Most advice on smart home security starts after the device is already on your network: change the password, put it on a separate VLAN, update the firmware. Some of the most important decisions are made earlier, in the shop. A camera that never gets another firmware update, or a plug that stops working the day its cloud service shuts down, cannot be
ESPHome and Tasmota cover a lot of home projects without writing code, but sooner or later you may want firmware that does exactly what you need and nothing else. The Arduino IDE with Espressif's own Arduino core (arduino-esp32) is the most common way to write that firmware in C++. This guide takes you from a fresh Arduino IDE 2 installation to an
Almost every smart plug, camera, TV and robot vacuum looks up domain names before it talks to a cloud server. If those lookups go through a DNS server you control, you get a running list of what each device contacts and how often, and you can block domains for selected devices only. Pi-hole is a free DNS server built for exactly this, and it runs w
ESPHome is usually paired with Home Assistant, but nothing in the firmware requires it. A device can serve its own web page, answer HTTP requests from scripts and recover from a lost Wi-Fi network by opening a hotspot of its own. That is useful for a workshop relay, a sensor in a holiday cottage or a test board that should work before any server ex
Most small sensors used in DIY home projects talk I²C: temperature and humidity sensors, pressure sensors, CO₂ sensors, light sensors, small OLED displays and I/O expanders. Two wires connect them all to an ESP32. When it works, it's easy. When it doesn't, the usual causes are a missing or wrong pull-up resistor, two devices with the same address,
WLED is open-source firmware that turns an ESP32 or ESP8266 into a controller for addressable LED strips. It gives you a web interface, an app, effects, presets and a JSON API that all work on your local network, with no cloud account. This guide builds a basic controller for a 5 V WS2812B strip on an ESP32. It covers wiring, flashing with the web
Automations like "turn the heating down when everyone leaves" or "turn on the porch light when I get home" stand or fall on one thing: Home Assistant has to know who is at home. A single phone app or router check gets it wrong surprisingly often. GPS drifts, phones put Wi-Fi to sleep, and a restart can leave a tracker in an old state for a while.
Most split air conditioners and many portable units are controlled by an infrared remote. If the unit has no Wi-Fi module, or its Wi-Fi only works through the manufacturer's cloud app, an ESP32 with an IR LED can take over the remote's job. ESPHome has a family of climate platforms that do more than replay recorded buttons: they build the full IR c
The Xiaomi Mijia LYWSD03MMC is a small square thermometer and hygrometer with an LCD, powered by a CR2032 coin cell. Out of the box it talks to the Mi Home app and sends its readings encrypted. Home Assistant can read the stock firmware through the Xiaomi BLE integration, but only if you give it the device's encryption key.
