It’s been an interesting couple of weeks

Home Assistant Rocks!!!… Just Not on My Phone

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted anything over the last couple of weeks. It’s been a bit busy, what with work and the surprising amount of DIY that Abi has found for me to do now that I’m back at work! 😂

We’ve recently wallpapered my old office, which has now become the spare room. It looks great, and over the next couple of months, we’ll be removing the old furniture and moving in more "bedroomy" things. I’m going to miss having a dedicated space to work and chill out, but since Abi’s little brother is over every other weekend, we can’t keep having him sleep on the sofa.

My other major project has been getting Home Assistant up and running. For those who haven’t heard of it, Home Assistant is software that runs in Docker (or on a Raspberry Pi) and allows you to control all your smart home devices in one place, rather than juggling a multitude of apps from different manufacturers.

Originally, our smart home was going to be based entirely on Apple’s HomeKit, but I found some small smart plugs that run Tasmota firmware, allowing me to control them via MQTT. The only issue I’m having is that the plug connected to the fish tank doesn't turn the fluorescent lights on the first time it’s triggered. We are planning to install LED lights in the tank, though, so that should hopefully fix the problem.

The only other issue I’ve encountered happened in the last few days: the iOS app (and the web interface when accessed from our phones) doesn’t seem to want to work. When you try to log in, it just refreshes and asks you to log in again. In the case of the one device that was still logged in, clicking a button would just refresh the page with no result.

The issue doesn’t carry over to any other platform, which has completely baffled me. I’m hoping a future update will fix it. At the moment, I’m putting selected devices into Apple’s HomeKit, but this isn't a long-term solution, as there is a limit to how many devices can be connected to one HomeKit hub at a time.

Other than that, the new job is going well. I’d love to tell you more about it, but I’d likely get told off—so it’s best I leave it at that. However, if you are in Bridlington, feel free to pop into Vodafone, and we’ll see if we can get you an amazing deal on your next handset, broadband, or smart home gear!

Have you had issues with your smart home? Have you been decorating lately? Do you need a new phone? 😂 Let me know in the comments below!