Home Assistant has become extremely popular in recent years. An open-source replacement for proprietary systems like Google Home, it offers a huge amount of flexibility and control that no proprietary system has matched. This open-hardware remote control for Home Assistant is a great way to control your Home Assistant system.
With a 2.9″ e-ink display, the Home Buttons controller can show six different profiles for your home. Each profile can have a number of actions or states associated with it — set the thermostat, dim the lights, lock your doors — you can fully control whatever smart home devices you have on your network. With Home Assistant controlling everything, you can even have conditional actions — only dim the lights if it’s after 5pm, for example.
The device communicates with your Home Assistant server using wi-fi directly on the local network — no cloud connection is required. It uses the tried-and-true MQTT protocol for sending messages and has a captive web portal for initial setup. Technically Home Assistant isn’t required, as the Home Buttons device can directly control any system that uses MQTT, but Home Assistant is the perfect companion for a device like this.
Note that you will need to provide an 18650 battery. With an estimated battery life of >1.5 years, there’s no issue with installing the device in place of a switch panel on the wall, or cutting a hole in the drywall to mount it somewhere convenient. The device will let you know when the battery gets low after pressing a button.
The device is fully open-source, and the documentation website is excellent. If you’ve got a Home Assistant system and want a great way to control it while supporting open hardware, here’s a great option!
