👋 I'm Phil Hawthorne.
Co-host of the Home Assistant Podcast, a Smart Home enthusiast and Web Application Developer from Melbourne, Australia.

Here you'll find some of my writings about the topics above, I hope they help you!

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Featured posts

Automating your shopping list with Home Assistant and Grocy

Today I'm going to show you some of the ways I'm using Home Assistant and Grocy to automate our shopping list. Using Home Assistant with Grocy allows our smart home to tell us when we need to purchase something, as opposed to adding things to a shopping list when it's already too late.

11 min read

Making music follow you around the home with Home Assistant and Sonos

HA-Dockermon - Use Home Assistant to monitor, start or stop Docker Containers

Making Home Assistant's Presence Detection not so Binary

Making 'dumb' Dishwashers and Washing Machines Smart: Alerts When the Dishes and Clothes Are Cleaned

Automating your shopping list with Home Assistant and Grocy

11 min read

The Rented Smart Home - Smart Plugs

Plugs that can automate your appliances have been around for years. From simple timers, to digital ones that can even account for what day of week it is. Now with home automation getting more ground, the next generation of smart plugs allow more control and functions than ever before.

6 min read

Breaking down Presence Detection with Home Assistant

When it comes to Home Automation, your home needs to be smart enough to know if the home is occupied or not. This falls under the term of "Presence Detection", and there are many options available when it comes to detecting presence.

11 min read

The Rented Smart Home - Lighting

Automating lights can be one of the best ways to make your home smarter, even when you're a renter. Coloured lights are a great way to give your home a different feel based on your mood.

9 min read

Making music follow you around the home with Home Assistant and Sonos

I love walking around the house and having music playing. However, most of the time when I'm home alone, or if the internal doors are closed, I don't need the music to be in every room.

11 min read

HA-Dockermon - Use Home Assistant to monitor, start or stop Docker Containers

Being a developer, I love the flexibility and power Docker brings to Home Automation. Docker makes it easy to run multiple services which can play a big role in your smart home.

7 min read

Getting Started with Grafana & InfluxDB for Home Assistant

A smart home captures a lot of data. Visualizing that data can help you see long term trends in how your smart home is used.

14 min read

Making Home Assistant's Presence Detection not so Binary

In Home Assistant and many other home automation controllers, your home status is either Home or Away. There's no in-between.

10 min read

Why Alexa is on track to lose the Smart Home Assistant war

The Amazon Echo created a new category of speakers, the smart speaker. With the Alexa voice assistant, the speaker found a new market in the smart home. Being first to market can be a big advantage. Everyone knows this. However being first to market doesn't automatically make you

8 min read

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👋 I'm Phil Hawthorne. Co-host of the Home Assistant Podcast, a Smart Home enthusiast and Web Application Developer from Melbourne, Australia.

Featured posts

Subscribe to stay updated.

👋 I'm Phil Hawthorne.
Co-host of the Home Assistant Podcast, a Smart Home enthusiast and Web Application Developer from Melbourne, Australia.