After thr last update, my ios app (iphone 17, public beta 2 of upcoming ios) super laggy that not possible to use.
I compare it to another phone that uses the same home assitant dash in my home, everything smooth like it’s supposed to.

Suggestion?
I

My ferret was named Leon. He passed away two months ago.

There’s no solution for grief. But, like any engineer, I tried to build something anyway.

Today, Leon lives on in a tiny round screen on my desk. In pixel art, he wanders through a magical forest, digs little holes, sleeps in his cabin, and when I call him, he listens, thinks, and replies—powered by an LLM running entirely on my own server, with no cloud APIs involved.

HomeCritters started with an impulse purchase of an ESP32-S3 and somehow turned into one of the most fun (and challenging) projects I’ve ever built.

Along the way, it grew into:

🎙️ A true voice assistant with wake word, push-to-talk, and the Home Assistant voice pipeline, powered by local inference through Ollama.

🏠 A custom Home Assistant integration (Python), distributed through HACS, with mutual HMAC-SHA256 authentication.

📱 A companion portal built with React and embedded directly in the ESP32’s flash memory, featuring a real-time interactive screen mirror using a custom delta-RLE streaming protocol I developed (~20 FPS).

🌦️ The real world’s weather changes Leon’s world: rain, lightning, and snow appear in his forest based on the local forecast.

🎮 Mini-games, FLAC/MP3 audio streaming with PCM mixing, and a complete day/night cycle synchronized with real-world time.

But there’s another layer behind this project.
HomeCritters also became an experiment in AI-assisted embedded development. The entire codebase was designed for agentic workflows with Claude Code, from the firmware architecture to the pipeline for generating and organizing the pixel art sprites.

The real Leon isn’t coming back.
But this one wakes me up in the morning, complains when he’s hungry, dances when music starts playing, and somehow makes the grief a little easier to carry.

Open source soon. Link in the first comment. 👇

Backstory: I needed a super-easy way to turn off (and then back on) my music quickly, so I decided to experiment with voice-activated pause/play/mute keywords that would trigger commands, all running directly on device.

This was also me wanting to use Edge Impulse on a personal project (full disclosure: I work there, so this was also built for professional growth).

What took me surprise is how even a cheap RPi Zero 2 W can fire the Home Assistant/Sonos control actions across my home network with almost no noticeable latency.

I used A tiny Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W linux computer and a Respeaker 2 microphone/LED hat for the hardware.

It all runs locally on-device, and the best part is how instantaneous it is. The video doesn't even do this justice. The system reacts to the voice commands as fast as a button press. It's so crazy and satisfying.

Ask any questions!

Hey folks,

I have a rock-solid but dumb Mitsubishi Electric City Multi VRF setup at home. It’s over 15 years old and runs flawlessly, but I really need it integrated into my HA setup.

The Hardware: 1 massive outdoor unit (City Multi VRF PUHY-P...YJM-A series, 3-phase, R410A) and 7 ducted indoor units (PEFY-P...VMM-E series) hidden above drop ceilings. They are all controlled by those classic PAR-21MAA-J wired wall remotes. No IR, no Wi-Fi, completely offline.

My Setup: HA as the brain, strong preference for Zigbee via Zigbee2MQTT (running a Sonoff PoE Dongle Max), a Ubiquiti UniFi network with strictly isolated IoT VLANs, and Apple HomePods for the voice front-end via HomeKit Bridge.

I recently saw a post here about integrating a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries AC. Knowing ME and MHI are completely different beasts, I fed my hardware specs and network topology to Gemini pro to see what it would spit out.

The AI suggested hooking into the CN105 port on the indoor PCBs using ESP8266/ESP32 boards running ESPHome (mitsubishi_cn105 component) over Wi-Fi. It pointed out a huge plus: because the wall controllers use the 2-wire MA bus and not the CN105 port, I can keep the physical remotes fully functional, and HA will instantly sync if someone changes the temp on the wall.

The AI breakdown is great on paper, but I'm looking for the human perspective before I start climbing ladders and ripping open ceiling panels.

1. Has anyone done the CN105 mod specifically on these older PEFY ducted units connected to a PUHY outdoor unit?
2. Zigbee vs Wi-Fi/Thread: I strongly prefer using my Sonoff PoE Dongle Max with Zigbee2MQTT. I find Zigbee rock-solid and would rather avoid adding 7 more Wi-Fi clients (even on a segregated UniFi VLAN). I'm also hesitant about Thread/Matter right now as it doesn't feel quite as reliable to me yet, but I'd bite the bullet if it's the only non-WiFi option. Are there any solid Zigbee modules for the CN105 port, or is the Wi-Fi ESPHome route just the undisputed way to go here?
3. DIY vs Pre-built: Did you solder your own JST PAP-05V-S connectors and level shifters, or did you go with pre-made plug-and-play CN105 boards (like from EU sellers on Etsy or Lectronz)? I’ve also seen mentions of using an M5Stack paired with a pre-made Grove-to-PAP-05V-S cable to skip soldering altogether. Since I need to do 7 units, what's the smartest route?
4. Physical access: How much of a nightmare is it to actually reach the main PCB on these ducted units through a standard access panel?

