Hacking a Commercial Actuator to Work with Home Assistant

In the previous chapter, we created our own sensor. If you are not interested in creating your own device, you can opt to buy a commercial model instead. One of the great challenges of the home automation industry is ensuring compatibility among the devices offered by each equipment manufacturer. Each manufacturer has its own way of configuring and managing sensors and actuators.

Fortunately, Home Assistant provides several Integrations that allow different devices to be used and controlled through it. Even then, for some devices, an integration to Home Assistant is not available. You may want a different configuration for your device where you can manage its firmware and even adapt it by including features you like that are not available in the original equipment manufacturer’s firmware.

This chapter addresses the challenges mentioned previously. The focus will be on guiding you to change the original firmware...