Over the last decade there has been some really great software products that have been shut down with little to no warning. This is getting so common that someone created a website called Killed by Google. After Google shutdown Reader in 2013, I spent months trying to find a replacement. During this research I determined I should try to find solutions to services I use everyday that wouldn’t be shut down in some board room over profit margins.

When I first came across the ESPHome project a year or so ago. I thought it was interesting and something that I would use if I was building a smart device from scratch. I thought of all the things I could do, but I didn’t really like the idea of all the maintenance I could foresee.

Here is a recent recording of a new talk I recently gave at North Dallas Developers on my experiences building and maintaining a smart home.

I’ve spent a great deal of my life admiring nature and thinking of ways we can do to reduce our footprint. I’d like to think I’ve taken steps both physically and monetarily to do so.

I’ve decided to start off 2020 by converting my blog to Hugo and start blogging again! This is my first of many posts on home automation! This post is going to cover generically detecting battery levels with Home Assistant and Node-RED.