We live in a disposable world, but there are plenty of ways to reuse or repurpose the devices in our smart homes.Even old or broken devices that seem like they may be of little use can be adapted into something awesome.Here are three Home Assistant projects that can help you do more with what you've got.
Turn an old iPad into a Home Assistant display Put old tech to good use I've had a few old iPads lying around for a long time.They're so old that there's very little I can do with them; Safari is too outdated to open Home Assistant, and I can't install the Home Assistant app to use them as dashboards or remotes.I was able to use them as dashboards using VNC, but this was more effort than it was worth.
One of the iPads also had shattered glass, although the display itself was still fine.I decided to see if I could rip out the display, stick it in a photo frame, and use it to display information from Home Assistant.It was surprisingly easy to do.
Using a fairly cheap display controller board, I was able to connect the display to a Raspberry Pi.I've set it up to show the poster for the movie I'm watching in Jellyfin or the image for the current TV channel when I'm watching TV, and to display family photos when the TV is off.If motion is detected at the front door, the display shows a snapshot image from the video doorbell so we can instantly see who it is.
There's so much more you could do with it, however.You could use it as a Home Assistant dashboard, display a dynamic calendar, show real-time energy monitoring data, or loop images from your security cameras.The controller board was only about $15, so if you have old iPads lying around unused, it's a great way to get some further use out of them.
You can also find broken iPads on sites such as eBay that may be suitable for projects like this.Home Assistant Green Dimensions (exterior) 4.41"L x 4.41"W x 1.26"H Weight 12 Ounces Home Assistant Green is a pre-built hub directly from the Home Assistant team.It's a plug-and-play solution that comes with everything you need to set up Home Assistant in your home without needing to install the software yourself. $219 at Amazon Expand Collapse Control your TV through the serial port Fix the problems that IR can bring Home Assistant has added native support for infrared in recent months, but I've been using IR in Home Assistant for years.
I have an IR blaster and a Logitech Harmony Hub that can send out infrared signals, and the Harmony Hub is used to turn on my TV and control my surround sound system.The problem is that sending an IR command doesn't always work.I can send the command to turn on my TV, but if someone is walking in front of the TV when I send it, nothing will happen.
As far as Home Assistant is aware, however, it's sent the power-on signal, so the TV is on, which can cause things to go out of whack.There's a new integration in Home Assistant called LG TV via Serial.As the name suggests, this allows you to control some LG TVs and commercial displays through the RS-232 serial port.
You can connect your TV to Home Assistant using a cable, an ESP32-based serial proxy, or a USB-to-serial adapter.Home Assistant can then turn the TV on or off, change the volume, mute the TV, or change the input source by sending commands through the serial port.The best part is that the integration polls the TV every five seconds and returns the current states of the power, input source, volume, and mute state.
It means that if you change the volume or power off the TV with your remote, that change is also reflected in Home Assistant, something that doesn't work reliably using infrared.Related 4 Home Assistant blueprints that saved me hours of effort You don't need to reinvent the wheel.Posts By Adam Davidson Create wallpaper for your dashboard that reflects the weather See the weather conditions at a glance Home Assistant has a built-in image generation feature that you can use to generate images using cloud-based or local AI models.
You can use this to generate images from within Home Assistant automations, based on the prompts that you provide.There are many ways you can use this feature.For example, if your front door is open, you could generate an image of an open door that appears on your smart home dashboard to remind you that it's still unlocked.
You could use it to generate an image that represents the current state of your air quality, so you have a visual representation of the pollution levels inside your home.Another useful way to use image generation is to create an image that represents the current weather conditions.I built something similar for my phone, and it's one of my favorite things I've ever created.
Whenever I glance at my phone, I see an AI-generated image of the current location and its weather conditions, so I can see the current weather at a glance.It's possible to build the same thing in Home Assistant.You could create a card to display an image of the weather, but an alternative option is to use the generated image as the wallpaper for your dashboard.
That way you can see the image without taking up room on the rest of your dashboard.Do more with what you have All three of these projects are taking things that you may already have and putting them to better use.My iPads were lying in a drawer but now my framed display is one of my favorite parts of my smart home.
You can use the serial port of your TV to make automations more reliable and turn the empty space in your Home Assistant dashboards into a useful way to check the weather.
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