KNX10

After every Home Assistant restart my KNX thermostats fell to 'standby' and stopped heating. Here is the homeassistant-start automation — with the crucial 30-second delay and a choose block — that re-initialises every thermostat to the correct mode.

A reproducible Home Assistant automation: a KNX window contact switches that room's thermostat to building_protection (frost guard) when it opens and back to comfort when it closes — with a 5-second debounce that stops the false triggers most tutorials ignore.

Why your KNX thermostat ignores the temperature you set in Home Assistant — the five HVAC preset modes, the snap-back that looks like a bug, and how I automate them.

Making KNX motion sensors drive lights that feel like the room is paying attention — the real trick is one extra group address, not a cleverer trigger.

I didn't want Home Assistant to be a slave to the JUNG alarm panel. So I inverted ownership: HA owns the alarm state and pushes it back onto the KNX bus.

How I update a Docker-based Home Assistant to a new version without breaking my smart home: full backup, update custom components first against the old core, recreate the container instead of in-place, note the image ID for a real rollback, and a post-update checklist.

A reusable Home Assistant pattern: one input_datetime helper per motion sensor that records the exact time of the last movement — the data foundation for presence heuristics and a tidy "last seen" dashboard, no expensive mmWave sensors needed.

Building a security dashboard in public: simulated sensors, a debounced trigger, dual logging, and the one decision that mattered most — what NOT to show.

The HACS integrations I actually run in Home Assistant – Huawei Solar, Tapo cameras, button-card and more – plus the community must-haves worth knowing.

In this story, we’ll explore HACS (Home Assistant Community Store), why it’s a game-changer, and how to get started with it.