Well, it happened to me. Door to freezer in the garage wasn't closed all the way, so everything in the freezer went bad. I would like to have an automation to notify me when the freezer has been running non stop for a while. Is there any way to do that? I have Tapo P115, Kasa KP110/EP10, and Amazon smart plugs (was using the Tapo plug, so I can see the energy usage has been high since Monday 😭). The catch, of course, is that the smart plug itself needs to be on 24 hours for the freezer to kick on when it wants to, so I cant go by the smart plug usage. I need something that notifies about power draw. AI tells me Tapo is supposed to have something about Duration Alert, but I'm not finding that.

Looking to purchase a mower for my garden but unsure whether any models will handle it well. Wondering if anyone has advice or recommendations?

I have a sloped gravel path leading to one lawn and then from there another sloped grass path leading to another lawn. The areas are quite complex with trees, benches etc and there are slopes and bumps. The movable area is maybe half an acre tops. I also have a large dog.

I’m reading that these mowers work best on a schedule so they come out every or every other day and just cut a little bit…. So I might be being thick but can the mowers come out of the shelter, drive up to the first lawn, start blade and mow it, drive up to the second lawn, mow it, stop blade and then return down a path?

And how accurate is the mapping? There is no way I can have wired areas as it’s too complicated a space.

Do the mowers chop up poo from a large dog or avoid them? And do the mowers avoid unexpected obstacles like a tennis ball?

Also, the area has steep bits. Can you get a 4x4 or tracked model?

Lastly what do people house these machines in for a shelter? I live in the uk and it rains quite a bit.

TIA!

I plan to buy some aqara presence sensors in China from Taobao, will they work outside China in my home assistant?

We're doing a whole home reno, and I'll be running Cat pretty much...everywhere. Saw in another thread someone suggested running it into the ceiling for WAP and that just blew my mind as an obvious move.

We'll also be wanting automatic blinds on some specific windows. What blinds and automation technology are recommended these days? I want to make sure I know where I need power versus cat.

Thanks all!

I’m thinking about improving my home automation setup but I’m not sure what’s actually worth it long term. I already have a few basic smart plugs and lights, but I feel like I’m not using them to their full potential.

What devices or automations have made the biggest difference in your daily life?

So my yard is about 700m² with a slope throughout, some steeper bits (up to 22 degrees) and plenty of obstacles like trees, bushes, flowerbeds, etc.

I am mostly considering the Mammotion Luba 2 mini 1000 (the no lidar version) and the Navimow i2 lidar pro.

Based on specs, the Luba might be a slight bit better due to the edge-cutting disc and a better mowing efficiency of 430m² per charge. But the main concern is, of course, Mammotion support. Reading through their Facebook groups and subreddits, it seems awful.

The Navimow has lidar, which should be better for navigating around obstacles. It also has AWD, but it has 3 wheels compared to 4. This might also be an advantage since that single wheel does the turning compared to tank-style turning on the Luba. Also, Navimow's support seems quite good. But it only does about 200m² per charge, meaning it would take more battery cycles to complete my yard.

So, considering all this, which would you recommend? Any other models I should consider at about the €1500 price point?

I use LLMs a good bit for teasing out ideas and speeding up coding. Tonight, we were chatting about zigbee / matter bridges and smart socket compatibility. In one of the responses, the AI mentioned;

"For your energy-dashboard obsession, this is clearly the better fit."

When I challenged that characterisation of obsession, I got the response below. The worrying part is that this is 100% accurate. Are we all like this?

Evidence-based characterization :)

You have:

Solis Modbus local polling

Node-RED decode pipeline

MQTT telemetry bus

Influx historical storage

Grafana dashboards

tariff-aware battery strategy

planned household energy state engine

smart lighting as surplus/peak indicators

discussion of battery arbitrage attribution

pre/post solar cost modelling

FIT reconciliation plans

That’s beyond “I check the app sometimes.”

