Brent Saltzman
Home Automation

  1. Monitoring your Sump Pump with Home Assistant

    With thunderstorm season upon us, I thought it would be fitting to talk about monitoring sump pumps. When I purchased my house one of the first things I immediately wanted to do with my smart home was figure out a way to see if my sump pump was doing its…

  2. Easily find the MAC address of an Amazon Dash Button

    Every now and then Amazon puts their Dash buttons on sale for as little as $0.99. At that price it's hard to pass them up for little buttons to trigger whatever you might want in your home automation setup. I've written before on how to get these connected to…

  3. Notification when a Windows Media Center Recording starts using Home Assistant

    I'm a long time user (and believer) in Windows Media Center as the primary method to consume Cable TV. Coupled with a cable card tuner such as the SiliconDust HDHomeRun PRIME you can create a fantastic, flexible user and stable Cable TV experience with Windows 7 and Windows Media Center.…

  4. Adding a Z-Wave Door Sensor to your Backyard Gate

    I spent some time looking for a Z-Wave sensor for my backyard gate. I didn't find much for something that was rated for outdoors and all weather so I made my own. The key here is utilizing my favorite Z-Wave Door Sensors by EcoLink because they have an internal connection…

  5. Leveraging Home Assistant During Severe Weather

    Let's take a look at how I started to use the alerts monitored condition of the Weather Underground component in Home Assistant. I remember when this functionality was first included in Home Assistant. I was very excited to have this additional data point in Home Assistant because unless I was…

  6. Sending Channel Combination Commands with the Harmony Hub in Home Assistant

    With the Harmony Remote Component in Home Assistant, it makes it possible to send commands to devices controlled by your Harmony Hub using automations and scripts. Here's a script that will send a series of numbers representing a channel and the "OK" button which on my Windows Media…