Casey Liss

And when it received one of those UDP packets saying, the garage is open, then it would illuminate the LED. And although in the two or three years, I forget when we recorded that episode. God, it might have been five years at this point. Time is something else. Anyways, in the several years since this, since I started this whole project, it's been mostly bulletproof. And there have been

And when it received one of those UDP packets saying, the garage is open, then it would illuminate the LED. And although in the two or three years, I forget when we recorded that episode. God, it might have been five years at this point. Time is something else. Anyways, in the several years since this, since I started this whole project, it's been mostly bulletproof. And there have been

five or ten times in five years that I have had the garage door closed because I noticed the red illuminated LED by my bed. So, mission accomplished. Putting all that aside, recently, over the last several months, I've started to dabble again with Home Assistant. I had been running Homebridge, which was my preferred home automation thing of choice.

five or ten times in five years that I have had the garage door closed because I noticed the red illuminated LED by my bed. So, mission accomplished. Putting all that aside, recently, over the last several months, I've started to dabble again with Home Assistant. I had been running Homebridge, which was my preferred home automation thing of choice.

And Homebridge is pretty darn good at taking things that don't have native HomeKit support and putting them into HomeKit. And that's done mostly via JavaScript add-ons and things like that because, hey, why wouldn't you? JavaScript's everywhere. And I did like it and use it for a long time, but... Let me tell you, the Home Assistant people, do you think John's flying monkeys are bad?

And Homebridge is pretty darn good at taking things that don't have native HomeKit support and putting them into HomeKit. And that's done mostly via JavaScript add-ons and things like that because, hey, why wouldn't you? JavaScript's everywhere. And I did like it and use it for a long time, but... Let me tell you, the Home Assistant people, do you think John's flying monkeys are bad?

Oh, let me tell you, the Home Assistant flying monkeys are worse. They will not stop talking about Home Assistant. Everything relates to Home Assistant. There's no problem that cannot be solved by Home Assistant, and it is the only software you should care about, period. And I always found that so incredibly off-putting.

Oh, let me tell you, the Home Assistant flying monkeys are worse. They will not stop talking about Home Assistant. Everything relates to Home Assistant. There's no problem that cannot be solved by Home Assistant, and it is the only software you should care about, period. And I always found that so incredibly off-putting.

And I did try Home Assistant around the time I had trialed Homebridge, and I just couldn't wrap my head around it. It was wildly different than what I wanted, and I didn't understand how it worked. Well, I am here to tell you I now understand how it works. I am now one of the flying monkeys and everything relates to home bridge, or excuse me, home assistant now.

And I did try Home Assistant around the time I had trialed Homebridge, and I just couldn't wrap my head around it. It was wildly different than what I wanted, and I didn't understand how it worked. Well, I am here to tell you I now understand how it works. I am now one of the flying monkeys and everything relates to home bridge, or excuse me, home assistant now.

There is no problem, gentlemen, that I cannot solve with home assistant. But in my home assistant journey, I became aware of something that I should have known about. It's existed for like 20 years or something like that, but I'd never heard of before. And this is MQTT. It's an acronym who's, I already forgotten what it stands for. It doesn't really matter, but what it basically is, there you go.

There is no problem, gentlemen, that I cannot solve with home assistant. But in my home assistant journey, I became aware of something that I should have known about. It's existed for like 20 years or something like that, but I'd never heard of before. And this is MQTT. It's an acronym who's, I already forgotten what it stands for. It doesn't really matter, but what it basically is, there you go.

MQ telemetry transport. That totally explains what it was, what it is, or at least that's what it originally was called. I think it has a different definition now. Um, what this basically is, and I, and the nerds will come after me for this description, but what it basically is, is like a data bus.

MQ telemetry transport. That totally explains what it was, what it is, or at least that's what it originally was called. I think it has a different definition now. Um, what this basically is, and I, and the nerds will come after me for this description, but what it basically is, is like a data bus.

So it's a pub sub sort of thing where you can say, I would like to know when such and such happens or, Hey, such and such happened. And so I'm running this as you would expect, uh, as a Docker image, as I, as I am home assistant on my Synology. It is extremely lightweight and extremely fast.

So it's a pub sub sort of thing where you can say, I would like to know when such and such happens or, Hey, such and such happened. And so I'm running this as you would expect, uh, as a Docker image, as I, as I am home assistant on my Synology. It is extremely lightweight and extremely fast.

And I have realized now that what I can do is I can put things into an MQTT message, if you will, somewhere, and then I can read them somewhere else. Now, what that means is, since Home Assistant has even more support for different devices than Homebridge did, and Homebridge had a lot, Home Assistant actually has support for my cockamamie garage door opener.

And I have realized now that what I can do is I can put things into an MQTT message, if you will, somewhere, and then I can read them somewhere else. Now, what that means is, since Home Assistant has even more support for different devices than Homebridge did, and Homebridge had a lot, Home Assistant actually has support for my cockamamie garage door opener.

So it has native support for it, which is great. And what I can do is I can have Home Assistant, when it sees there's been a change in the state of the garage door, it can publish a message on MQTT that says, hey, the garage door is open.

So it has native support for it, which is great. And what I can do is I can have Home Assistant, when it sees there's been a change in the state of the garage door, it can publish a message on MQTT that says, hey, the garage door is open.