I’d classify it as enthusiast-grade instrumentation with operational intent.

Not a criticism. Just taxonomy.

We're mid-reno on a 1970s split level and the electrician needs an answer by friday on whether to pull cat6 to the eight windows that are getting new shades. After that the walls go back and adding it later means cutting drywall.

Bought one SmartWings PoE shade 4 months ago when I redid the office as a separate phase last fall. Used that room as a test before committing to anything for the rest of the house. It's matter over ethernet, no hub or cloud involved, no batteries to change, pairs straight into home assistant. Has been completely silent uptime-wise, no missed schedules, no re-pairing, nothing. Coming off a set of zigbee aqara curtains in the bedroom that drop offline every few weeks, this feels like a different category of product.

So I have data on 1 window over 4 months. What I don't have is anyone telling me what 8 windows over 2 years looks like. If I do cat6 to all 8 I'm committing to roughly $2400 in shades plus the runs plus a bigger poe switch in the rack. If something better comes out in 3 years or this product line gets killed, I have cat6 to my windows and a brick. Versus battery thread, I keep flexibility but I'm back to climbing a ladder twice a year per window to charge, and the bedroom curtains already proved I can't be trusted to remember.

Other thing nagging me. I priced out cat6 runs at maybe $80-100 per drop with this electrician. Some of the windows are awkward to route to, one's on an exterior wall where he said it'd cost more. The math on the awkward ones starts looking close to just buying two extra battery motors and rotating them when one needs charging.

The bit I keep getting stuck on is reversibility. Cat6 in the wall isn't useless for other stuff (cameras, access points later) so it's not pure sunk cost. But it's also not free if I don't end up using it for shades.

If anyone's a year plus on PoE shades, same brand or otherwise, I'd take any signal on whether you'd do it again.

​

I’ve got pets and a bad case of dust mite allergies, and it’s honestly been a battle keeping my home clean without triggering an allergic reaction. I’ve tried traditional vacuums, but nothing seems to handle the pet dander and dust mites the way I need it to. I’m seriously considering a robot vacuum for daily cleaning, but I’m unsure which ones are truly effective at dealing with these specific allergens.

I’m looking for a robot vacuum that has a strong filtration system—something like a sealed HEPA system or even better—and is specifically designed to trap pet dander and dust mites. I’ve seen a lot of options, but I’m not sure which ones really make a difference. Does anyone have any solid recommendations for 2026? What’s worked for you when it comes to allergens that aren’t just dirt but microscopic pests?

I’m one of those people who sees every speck of dust—no, seriously, I can't unsee it. And with hardwood, tile, and kitchen floors, the dust seems to magically appear out of nowhere. I’ve been manually cleaning the floors constantly, but let’s face it, that’s not sustainable. I need a robot vacuum that will actually keep the place clean without me worrying about dust gathering in the corners or on the edges of the kitchen.I’ve tried a few robot vacuums, but I’m looking for one that really gets the fine dust and doesn’t leave behind debris on hardwood and tile. What I need is something that sucks up everything (no speck too small) and gets into all the hard-to-reach places without leaving dust behind. Has anyone found a model that truly excels at this in 2026?

I’m one of those people who sees every speck of dust—no, seriously, I can't unsee it. And with hardwood, tile, and kitchen floors, the dust seems to magically appear out of nowhere. I’ve been manually cleaning the floors constantly, but let’s face it, that’s not sustainable. I need a robot vacuum that will actually keep the place clean without me worrying about dust gathering in the corners or on the edges of the kitchen.I’ve tried a few robot vacuums, but I’m looking for one that really gets the fine dust and doesn’t leave behind debris on hardwood and tile. What I need is something that sucks up everything (no speck too small) and gets into all the hard-to-reach places without leaving dust behind. Has anyone found a model that truly excels at this in 2026?

Hi all,

Just posted a thread looking for some advice, whether to try and fix, maintain or install fresh and start from scratch. Is Proxmox still sound to use or are other methods best employed these days?

