Tag: Raspberry Pi

My RetroPie Tweaks

I recently lost my RetroPie SD card due to corruption and had to recreate my RetroPie setup. So I thought I’d document my personal post-install steps this time around. I use a Raspberry Pi 3B+ connected to an Onkyo receiver, a couple of Xbox 360 controllers connected to a USB wireless adapter, 8BitDo SN30 pro…

Read more

Control AV Receiver Zone 2 with Harmony Hub (and Alexa)

I recently upgraded to a 4K-capable AV receiver and had to update my Harmony Hub devices and activities. When I did, I noticed that the commands for controlling zone 2 of the new receiver were not available in the Harmony app (whereas they were available for my previous receiver). Initially I thought I’d just need to…

Read more

Set Up Secure Remote Access for Home Assistant

The next step in my Home Assistant project was to enable secure remote access to it when I’m away from home. Fortunately the documentation covers this topic. Mostly I followed the instructions on the Remote Access with TLS/SSL via Let’s Encrypt page, so I won’t repeat the detailed instructions here. However, I did want to…

Read more

Organize the Home Assistant Web UI with Groups

At this point in my Home Assistant journey I have several devices configured, and the UI is starting to get cluttered. Home Assistant lets you organize the UI using groups and views, so I decided to take advantage of that. I want to have a few tabs (a.k.a. “views”) with my devices grouped within the…

Read more

Add System Monitoring to Home Assistant

As my smart home continues to grow in complexity–and as my household becomes more used to its advantages–I’ll want to make sure I’m aware of any problems as soon as possible. One way to help with this is to monitor the performance of the Raspberry Pi itself. Home Assistant has several system-monitor components that can…

Read more

Control Z-Wave Devices with Home Assistant Using an Aeotec Z-Stick

One of my goals for creating a smart home is to keep things as “guest friendly” as possible. With that in mind I decided to go with Z-Wave switches to control the lights and fans in our common areas (kitchen, family room, etc.). These switches work just like a regular switch–perfect for guests–and they can…

Read more

Initial Setup and Configuration of Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi

For my first venture into using Home Assistant, I went with a Raspberry Pi 3 to keep costs down and because it seems very well supported by the Home Assistant community. Once the hardware was assembled, I followed the installation instructions for HASSbian, which flashes a disk image to the SD card for the Pi…

Read more

Making All of My Smart Home Devices Work Together with Home Assistant

I’ve been dabbling in smart home devices over the past couple of years, and while many of them do enhance quality of life, I have some concerns. Namely, a dependence on cloud services, eroded privacy, security vulnerabilities, and a lack of interoperability. A smart home should be smart. It should know what you want/need at…

Read more