Esphome on karl

#TwoMinuteTeardown: Home Assistant Voice - Preview Edition

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Home Assistant Voice: Preview Edition teardown

This is a quick #TwoMinuteTeardown post for the recently released Home Assistant Voice Node - Preview edition.

Normally, I’d be doing a full teardown, but this is a little different; the Home Assistant team has done a lot of the work out in the open. With just a quick Google, you can find official:

teardown instructions here.
source code here.
3D printable case files.
Instructions for adding custom devices here.

I am grateful for such a well-documented and open project. Truly, by hackers for hackers!

Monitoring HVAC system with ESPHome

Sat, 02 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Using ESPHome to Monitor HVAC System

Here’s a quick “show-and-tell” about a recent project I completed.

The concept

I’m not sure how I first came across the idea of measuring air pressure drop across a filter to gauge its remaining life, but I remember thinking it was a great idea.

Conceptual diagram for the project.

The idea has been lurking in the back of my mind for a while, but I never got around to implementing it… until now.

Arizer XQ2 Teardown

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Arizer XQ2 Teardown

A friend of mine reached out and asked me about automating some aspects of their aroma therapy treatment.

Note

I was not given permission to share the specifics of their medical condition or the larger treatment plan so this post is going to deal with just the technical aspects of the device.

The device they’re using for aromatherapy is the Arizer XQ2 and we agreed that integration with their existing Home Assistant setup would be ideal.

Using ESPHome to Automatically restart frozen cable modem

Sun, 09 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Part of the reason for developing my SB8200 monitor was to get to the bottom of some infrequent but regular outages.

To make a long story short, the LAG implementation on the modem seems to have some issues. A quick google will return many complaint threads detailing issues with the modem regularly locking up all traffic stopping. More annoyingly, these reports date back years and allege that later revisions of the firmware might fix the issue for good.

ESPHome for Sonoff T5 family of Switches

Sat, 11 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

ESPHome for Sonoff T5 family of Switches

It’s hard to beat Sonoff switches when it comes to well-made, affordable, Home Assistant compatible switches. Ever since they announced the T5 series, I’ve been patiently waiting for the US variant to become available so I could replace my M5 switches with T5 switches.

Don’t get me wrong, the M5 switches are great… but not perfect.

The T5 switches improve on the M5 limitations with some new and novel hardware features. Taking advantage of these unique features requires a considerably more complex ESPHome configuration than the M5 series switches.

ESPHome on the Yeelight Monitor Light Bar Pro

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Yeelight Light Bar Pro (YLTD003) Teardown

Monitor-top light bars are wonderful for reducing eye strain and fatigue and the effect is even better with a bias light behind the monitor. Enter the Yeelight Light Bar Pro (YLTD003).

YeeLight marketing photo from AliExpress listing. The background wash light really does help reduce eye strain and fatigue.

ESPHome on dingtian-tech relay modules

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is another one of those quick “I wish that was easier to find when I was googling it” posts.

For a project, I needed a small relay module to switch a few mains loads. I chose this generic looking relay module from AliExpress because it was powered by an ESP32 and featured ethernet connectivity.

AliExpress is full of generic looking relay modules but this one is branded dingtian-tech

Integrating a dumb coffee maker with Home Assistant via ESPHome

Sat, 21 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

My beloved coffee maker of 10 years has finally died 😢. Parts are no longer available from either the manufacturer or the second-hand market.

Taking advantage of a (slight) holiday sale discount, I pulled the trigger on a coffee maker that’s designed to be repairable forever. The perpetual serviceability is a side effect of an ultra-simple design; this coffee maker has zero intelligent features which means there’s next to no remote control or customizability.

Teardown and Home Assistant integration with two generic Chinese 'smart' power strips.

Sun, 15 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I love the Sonoff-S31 smart plugs. They’re cheap, well made and - most importantly - trivial to flash with ESPHome and integrate into Home Assistant. They do have one obvious draw back, though; optimized for a “traditional” US style outlet. When you try to deploy them to a power strip, you end up loosing about 50% of the outlets on the strip!

This is how you loose about 50% of the outlets on your power strip.

Integrating ESPHome with a cheap Geiger Counter

Wed, 09 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, there have been loads of people doing similar things! ESPHome already has a tutorial covering exactly this!

I’m writing this up because the approach that I ended up taking was not the intended/planned approach.

The Geiger Counter

I originally pulled the trigger on this particular version because it had a built in screen attached to a micro controller.

I naïvely thought that I’d be able to get a simple UART from the 4 pins next to the microcontroller or maybe even get data directly off of the micro USB port.

ESPHome for Sinilink PC remotes

Sat, 22 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

PC (power) remote control

While doing research for a potential project, I stumbled onto a device that fit’s so squarely into that “it’s so simple and obvious, why didn’t I think tof that?!” category that I immediately placed an order for a few.

That device?

A simple WiFi equipped micro controller that gets wired between the power button on a PC and the motherboard. This makes it possible to remotely control and monitor the power state of any PC!

Dynamic timers in ESPHome

Sun, 14 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As much as I love the ESPHome project, there are some features that seem like they’d be essential in an embedded/IoT firmware sdk yet their implementation remain left as an exercise to the user. This post is about one of those “Wait, that’s not built in?! How old is this project?” features: timers.

ESPHome, Timers and You

To be clear, ESPHome does have all of the primitives needed to build basic timers. You can get basic non-blocking pauses in automations with the delay: action.

Using ESPHome with the Treatlife DS03

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Post depreciation notice

This is an update to the Fixing Home Assistant discovery with Tasmota on the Treatlife DS03 post.

Tasmota reliability

A few months ago, I started to notice some bizarre behavior with the DS03 ceiling fan controllers that I had previously flashed with Tasmota. Very regularly, the devices would crash and reboot! I almost never noticed unless I was explicitly looking at the uptime / boot count graphs for the devices but every once in a while, the device would reboot right as I was trying to control it remotely.

Inside a generic/white-label HDMI KVM Switch

Sat, 16 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

If you’re here just for “how do I get it working with ESPHome” bit, skip to the ESPHome Component section below.

Update 2022.05.14

I have just uploaded a basic PCB and enclosure to the ESPHome Component Repository.

For the last few months, I have been looking for a KVM switch to simplify switching between work and personal computers. Initially, I didn’t think my criteria were that unreasonable, but for whatever reason there is no KVM switch that:

PoE powered Stack Light

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The lights are much brighter than they appear in this picture; had to intentionally darken the image to prevent camera from blowing out the colors.

Stack/signal lights are everywhere in industrial applications for good reason: they’re a compact and relatively information-dense indicator system. They always seemed like the kind of indicator that only people with expensive machines needed. Until I found that they can be had for just under $6/light from Ali Express, that is.

Adding an airborne particulate mater sensor to WS3 Weather Station

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A while back, I posted a small bit of code that could decode the data from the ubiquitous WS3 Weather Station and make it accessible to the amazing HomeAssistant via the wonderful ESPHome project. Since then, my weather station has been dutifully collecting data that’s been invaluable for augmenting automation that deals with indoor climate.

As the numerous wild fires in California rage on, the air quality has gone from bad to dangerous. Knowing that outside was warmer, but less humid, was no longer enough to make a smart decision about weather or not to open the windows for some cost-effective cooling. I now need HomeAssistant to be aware of how clean the outside air was before making the decision to pipe in outdoor air.