Quick Summary (TL;DR):A conventional roller shutter or tubular blind motor normally uses two direction inputs: OPEN/UP and CLOSE An ESP32 can control those directions through two relay outputs and expose the motor as a native Home Assistant cover entity with…
Quick Summary (TL;DR):You can turn an ESP32 into a reliable water tank level monitor for Home Assistant using an ultrasonic distance sensor such as the JSN-SR04T/AJ-SR04M or, for difficult tanks, a hydrostatic pressure sensor. The ESP32 does not measure “water…
Quick Summary (TL;DR):The ESP32-S3 and ESP32-P4 can both run displays, cameras, LVGL and embedded AI workloads, but they are aimed at very different ceilings. The ESP32-S3 is the better all-in-one wireless MCU: dual-core Xtensa LX7 up to 240 MHz, 512…
Quick Summary (TL;DR):You can monitor the real speed of a 3-wire or 4-wire DC fan with an ESP32 and ESPHome by reading the fan’s tachometer / RPM output. On standard PC-style fans, the tach wire is typically an open-collector output:…
Quick Summary (TL;DR):Combining a PIR motion sensor with a mmWave presence sensor such as the LD2410 gives Home Assistant a much better occupancy signal than either sensor alone. The PIR is excellent at detecting a person entering because it reacts…
Quick Summary (TL;DR):The HLK-LD2410 is one of the best low-cost mmWave sensors for Home Assistant because it can detect both moving people and very small/stationary human motion, but its default settings are intentionally broad and can create false presence from…
Quick Summary (TL;DR):You can build a proper Home Assistant voice assistant satellite with ESP32-S3 + ESPHome using an I²S microphone such as the INMP441 and an I²S amplifier such as the MAX98357A. The ESP32-S3 listens for an on-device wake word…
Quick Summary (TL;DR):The DS18B20 is one of the best sensors for measuring several temperatures with one ESP32 because every probe has a unique 64-bit 1-Wire address and multiple devices can share a single DATA GPIO. The hardware looks deceptively simple,…
Quick Summary (TL;DR):The HLK-LD2450 becomes much more useful in Home Assistant when you stop treating it as a simple presence sensor and start using its X/Y coordinates and three configurable rectangular zones. With current ESPHome, the LD2450 can expose up…
Quick Summary (TL;DR):The ESP32-H2, ESP32-H21 and ESP32-H4 are all low-power Espressif chips built around Bluetooth LE + IEEE 802.15.4 rather than Wi-Fi. The H2 is still the safest choice today for mature boards, Arduino support and proven Thread/Zigbee development. The…