Guest Interviews

Hiding Smart Tech in a 1950s Home: Mike’s Home Assistant Journey

Published 6 hours ago
Recorded December 20, 2025
Watch Later Cinema Mode
FacebookX
Mike joins Phil and Rohan to share how he hides smart tech in a 1953 mid‑century home so it looks analog but works like magic. Plus: Roborock tricks, leak sensors that turn rooms blue, HomePod TTS vs Sonos ducking, Samsung Frame art‑mode headaches, and running full HA OS in a VMware Fusion VM on a Mac mini.
Chapters
00:00:00 Welcome
00:03:00 Lighting gateway and Hue hack
00:05:30 Sneaking tech and dance reveal
00:08:00 From HomeKit/HomeBridge to HA
00:10:30 Dashboards and camera setup
00:12:30 Bulbs vs switches in 50s home
00:14:30 Bathroom fan and comforts
00:16:30 Homelab and Zigbee backbone
00:19:00 LLMs and announcements
00:21:30 Laundry alerts and Mac lab
00:25:30 Presence sensing strategy
00:28:00 Leak sensors and water safety
00:31:00 Light signals around the home
00:33:00 Roborock automations and hacks
00:40:30 Bedroom presence routines
00:43:00 Bayesian sensors and design
00:49:50 Time Machine and Frame TV
00:54:30 Pool fountain control
00:56:30 Power and crawlspace cabling
00:59:10 Party trick and outro

Links Discussed

https://github.com/DiggingForDinos/HomeAssistantTimeMachine

https://youtube.com/@thestealthsmarthome

Sponsored By

Home Assistant Cloud by Nabu Casa

Easily connect to Google and Amazon voice assistants for a small monthly fee that also supports the Home Assistant project. Configuration is via the User Interface so no fiddling with router settings, dynamic DNS or YAML.

Website

Zooz

Check out The Smartest House for Zooz devices at the best prices

Website

Hosted By

Phil Hawthorne

Phil is a Melbourne based web developer who lives and breathes technology. When he's not at his day job, he’s in his home office attempting to simplify his life through complicated tech.

Website Smart Home Products Buy a Coffee

Rohan Karamandi

Rohan from Toronto, Canada works in the Technology sector as an architect designing network and datacenter solutions for his customers. His passion for technology stems from there and extends to IoT and home automation

Website Smart Home Products Buy a Coffee


Special Appearances By

Mike Schmick

I live in a 1950s mid-century house, and my goal has always been to make it smart without LOOKING smart. I prefer automations over dashboards and love when technology is hidden in plain sight.

Website

Spotlight

 

Special episodes focused on various aspects of Home Assistant and Home Automation.