Passionfruit Design

Home Assistant setup and automation

I build and run Home Assistant for cheaper, vendor-agnostic automation in homes and businesses. The proof is my own house.

What I do with Home Assistant

I bring devices from different makers under one local controller, write the automations, and keep the configuration recoverable.

In production

My own house runs on it.

  • Home Assistant, Mosquitto and rtl_433 in Docker on one small home server.
  • A Zigbee network of bulbs, buttons, switches, radiator valves and presence sensors.
  • More than 60 automations and more than 60 scripts.
  • Lighting that follows presence from radar and PIR sensors, gated on the light level in each room.
  • Radiator valves that follow the wall thermostats.
  • A doorbell received over 433 MHz radio, with a backup chime for when the internet is down.
  • Away and holiday modes.
  • Watchdogs for the radio, the sensors and the database, with alerts.
  • Dashboards, including an occupancy view on a 3D model of the house.

Kept recoverable

The server pushes its configuration to a private Git repository every night. A regression check fails on YAML errors, duplicate ids and calls to scripts that do not exist.

Why Home Assistant

It is free and open source, it runs on hardware you own, and it talks to devices from many makers. Nothing is tied to one company's app.

Questions people ask

Does Home Assistant need the cloud?

Home Assistant itself runs locally. Zigbee, MQTT and 433 MHz devices need no cloud at all. Some makers' devices still go through their own service, and I say which.

What does Home Assistant run on?

A small computer or an old laptop. Mine is a 2018 laptop running Docker.

In plain English

  • Home and business automation

    Home and business automation that costs less and is not tied to one maker. Lights, heating and sensors working together on a small computer you own.

Tell me what you need

A few lines about the project is enough. I read every message myself. I meet people face to face within about 30 miles of Portsmouth, and work with organisations anywhere in the UK.

Send me a message

Or email hello@passionfruit.design, or call or WhatsApp 07385 509278.