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Home Automation

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Efundies Staff
September 01, 2022 (Last Updated: ) | Reading Time: 1 minutes

Home automation is a rewarding hobby. It is a great way to learn about electronics, programming, and networking. It can also be a way to save money by automating your lights and temperature sensors to be more energy efficient. If you are interested in home automation but do not want to pay monthly subscription fees, our DIY home automation guides will show you how to make your own self-hosted services. Follow the links below to get started with home automation.

You can use home automation to control just about anything you can think of.
You can use home automation to control just about anything you can think of.

Suggested Home Automation Articles

How To Choose Your Home Automation Server Hardware
Learn about setting up a home automation server, and what kind of hardware you need.
5 Reasons You Should be Using Docker for Home Automation
You should be running Docker on your home automation server.
What is MQTT and Why You Need It
MQTT allows you to automate anything.
Node-RED Makes Automation With Home Assistant Fun
Node-RED is a visual programming tool that makes it easy to create rules for home automation.
How To Choose an MQTT Broker: Mosquitto vs HiveMQ vs Home Assistant
One of the core components of a home automation system is the MQTT broker.
How To Set Up An MQTT Broker with Mosquitto
When it's time to set up your Mosquitto MQTT broker, you've got a few options to get sorted out before you are up and running.

More Home Automation Articles

Your home automation server can run many different operating systems, including Ubuntu, Proxmox, Unraid, and TrueNAS.

Unraid vs Proxmox vs Ubuntu - Battle For the Best Home Network Server OS

When it comes time to put an operating system on your home network server, you've got a few options.

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5 Reasons You Should be Using Docker for Home Automation

If you are not using Docker on your home automation server, then it's time to start thinking about it.

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Docker is an essential service on your home automation server

Install Docker on Your Home Automation Server: 4 Different Ways

There are many different ways to install Docker for Home Automation. Let's talk about some of the ways that you can install Docker on your home automation server.

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Home automation can be fun with Node-RED and Home Assistant

Node-RED Makes Automation With Home Assistant Fun

Node-RED adds a lot of fun to Home Assistant.

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Mosquitto is one of the most popular open source MQTT brokers.

How To Set Up An MQTT Broker with Mosquitto

There are a few options to get your MQTT broker up and running, including Dockers and bare-metal installations. Let's talk about some of the most common ways to get your MQTT broker ready to go.

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MQTT is the backbone of many home automation systems.

MQTT

MQTT is the backbone of many home automation systems. We consider MQTT to be the most important part of your home automation system.

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If you want to conIf you want to connect to your MQTT broker from the internet, then you need to forward a port in your router.

Connect to Your MQTT Broker from the Internet: Port Forwarding MQTT

If you want to connect to your MQTT broker from the internet, then you need to forward a port in your router

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MQTT is the easiest way to get IoT devices communicating.

What is MQTT and Why You Need It (How to Automate Anything)

MQTT is a protocol that allows devices to communicate with each other in a simple and efficient way.

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An MQTT broker helps glue your home automation systems together.

How To Choose an MQTT Broker: Mosquitto vs HiveMQ vs Home Assistant

When it comes time to choose an MQTT broker, you have a few choices. Let's check out the pros and cons of Mosquitto, HiveMQ, and Home Assistant's built-in MQTT broker.

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Here’s a closeup of how we wired our IRF520 modules. You can see that the power to the modules is in parallel.

MIDI Controlled Solenoids with Arduino and Ableton Live - Part 1

At the end of the series you will have a setup that is capable doing this. This is a pretty complex topic so it is split into 3 parts to make it easier to follow.

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MIDI Controlled Solenoids with Arduino and Ableton Live - Part 2

This is part 2 in a 3 part series that shows how to make Ableton Live play music on electric solenoids using an Arduino.

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There are many different Arduinos to choose from, such as this Uno variety.

Arduino

Many home automation projects can be solved by simply "throwing an Arduino at it". Our Arduino articles show you how.

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You can see that the MIDI data generated in Ableton Live flows into the USB port of an Arduino, where it is used to control solenoids.

MIDI Controlled Solenoids with Arduino and Ableton Live - Part 3

This is the 3rd and final part in a 3 part series about how to control solenoids using Ableton Live and an Arduino.

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AVR Port Output in C

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MQTT is the backbone of many home automation systems.

MQTT

MQTT is the backbone of many home automation systems. We consider MQTT to be the most important part of your home automation system.

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C# is a programming language created by Microsoft as a direct competitor to Java.

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5 Reasons You Should be Using Docker for Home Automation

If you are not using Docker on your home automation server, then it's time to start thinking about it.

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How to Read a Schematic - Common Schematic Symbols

There are about 10 that you should memorize, and the rest you can look up. Here we will show you some common schematic symbols and give a brief description of them.

