Podcaster Dave Slusher joins Phil and Rohan to share hard-won smart home lessons: building a reliable mesh, solving a 100m mailbox sensor with Z-Wave Long Range and the ZWA2, and retiring MyQ with RATGDO + ESPHome. We also cover using an e‑ink terminal as a Home Assistant dashboard. Watch this episode on YouTube https://hasspodcast.io/ha208 Support the Podcast Get early-access to episodes and an ad-free feed by supporting our Patreon. Support Rohan and Phil on 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 Welcome 00:01:23 Guest intro: Dave Slusher’s podcasting origin story 00:04:59 Discovering Home Assistant 00:07:20 Hardware journey: Raspberry Pi 3/4, SD crashes, backups, staying on Pi 00:09:40 ZWA2 portable capability 00:11:10 Zigbee mesh realities 00:13:56 The mailbox quest 00:19:16 Power monitoring the lawnmower + adding Z‑Wave plug to the mesh 00:20:31 Beating peak electricity pricing with calendar‑driven automations 00:24:50 Buying for Home Assistant 00:31:26 Audi e‑tron HACS 00:33:00 ‘Terminal’ e‑ink display 00:41:11 Fun APIs: Domino’s throwback and accidental developer‑friendly brands 00:44:25 Update strategy + restoring from backups when an upgrade breaks boot 00:46:26 Entity naming conventions, device vs entity IDs, and maintainability 00:49:18 The router kill‑switch: renaming a plug and unintended automations 00:52:19 Ping watchdog automation for internet recovery (8.8.8.8) 00:54:58 Labels, documentation, and making a smart home family‑friendly 01:00:00 Selling a smart home: what stays, what goes, and account handoffs 01:02:16 First device nostalgia: Sonoff relay, app sprawl, and converging on HA 01:07:52 Next projects: buying with purpose, reliability over novelty 01:10:00 Mac mini (Linux Mint) homelab, Synology vs Docker, consolidating services 01:12:18 Package tracking with 17Track, long strings, and dashboard rendering 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. Configuration is via the User Interface so no fiddling with router settings, dynamic DNS, or YAML. 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 thesmartesthouse.com Notion Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works — it’s seamless, flexible, powerful, and actually fun to use. With AI built right in, you spend less time switching between tools and more time creating great work. Try Notion, now with Notion Agent, at notion.com/homeassistant Hosts Phil Hawthorne Website Smart Home Products Twitter: @philhawthorne Bluesky: @philhawthorne.com Buy Phil a Coffee Rohan Karamandi Website Smart Home Products Twitter: @rohank9 Buy Rohan a Coffee Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
