Guest Interviews

Andrej’s smart home journey and designing PokyPow

Published 21 hours ago
Recorded May 4, 2025
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Rohan and Phil chat with Andrej, a passionate Home Assistant user with some truly creative automations—from a relationship point system to a cat doorbell! He’s also developing PokyPow, an ESP-based device that lets you control your PC with Home Assistant.

Links Discussed

Chapters
00:00:04 Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:20 Home Assistant Cloud Sponsorship
00:00:40 Andre’s Background and Home Assistant Journey
00:01:00 Discussion on Home Assistant Interface Improvements
00:01:33 Introduction to PolkiPow Product
00:01:38 PolkiPow Product Details and Functionality
00:02:37 Development Process of PolkiPow
00:04:24 Community Feedback and Iterations
00:06:36 Manufacturing and Assembly Process
00:08:50 Challenges in Hardware Development
00:11:45 Crowd Supply and Launch Process
00:19:15 Smart Home Setup and Preferences
00:20:13 Ad Break
00:22:41 Innovative Smart Home Solutions
00:28:38 Introduction to Home Automation
00:29:02 Smart Blinds Setup
00:30:17 Ad Break
00:31:44 Zigbee and Z-Wave Discussion
00:33:02 Home Assistant Interface
00:35:08 Relationship Automation Ideas
00:36:14 CO2 and Air Quality Monitoring
00:42:43 Cat Automation Project
00:45:56 Home Assistant and Device Integration
00:50:34 Future Automation Plans

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

Andrej Friesen

I love tinkering in my home lab with Linux and the ecosystem.
That is also how I got into IT as a DevOps.
Having a team lead role now, means I need to tinker more at home again.

Website

Spotlight

 

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