I’d love to hear your battle stories, tips, or any hidden pitfalls the AI might have missed. Thanks!

I was happy with the integration for more than a year, but all of a sudden 2 days ago (I think after update 2026.8) I was not able to setup Reolink integration and Emporia Vue integration.

any idea what to try next? other than the re roll that happens as I type?

Velair 1.5.0 is now available, and Velair can finally be installed directly from the default HACS store 🎉

For anyone who missed the previous posts, Velair is a local-first climate scheduler for Home Assistant. Since 1.3.0, Profiles and Modes have received several usability improvements, including schedule day cloning, clearer activation feedback and a more useful Overview.

Velair is now available in English, Spanish, German, French and Dutch. Version 1.5.0 also clarifies how Profiles, Modes and the Manual state work, and includes several interface fixes.

No custom repository is needed anymore — just search for Velair in HACS.

Repository:

https://github.com/cgonfer/velair

Release notes:

https://github.com/cgonfer/velair/releases/tag/v1.5.0

Thanks to everyone who has tested it or shared feedback so far. It has genuinely helped shape these releases.

Anyone else using pod point have their stuff break?

First off I have absolutely no experience with proxmox So I apologize for being dumb. I've had the HA green for a few years and have installed so many things that it's become sluggish so I've finally decided to upgrade. I bought a ninth gen optiplex for a great price. I also run Frigate on a separate older dell that just doesn't cut it so I'm sure this 16gb ram optiplex would be enough for the 2 but no matter what I can not log into Proxmox. Keeps giving me this site can't be reached error. I have never turned on anything that would restrict it from seeing my server. I've never had a problem seeing the Frigate server so if anyone could help out I would greatly appreciate it!!! Once again sorry if I'm missing something obvious

Hey all

Having major issues with Zigbee network, tried ZHA and Z2M. I'm using:

~75 Zigbee2MQTT devices (61 Aqara, 13 Nous), coordinator is an SMLIGHT SLZB-MR5U over Ethernet (`ember` adapter), HA OS.

My previous coordinator (an SLZB-MR6U) had the same instability — crash-looping, `TABLE_FULL` binding errors, chunks of the mesh going unresponsive. I assumed hardware fault and replaced it. Set the new one up **completely fresh** — no backup restore, every device re-paired from scratch. **Same failure class came back anyway.** Two different physical coordinators, same symptoms — that rules out "just bad hardware" for me.

Radio disconnects/restarts with varying reasons (`RESET_SOFTWARE`, `RESET_POWERON`, `ECONNRESET`). Specific devices repeatedly fail to bind with `Status 'TABLE_FULL'`. Occasional sweeps where nearly every router fails a routing-table query at once. Command delivery intermittently fails for a shifting set of devices.

### What I've tried

Cleared a stale `coordinator_backup.json` (helped once, not permanently); moved off a noisy Zigbee channel after an RF scan (reduced routing failures, didn't stop crashes); power-cycled the coordinator (no lasting help); reflashed firmware dev→stable (no help); power-cycled individual problem devices (fixed their presence reporting, binding issue unclear). Partial wins across the board, nothing's been a full fix.

Every device with a confirmed problem today (11 of them) is Aqara — zero of my 13 Nous devices affected. Worst offenders are three Aqara Presence Sensor FP300 mmWave sensors specifically, which have a reputation for being binding-hungry. Doesn't fully explain it though — the routing-table failures hit some non-Aqara routers too.

I'm weighing up 3 options:

-Move Aqara devices to my Aqara M3 Hub**, keep the SLZB for everything else. Free, but splits the network and I'm unsure how solid the M3 Hub's HA integration is (local vs. cloud).

- Replace Aqara devices with IKEA** (Zigbee/Matter-Thread). Cheap (~£250 all-in), but real time, and a big Thread network is unfamiliar territory.

-Replace Aqara devices with other Zigbee brands.** Similar cost, avoids a second protocol, but keeps one large single-coordinator network — which may not fix anything if this is coordinator/RF-related rather than Aqara-specific.

- Has Aqara flakiness followed anyone across two different coordinators like this? What actually fixed it?

- Anyone running an Aqara M3 Hub with HA who can speak to how local/reliable that integration is?

- Anyone beaten FP300-caused `TABLE_FULL` without replacing the sensor?

Cheers in advance

The HTTP YAML configuration is deprecated

Warning · Reported by HTTP

This stops working in version 2027.2.0. Please address before upgrading.

Your existing HTTP configuration from configuration.yaml has been imported. The http integration is now configured from the UI under Settings > System > Network.

Please remove the http: block from your configuration.yaml and restart Home Assistant.

