5 Home Assistant integrations you can set up this weekend

If you wish to make the most out of your smart home device, Home Assistant is certainly the best platform out there. Unlike proprietary apps from OEMs, Home Assistant can connect to pretty much any smart home device — irrespective of what protocol it’s based on. Owing to this, I recently migrated my entire smart home to Home Assistant. As I started to connect all my devices and set up automations and a dashboard to control my devices, I figured that the platform also has several integrations I can take advantage of. These Home Assistant integrations are intended to get the best out of your smart home experience by curating smart routines that save time.

Think of them as pre-defined automations that perform a certain task based on parameters like time, location, etc. There are a plethora of integrations that you can get for Home Assistant, depending on the different IoT devices that you have. With that in mind, I found some helpful ones that certainly made my life easier. I’ve compiled a list of those integrations, along with how you can set them up in your homes. Notably, some of the automations may require specific devices to trigger. Since Home Assistant isn’t restricted to a single protocol, you can use devices from different manufacturers to create an automation.

5

Proximity

Trigger automations using distance

I’m a forgetful person, which means I often forget to turn off the lights, heaters, and other devices behind me when I leave for work. Now, the lights staying on could be harmless. However, leaving high-power devices switched on unattended all day can result in catastrophic damage. That’s where the Proximity integration comes in handy. It can determine when you leave home and automatically turn off set devices.

You just need a device companion like the Home Assistant smartphone app to track your location. Post that, head to Settings > Devices & Services > Add integration > Proximity, and create the required automation. For instance, I’ve set all my smart plugs to turn off as soon as I leave home, and my thermostat to trigger the right temperature when I return.

4

Waste Collection Schedule

Take the trash out

Disposing of waste can be a hassle depending on where you live. Every local council may have its own weekly schedule that you don’t want to miss. If setting reminders on your phone didn’t help, you can use Home Assistant integration to inform you whenever it’s time to take out the trash.

Download the HACS repository and go to Settings > Add-ons to install it. Then, head over to HACS > Integrations > Explore & Download Repositories and look for Waste Collection Schedule. Enter your country, council, or provider to trigger the automation.

3

Adaptive Lighting

True Tone for your lights

If you have an iPhone, you may have used the True Tone functionality of the display. For those unaware, True Tone optimizes the color temperature and contrast levels of the display according to your surroundings. This helps reduce the strain on your eyes, as your display starts to get warmer as the day goes by — eliminating blue light so that you can sleep better.

The Adaptive Lighting integration also does something similar — except with the ambient lighting in your house. It aims to mimic natural light from the sun, so it makes your lights cooler during the day and warmer at night. Once you’ve installed HACS, get the Adaptive Lighting integration. Select your lights, and you’re good to go.

2

Garmin Connect

Integrate fitness with your smart home

When all your smart home devices can be integrated into a single dashboard, why should your fitness tracker be left out? Well, it doesn’t have to be anymore, thanks to yet another HACS integration. The best part about this integration is that you can set automations based on certain goals.

For instance, you can ask your AC to turn on as soon as you finish a workout. Similarly, you can switch on your coffee maker as soon as you wake up in the morning. Once you pick Garmin Connect from HACS > Integrations, you will have to log in with your Garmin credentials. All the relevant data will then be synced.

1

Vacuum Map Card

Clean specific areas with ease

I recently got a robot vacuum from Dreame for my house, and it’s made my life a lot more convenient. However, I have been using the companion app all this while, which is clunky and has some Chinese elements that I don’t understand. While I did integrate it with Home Assistant, I was still using the app to clean a specific area in the house, since the map was synced to it.

Well, the Vacuum Map Card integration in HACS has got that covered too. Once you integrate your robot vacuum, go to HACS > Frontend and search for Vacuum Map Card. Then, on your dashboard, select Add card > Vacuum Map Card. You can now select what region you want the vacuum to clean.

Get the most out of your smart home ecosystem

While Home Assistant’s dashboard already makes your life easier by letting you control all your devices from one place, integrations like these further make things a lot more convenient, since they take away the time and effort required to program the automations manually. For instance, tracking the location and direction of travel to trigger the lights and thermostat at home would involve a lot of work, if not for the available integration. Moreover, you can make the most of your smart home devices instead of just changing the color of the light from a bulb or using your voice to turn the bedroom fan on or off.