Smart Home Assistant

Home Automation

Independent UK guides to Home Assistant, Matter, Zigbee, and smart home hubs — from first setup to advanced automation.

143 guides and reviews

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Core setup & hardware

Installing Home Assistant and choosing the hardware to run it on — Yellow, Green, Raspberry Pi, and Docker.

Z-Wave Home Assistant UK: Complete Setup Guide
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Z-Wave Home Assistant UK: Complete Setup Guide

Z-Wave runs on 868.42 MHz in the UK, keeping your smart home completely free from Wi-Fi and Zigbee congestion. Combined with Home Assistant's Z-Wave JS integration, it delivers a reliable, local-only mesh network for sensors, locks, and dimmers. This guide covers everything you need — choosing a controller, configuring Z-Wave JS, and pairing your first devices.

By Sepehr6 min read

Automations, scripts & dashboards

Building automations, scripts, and Lovelace dashboards — from blueprints to Mushroom and button-card.

Home Assistant Lovelace Dashboard Guide 2026: Cards, YAML & Mushroom
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Home Assistant Lovelace Dashboard Guide 2026: Cards, YAML & Mushroom

Home Assistant's built-in dashboard system — historically called Lovelace, now simply called Dashboards — lets you design a bespoke smart home control panel without writing a single line of code. This guide covers everything from the auto-generated default view to advanced custom cards, YAML editing, Mushroom cards from HACS, and setting up a wall-mounted Amazon Fire HD tablet as a permanent kiosk display.

By Sepehr8 min read

Protocols & integrations

Connecting devices over Matter, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, and MQTT.

Matter vs Zigbee vs Z-Wave: Which to Choose?
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Matter vs Zigbee vs Z-Wave: Which to Choose?

Choosing between Matter, Zigbee, and Z-Wave is the first big decision for any UK smart home build. All three create mesh networks of locally-controlled devices — but they use different radio frequencies, have different ecosystem rules, and suit different budgets and ambitions. This guide cuts through the jargon with a side-by-side comparison table and a plain-English decision guide for Home Assistant users.

By Sepehr7 min read

Platform comparisons

Home Assistant weighed against SmartThings, Homebridge, Apple HomeKit, and other smart home platforms.

HA Presence: mmWave vs Phone (2026)
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HA Presence: mmWave vs Phone (2026)

Presence detection is the foundation of truly intelligent home automation. This guide covers every method available in Home Assistant — from the Companion app's GPS zones to Bluetooth device trackers, mmWave radar sensors, and the person entity — so you can build automations that react to who is actually home, room by room.

By Sepehr8 min read

General guides

Everything else — tips, roundups, and guides that span more than one topic above.

Home Assistant Best Add-ons: Top 10 for 2026
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Home Assistant Best Add-ons: Top 10 for 2026

Add-ons are one of the most powerful features of Home Assistant OS, letting you extend your smart home with professional tools — from visual automation editors to local NVR cameras — all managed from a single browser tab. This guide covers the 10 best Home Assistant add-ons for UK users in 2026.

By Sepehr7 min read