Hacker News with Generative AI: Home Automation

Show HN: GateOMatic – Ring 10 phones at once from your gate/buzzer instead of 1 (thegateomatic.com)
With the same system, Gate-O-Matic allows you to ring up to 10 phones at once.
OpenTherm: Universal protocol for smart home heating systems (opentherm.eu)
How I Use Home Assistant in 2025 (vpetersson.com)
I’ve been using Home Assistant for about seven years now, starting back when I was living in a small apartment.
Adding Home Automation to KDE (davidedmundson.co.uk)
Party Squasher: guest occupancy counter for homes (partysquasher.com)
Party Squasher™, the first guest occupancy counter for homes, is a low-cost, easy-to-use solution designed for short-term rental managers who want to be alerted to any large gathering at a property.
Reverse Engineering the Duco Connectivity Board (github.com/kokx)
My newly built house came with a promising feature: a DucoBox Energy Comfort D325 ventilation system with heat recovery. While the system efficiently preheats incoming air using outgoing air’s heat, its control options were limited to four basic modes through a simple button interface. I wanted more - specifically, integration with Home Assistant. The official solution? A Duco Connectivity Board. But when I noticed it was just an ESP32 in disguise, I knew there had to be a better way.
Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant (github.com/XiaoMi)
Xiaomi Home Integration is an integrated component of Home Assistant supported by Xiaomi official. It allows you to use Xiaomi IoT smart devices in Home Assistant.
Home Assistant can not be secured for internet access (frederikbraun.de)
Despite its robust feature set, home assistant's architecture makes it challenging to secure against internet threats.
Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption) (github.com/privastead)
Privastead is a privacy-preserving home security camera solution that uses end-to-end encryption.
My Dream Thermostat (leontrolski.github.io)
Is this too much to ask?
Installed an open source garage door opener, and I'm loving it (arstechnica.com)
Like Ars Senior Technology Editor Lee Hutchinson, I have a garage. The door on that garage is opened and closed by a device made by a company that, as with Lee's, offers you a way to open and close it with a smartphone app. But that app doesn't work with my preferred home automation system, Home Assistant, and also looks and works like an app made by a garage door company.
Who Is Eric Wayne?: An Unsolved IoT Mystery (the-brannons.com)
I was capturing traffic being sent to my Raspberry Pi today, attempting to debug a SIP problem. And I noticed a really weird packet from someone’s Google Home Max on my network:
Show HN: rallyup – Lightweight Wake-on-LAN Scheduler (github.com/darwindarak)
rallyup is a lightweight Wake-On-LAN (WOL) scheduler and dependency manager designed for small businesses and homelabs.
Notify a Slack room when Sonos music is playing too loud (github.com/SageBrushes)
This Python script monitors Sonos speakers on your network, adjusts their volume if it exceeds a specified maximum, and sends notifications to a Slack channel when the volume is adjusted.
Building an e-ink weather display for our home (kimmo.blog)
We almost always want to know today's weather before leaving the apartment. Often the whole event is quite a hassle: getting our daughter dressed, finding all our personal outwear, plus trying to find your phone to check the weather. To make the experience 1% better, the solution obviously needs engineering.
Filtered for home robots, fast and slow (interconnected.org)
This robot arm can do your tidying up.
The Rise of Self-Cleaning, Cat-Killing Litter Boxes (hackaday.com)
Machines that automate the various tedious tasks that come with being a servant in a cat’s household — like feeding and cleaning Mr. Fluffles’ litter box — are generally a godsend, as they ensure a happy cat and a happy human. That is, unless said litter box-cleaning robot kills said cat.
Home Assistant Presence Simulation (github.com/slashback100)
LLM Vision is a Home Assistant add on: I've automated bin night alerts (reddit.com)
Apple Aiming to Launch Tabletop Robotic Home Device as Soon as 2026 (macrumors.com)
Automating my gate door via a smart relay (arslan.io)
Show HN: Siram – Automate Watering Your Houseplants (siram.co)
Convert an existing wired doorbell into a smart doorbell using ESPHome (frenck.dev)
Making my dumb A/C smart with Elixir and Nerves (milanvit.net)
Hacker free-for-all fights for control of home and office routers everywhere (arstechnica.com)
ESPHome (esphome.io)
Home Assistant has a new foundation and a goal to become a consumer brand (arstechnica.com)
Building a Pi Frigate NVR with Axzez's Interceptor 1U Case (jeffgeerling.com)
DIY Wi-Fi thermostat from scratch with ESPHome and Home Assistant (olegtarasov.me)