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How to Select the Right Resistor for Your Circuit: A Fundamentals Guide

The most important component to understand in electronics is the resistor.

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Learning Linux will help you with many different home automation projects.

Linux

When you get interested in home automation, you are eventually going to want to learn Linux.

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Resistors in Series

When you wire resistors in series, you can simply add their values together to get the new equivalent reistance.

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How to Prototype Electronics Projects

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Electronics topics include chips, capacitors, resistors, transistors, and building circuit boards.

Electronics

Our collection of electronics articles helps you get started in home automation and circuit building.

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Node-RED makes writing home automations fast and easy.

Node-RED

Node-RED is the easiest way to manage your home automation rules. It couples well with Home Assistant and is much easier to program.

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You can get started programming with a simple setup. All it takes is a laptop and a cup of coffee.

Programming: Tips and Tricks

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How to Create a WinAVR C Skeleton File

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If you've been following along in these guides, then your STK500 should be setup like this. .

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How to compile ncmpcpp on CentOs 8

If you are new to compiling applications on Linux then this can be a bit daunting the first time you do it.

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If you have to move massive amounts of data, then you should be thinking about Robocopy and rsync.

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If you're dealing with a large amount of data, you need to make sure you're moving it safely and efficiently. Here are some tips on how to do just that.

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Image Processing in C#: A Comprehensive Guide

C# is a great language to do image processing in. It's fast and easy to handle complex image manipulations with it.

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An MQTT broker helps glue your home automation systems together.

How To Choose an MQTT Broker: Mosquitto vs HiveMQ vs Home Assistant

When it comes time to choose an MQTT broker, you have a few choices. Let's check out the pros and cons of Mosquitto, HiveMQ, and Home Assistant's built-in MQTT broker.

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Perl may be an old language, but it is still the glue that holds many projects together.

Perl

Perl is one of the most common glue languages available on Linux. It is useful in home automation for quick scripts as well as complex processes.

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Personal binary executable directory

Make a Personal Binary Directory on Your Computer

If you want to keep your computer organized, it's a good idea to create a personal binary directory.

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How to Set Up STK500 Jumper Settings for AVR Programming

Make sure that you have the STK500 user guide on hand, you are going to need it.

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MQTT is the easiest way to get IoT devices communicating.

What is MQTT and Why You Need It (How to Automate Anything)

MQTT is a protocol that allows devices to communicate with each other in a simple and efficient way.

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The .Net framework has a great object for dealing with colors called Color that we use to deal with HTML color codes.

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There are many different Arduinos to choose from, such as this Uno variety.

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Many home automation projects can be solved by simply "throwing an Arduino at it". Our Arduino articles show you how.

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Load an Image in C#

- Perhaps you want to create an image processing program. - You may need to resize or rescale an image.

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433 Mhz hardware can extend your home automation.

433 Mhz Radio Transmitters

433 Mhz radio transmitters are available everywhere and they are usually very inexpensive. With a little bit of programming we can make them do anything we want.

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Getting Started with AVR

The beauty of AVR is that once you know how to deal with one of them, you know how to deal with all of them.

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Resistors in Parallel

Learn how to calculate the equivalent resistance of two resistors when they are wired in parallel.

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How to Understand Electronics Signals and Flow for Beginners

Signals and Systems is a common term that is used to refer to system design.

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Begining Circuit Analysis and Ohms Law

For simple circuits this is pretty easy. For complex circuits it can be amazingly hard, even for pros.

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NodeMCU is one of our go-to chips for tackling various home automation projects.

NodeMCU

We use NodeMCU boards for almost every aspect of home automation. These inexpensive little power-houses can solve many home automation problems.

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MIDI Controlled Solenoids with Arduino and Ableton Live - Part 2

This is part 2 in a 3 part series that shows how to make Ableton Live play music on electric solenoids using an Arduino.

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Mosquitto is one of the most popular open source MQTT brokers.

How To Set Up An MQTT Broker with Mosquitto

There are a few options to get your MQTT broker up and running, including Dockers and bare-metal installations. Let's talk about some of the most common ways to get your MQTT broker ready to go.

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AVR and printf

You should leave your STK500 setup exactly the same as it was setup for a previous guide.

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Scale an Image in C# Preserving Aspect Ratio

If you need to change the size of an Image without changing the ratio of X to Y then this article tells you how.

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Home automation can be fun with Node-RED and Home Assistant

Node-RED Makes Automation With Home Assistant Fun

Node-RED adds a lot of fun to Home Assistant.

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This modern LED lightbulb consumes 1/10th the energy of old-school incandescent bulbs.

Electricity

Follow our electricity guides to learn how to read your power meter, save energy, and measure the power usage of various devices in your home.

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How to Lighten an Image in C#

In order to lighten an image in C# you need to look at each pixel one at a time and increase it's red, green, and blue values.

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