a detailed look into the setup, benefits, and practical considerations for achieving truly smart holiday lighting.
ConnectedCasa evaluates integrating Home Assistant with Zigbee for comprehensive, private, and flexible smart home lighting control. This review explores the technical merits and practical benefits of an open-source approach, moving beyond proprietary ecosystems to offer unparalleled customization and local control.
We tested both protocols side by side on our own network. Here's how Zigbee and Z-Wave compare for reliability, range, device choice and Home Assistant compatibility.
The full story of moving our entire 46-device Zigbee network from an old Z-Stack stick to a Sonoff ZBDongle-E — with zero re-pairing. The mistakes, the backups mix-up, and the exact steps that worked.