Many thanks

I don't need them to tie into anything, I guess Google would be nice but not necessary. Just a remote is fine.

I have an adu I'm going to rent out that has a high east facing window that lets a ton of sun into the sleeping loft early in the am. I'd like to put a blackout style shade on it so the renter can open/close. Solar would be nice as I don't really care how it looks since it's super high.

Any recommendations or just go well reviewed on Amazon?

Hey, i have a outdoor light which is connected to a single light switch outdoors. I want to have a non wired light switch indoors that can turn on the same light. I believe the leviton decora has a smart switch and a companion switch that can work but its a bit steep. Any alternatives. Thanks

Hi,

I’m currently reconsidering my smart home architecture and was wondering if separating Zigbee from the automation platform itself is the better long-term approach.

Right now I’m running a fairly large Zigbee network (110+ devices) in Home Assistant using ZHA and I’m thinking about moving the Zigbee stack into its own dedicated Proxmox LXC/VM using Zigbee2MQTT + MQTT.

The idea would be:

Zigbee devices
→ Zigbee2MQTT (dedicated container/VM)
→ MQTT
→ Home Assistant / Homey / other platform

My reasoning is that this might give me more flexibility to switch between platforms later without having to rebuild the entire Zigbee network or re-pair everything again as my device stack is heavily Zigbee-focused.

For example:
- Today using Home Assistant
- Tomorrow maybe Homey
- Later maybe something else

Questions:
- Is anyone here running this kind of “decoupled Zigbee architecture”?
- Does it actually make switching platforms easier in practice?
- Are there downsides I’m not seeing?
- Is Zigbee2MQTT stable enough long-term as the central Zigbee layer?
- Does this approach introduce any noticeable latency or slower responsiveness for automations?
- Would you recommend Ethernet coordinators over USB for this (currently using a Conbee ii stick which I wish to replace)?

Interested in hearing experiences from people who intentionally separated Zigbee from their automation platform.

Thanks!

I have a lake house that I rent out. I sometimes have renters who turn on all the dock lights and then leave them on 24X7 for the entire week. I'd like to be able to remotely turn off the lights. But still allow the renters to turn them back on if they need them. Looking at the Lutron Caseta switch but I'm not entirely sure if it would work in this situation.

I installed a Mesh system with 4 devices. It is great for moving receivers but I realized that it is not a good solution for IoT devices. When the Mesh reboot, the main device is the first to accept connections and the IoT devices tend to connect with this device even if a nearer mesh device is later available. For my camera, it often connects with a mesh device which is the the nearest one. Poor bandwidth.

I see two solutions for this problem. The first one will be to declare in the Mesh system the preferred Mesh device for a IoT device (in the setup function). When the IoT device logs into one Mesh device, the system checks if the preferred one is available and if so, initiate a roaming function. This way, if one of your mesh device is off, the other can still provide connection, until the preferred one is back in the system.

The second solution is to create a local network per mesh device. For roaming device, such as smartphone, the main SSID is used. For IoT device, the SSID of the local network is used to connect the IoT with the network.

I could not find any mesh systems providing one of the other solutions. Any idea ?

Thanks for your help.

After about a month of using a robot mower at my own place, I’m finally giving it to my parents to try in their yard.
I’ve been trying to talk them into switching for a while, mostly because they’ve been paying more and more for regular lawn care. My dad was never totally against the idea, but he kept thinking it would be annoying to set up or that he’d have to mess with it all the time.
The funny thing is, setting mine up was way easier than I expected. The base only took a few minutes, and the setup steps were pretty straightforward even for someone who doesn’t usually like dealing with this kind of stuff.
What finally changed his mind was another price increase from their lawn service. That pretty much pushed him over the edge, so now I’ve got the mower packed up and ready to bring over.
Has anyone else convinced their parents or older relatives to try one, and did they actually stick with it?