I started with ZHA, but moved to Z2M because there was an automation blueprint I needed that was only coded for z2m.

Gotta say, I’m a much bigger fan of the z2m interface. There’s nothing wrong with ZHA but unless something major changes, I don’t see the need to ever switch back.

RatGDO can do this without the need for a magnetic switch. It’s a simple ESP32 board with easy-to-terminate wire terminals. It also lets you control the lights on your opener, see the current status of the door, and even open the door to an exact in-between position (if your door supports it).

You can program your own ESP32 if you like, or buy one from the guy that made it directly for ~$40.

Still - props to you for making your own solution! I know it’s extra satisfying when you can homebrew your own smart home solutions from scratch - just wanted to share another solution for people who don’t have the same skills.

I’ve never dug into this personally but can’t you set certain dashboards to be admin only? That way you can hide those entities on a dashboard only you have access to.

I assume this wouldn’t prevent someone from going into the full list of entities in the settings menu though.

This was a surprisingly well thought out and educational article - thank you! Was expecting a super basic article for the masses, but this had a number of quality suggestions, pros and cons of the different options, and even the authors personal opinion on preference of Z2M in case the reader wanted a real suggestion.

Thanks so much for this!

Only thing I think I noticed that could be corrected is OTA updates are no longer exclusive to Z2M - ZHA recently added this too, though I haven’t tried it yet and don’t see a reason to ever switch back from Z2M.

Fingers crossed! I know one YouTuber I follow mentioned it in his “2024 predictions” - wasn’t sure if he was pulling ideas out of his butt or if there had been actual commitment to this idea. Your comment gives me hope it’s the latter!

I don’t have an answer for you, but this comment reminds me how badly home assistant needs to add subfolders for organizing and grouping our automations

I looked this up a while back. Someone wrote code to try to replicate it in homeassistant on their forums. If I recall correctly, it didn’t work quite as well as the hue version but I haven’t have a chance/reason to try it yet. Maybe someday soon.

Omg measuring power to detect when the washer and dryer are complete is genius. Gonna flag this as a future project when I get around to finishing the rest of my smart home projects