Will joins Phil and Rohan to share how he tamed a period UK home and a remote Canary Islands vacation property with Home Assistant, ESPHome, and Zigbee. We dive into DIY pool chemistry control, fridge monitoring with a ‘strawtenna’, tactile dashboards, AI‑assisted heating, and why Shelly is everywhere
Chapters
00:00:00 Welcome
00:03:30 Will’s origin story and tinkering
00:08:30 Finding Home Assistant and ESPHome
00:12:00 Hot tub and pool control projects
00:17:00 Remote Canary Islands setup
00:22:00 Zigbee vs Wi‑Fi in old homes
00:27:00 Antennas and fridge sensor hacks
00:32:00 Dashboards and tactile panels
00:37:00 AI and heating optimizations
00:42:00 Remote access: fiber and TailScale
00:46:00 Multi‑site management and ideas
00:50:00 Favorite automations and LLM Vision
00:56:00 Home lab, IPTV, and Channels DVR
01:00:00 2026 goals: energy, irrigation, WLED
01:05:00 Shelly scripts and local‑first
01:07:00 Community vendors

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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

Will Osborne-Kennedy

Will is a UK-based technology leader and father who’s embraced Home Assistant over the past 18 months, blending sensible automations with the sensitive restoration of his period home. Driven by family life (and the challenge of keeping the lights off after his daughters!), he’s built inventive systems. Will’s day job connects him to both industrial tech and smart home solutions, and he shares his tinkering adventures on his blog.

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Spotlight

 

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