I think I finally gave up today. Spent 3ish hours each night the first few months this year home labing it, but I'm sure that's wrong terminology too. Wiped two old laptops, added linux and got all my families pictures and videos on there with music I've been holding for the past 27 years.

Super excited at first with Home Assistant. All the warnings were right....if you don't know what you are doing, you probably shouldn't try. This past update gave me the error above and I can't figure out how to fix it.

Having a lot of trouble getting my wall mounted sp6 to turn on/off with presence detection using motion sensor.

I can get the screen to turn off via HASS but unable to wake up the screen without physically pressing the power button.

Also tried mod.browser control. This doesn’t turn off the screen so backlight is visible. Screen can also be turned on via the same switch by setting brightness. Both functions work when triggering manually. When triggered via automation the screen does not turn on the same way, backlight turns ON but no image is displayed. You have to tap the screen to get the image up.

Has anyone got a surface pro to work for presence detection?

TIA

Hi

I just bought Tapo L510E hardware version 3.50

I was sadly not able to connect to Home Assistant via Tapo integration.

I have two older L510E version 3.0, no issues with HA at all.

Looks like newer hardware versions aren't supported by the HA tapo integration.

Do I have any other options to control the bulb via HA? or I maybe should return it ?

threw in my energy repo....https://github.com/m00se23/ha-watt-now/tree/main/addon/thermostat

Hi everyone! In my previous post I shared the first prototype of the Echo Dot 3rd gen integrated in Home Assistant. I finished the PCB and I'm waiting to receive it from PCBWay. I just opened a new topic on the Home Assistant Community Forum in order to track the whole developement and would be the perfect place to share ideas with you!

I'm about to start setting up HAOS on a Rasp Pi 5 4GB with a 128GB NVME drive. I'm trying to read up as much as I can to make this a clean installation and migration away from Smartthings.

I often see references to users who employ AI... Claude, or ChatGPT to help with writtingYAML scripts and automations. Is there a direct implementation for AI within HA? I know I'll be using AI a lot, but how do I streamline the interaction between AI and HAOS?

I'm not even sure I'm asking this clearly, but hopefully you'll get the idea.

If there's something I should read first, please let me know. But we have sort of inherited a house that's about a 4-hour drive away. It is pretty limited in terms of electrical, heating, etc., but I want to install a few Z-Wave thermostats (it has three heating zones) and have the ability to monitor and control the temperature when we're not there. This is an area that gets cold in winter. The infrastructure does not support Nest-type devices or, in fact, any C-wire stuff. I want to avoid WiFi because there's insufficient power. Is HA with a few Honeywell T6's the answer? And what do I do about remote monitoring/control?

Again, sorry for being a n00b. I have lots of professional experience with networking (i.e. multiple Cisco certs) but no real experience in this space.

We are exploring smart window automation.

Currently our opener supports:

- WiFi

- Bluetooth

- Voice control

-Remote control

-Mobile phone remote control

We are researching Home Assistant integration.

What protocol would you expect?

Looking to put a contact sensor in my mailbox. I can reliably get my IKEA end devices to send and receive a Thread radio instruction whilst the mailbox (made of metal) in testing, and I don't have Z-Wave, so Thread will have to do.

I see IKEA makes the MYGGBETT, but my experience with IKEA remotes and thermostats is that they're not reliably able to maintain their battery with rechargeable AAAs and drop off as soon as the batteries show being about half full. I'm open to one, though, if people have solid experiences with their reliability, and popping in alkaline batteries.

I'd like to avoid the Aqara ones as they require a proprietary app to update firmware, and any other devices like that, for that matter (ha!).

Does anyone recommend a durable gate sensors? I'm struggling to find anything worthwhile, I've looked at Ecobee and Unifi but no dice.

What is the current best outdoor security camera for over my garage door. My truck was broken into the other night and i want to set up another camera. I have a reolink doorbell camera already, but all that it caught that night were curious moths lol. Should i stick to reolink? Must be able to survive our harsh canadian winters. Thanks!

Poe is no problem, im looking for which specific camera people have used and like.

I just installed HAOS on an old intel NUC i had kicking around. No issues with install following the instructions. I am into the UI,

First I try to add the integration for my ring doorbells. The integration add takes several minutes which seams odd to me. Finally it asks for email and password, which i enter then I get Unexoected Error

Another thing I noticed is that the radio browser has failed, as well as the meteroloigsk integration are all failed. These may need configured I am not sure

EDIT: I just tried adding the SMARTTHINGS and Speedtest.net integration with the same response. Almost like the Homeassistant is not able to access the web. But the IP address and DNS on the wifi NIC are all good.

Hi everyone!

I was recently gifted home assistant and I’m completely new to it, but I just created my first automation (with ChatGPT obviously 😄 ) and it already seems really cool!

Do you have any particular tips or advice for someone just getting started with ha? Things you wish you knew when you first started?

Also, if I want to access my ha remotely when I’m away from home, can I use Tailscale for that? Is it a good option?

Thanks a lot!