The test house
Our lab has a mudroom.
A farmhouse in southern Oregon with 13 rooms on the network, kids who flip wall switches, and spotty internet. If gear survives here, it'll survive at your place.
Photo: Clay Banks / Unsplash
| Job | What's installed | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Brain | Home Assistant on an ODROID box | Runs everything locally: 21 automations, dashboards on the TVs, voice. |
| Zigbee radio | TI CC2652 USB coordinator | Cheap, rock solid, talks to every Zigbee device we own. |
| Bulbs | 23 Sengled + 7 ThirdReality Zigbee bulbs | Bedrooms, kitchen, hallways, reading nook. |
| Wi-Fi light | 1 LIFX Mini | The fireplace lamp. Our only Wi-Fi bulb, and the one that keeps changing IP addresses. |
| Plugs | 2 ThirdReality energy-monitoring plugs | One tells us when the washing machine is done. |
| Outdoor plugs | 6 Etekcity / VeSync outdoor sockets | Greenhouse lights and farm gear. Cloud-only, and it shows. |
| Sensors | 3 Aqara motion + light sensors, 1 Aqara temp/humidity | Kitchen, laundry, living room motion lights. |
| Voice | An old Galaxy A01 on the dining room wall | Our homemade "Jeeves" voice assistant, with no smart speaker subscription. |
| Floors | Roborock Q5 Max+ | Vacuums on a schedule, reports into HA. |
Automations that actually earn their keep
- Motion lights in the kitchen, laundry, and living room, gated by real light levels (we measured them).
- Bathroom night mode: dim and warm after bedtime so nobody gets blinded at 2am.
- Sunset fade-up, plus an "everyone's gone" sweep that turns lights off in a staggered wave.
- "Welcome home" for whoever gets back first.
- Movie mode on the living room receiver.
- Washing machine done alert from a power-monitoring plug.