Phil and Rohan chat with Jason from the UK about building a truly proactive smart home with Home Assistant. From room-aware dashboards and presence detection to Alexa routines, Google Calendar, Todoist, Zigbee, ESP32s, and AI-powered driveway monitoring, Jason shares how he turned automations into a daily life assistant.

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Show notes for this episode are available at https://homeassistant.fm/HA242

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https://homeassistant.fm/patreon

Share your story

We wouldn't be able to do this podcast without community members and home automation enthusiasts sharing their stories. To register your interest to come share your home automation journey, head over to homeassistant.fm and click share your story.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction

00:02:06 Jason’s smart home journey

00:05:19 Voice, automations, and helpers

00:12:00 Car, tea, and problem solving

00:18:45 Presence detection and room dashboards

00:26:50 Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Matter choices

00:34:35 Todoist and calendar automation

00:44:30 Doorbells, garages, and briefings

00:52:40 Driveway security and Gemini

00:58:03 Sports dashboards and future plans

01:05:07 Getting started with smarter automations

This episode was made possible thanks to our sponsors

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. Sign up for your free trial in your Home Assistant system: https://my.home-assistant.io/redirect/cloud/ or visit https://nabucasa.com

Zooz

If you're looking to upgrade your smart home - you can’t go past Zooz! Zooz offers a range of affordable and innovative devices, including water leak sensors, water valve controllers, smart plugs and scene controllers.

For the best prices on all Zooz products, head over to https://thesmartesthouse.com

Apollo Automation

Apollo Automation are the makers of open source smart home sensors built for the Home Assistant ecosystem. They're an official Open Home Foundation commercial partner and their devices are built with local control, privacy, and reliability in mind, giving you full control and flexibility right out of the box.

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Products Discussed

LinknLink presence sensor and IR blaster: https://amzn.to/4oXjLIF

Products we Recommend

Hosts

Phil Hawthorne

Website

Twitter: @philhawthorne

Bluesky: @philhawthorne.com

Buy Phil a Coffee

Rohan Karamandi

Website

Twitter: @rohank9

Buy Rohan a Coffee

This episode contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click on one of them and make a purchase, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Phil and Rohan unpack the massive 2026.7 release, including purpose-specific triggers and conditions graduating from Labs, the move to Matter.js, faster templates, improved dashboards, and better debugging tools. They also discuss mailbag comments and Rohan’s progress on his e-ink display.

Watch this episode on YouTube

Show notes for this episode are available at https://homeassistant.fm/HA240

Support the Podcast

Get early-access to episodes and an ad-free feed by supporting our Patreon.

https://homeassistant.fm/patreon

Share your story

We wouldn't be able to do this podcast without community members and home automation enthusiasts sharing their stories. To register your interest to come share your home automation journey, head over to homeassistant.fm and click share your story.

Chapters

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:10 Unify 2026 recap

00:10:45 Listener feedback and Yoto

00:28:40 E-Ink project update

00:32:43 Home Assistant 2026.7

00:40:52 Updates and integrations

00:50:40 Breaking changes and wrap-up

This episode was made possible thanks to our sponsors

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. Sign up for your free trial in your Home Assistant system: https://my.home-assistant.io/redirect/cloud/ or visit https://nabucasa.com

Zooz

If you're looking to upgrade your smart home - you can’t go past Zooz! Zooz offers a range of affordable and innovative devices, including water leak sensors, water valve controllers, smart plugs and scene controllers.

For the best prices on all Zooz products, head over to https://thesmartesthouse.com

Apollo Automation

Apollo Automation are the makers of open source smart home sensors built for the Home Assistant ecosystem. They're an official Open Home Foundation commercial partner and their devices are built with local control, privacy, and reliability in mind, giving you full control and flexibility right out of the box.

Products we Recommend

Hosts

Phil Hawthorne

Website

Twitter: @philhawthorne

Bluesky: @philhawthorne.com

Buy Phil a Coffee

Rohan Karamandi

Website

Twitter: @rohank9

Buy Rohan a Coffee

This video contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click on one of them and make a purchase, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.