What this book covers
Chapter 1, Understanding Home Automation Systems, will introduce the Home Automation system concept, giving an overview of it along the years, including architectures and configurations. The parts of the system will be listed and explained. The benefits of an automated home will be briefly discussed and an example of a real Home Automation system will be provided.
Chapter 2, Getting Started with Home Assistant, will explain Home Assistant in detail and a Home Automation server will be created using Raspberry Pi. A step-by-step guide will be presented to create and set up this server, which will be the first part of our Home Automation system.
Chapter 3, Hands-on Project 1 – Creating Your Own Sensor, will be where we create our first project in the book, which is a double measurement sensor, including motion and temperature sensors. Electronic parts will be connected and we will install and set up the sensor software to communicate with Home Assistant. We will also provide instructions on how to enclose and physically install the sensor in your home.
Chapter 4, Hacking a Commercial Actuator to Work with Home Assistant, involves a lot of hands-on work as well, where we will see how to get a commercial actuator and change (hack) its factory software by Tasmota. This will give us more control of the configuration and will provide the feature tobe handled by Home Assistant seamlessly. We will explore how to install and configure this and other devices in the chapter.
Chapter 5, Creating Automations Using Home Assistant, will explain what an automation in Home Assistant is by providing the main idea and steps to create it. Using the sensors and actuators from previous chapters, we will create and test useful automation examples. Scripts and scenes will also be explored here.
Chapter 6, Doing More Using Integrations and Customizations, is where we will learn how to add more devices to Home Assistant using integrations. With more devices included in our system, we will learn about and create dashboards and populate them using cards. We will customize the dashboards using different approaches. We will also understand what else we can customize in Home Assistant.
Chapter 7, Extending Home Automation Capabilities Using Add-ons, is where the main IoT software add-ons will be presented and installed using Home Assistant. Brief examples will be provided on how to set up and use these applications. You will learn other ways to program, store, and present data from the devices installed in your home.
Chapter 8, Installing and Setting Up Home Assistant Container, is where you will learn how to safely back up your Home Automation server before moving to a new type of installation. Then, we will understand, install, and configure a Home Automation stack where a new Home Assistant installation approach is included.
Chapter 9, Hands-On Project 2 – Creating an LED Strip Controller and Adding It to Home Assistant, is the second hands-on project, which will teach you how to create an LED strip controller using a Wi-Fi microcontroller module and an LED strip light. We will learn how to deploy the software to control this project and provide fun examples to incorporate it into your home. We will also learn how to integrate and control this project in Home Assistant.
Chapter 10, Hands-On Project 3 – Creating a Five-Zone Temperature Logger for Your Home part of the knowledge learned in Chapter 7. We will go deep into the creation of a 5(five)-zone temperature logger using Bluetooth thermometers connected to a Wi-Fi microcontroller module, which provides data to the Home Automation server. This data is acquired, stored, and presented using IoT software tools. You will learn how to build and set up this system in your home.
Chapter 11, The Road Ahead in Home Automation Technologies, will present the possible new technologies and trends in the Home Automation area. A frequently asked questions section for Home Automation and Home Assistant will be provided. The chapter will inform you how to get insights and project ideas to automate your home. Links to internet resources will be presented.
