Home Assistant & Matter

• BBeardedTinker [YouTube]2026-09-23Video✓ Read

  My Smart Garden Got Completely Out of Hand

  What started as a simple rainwater tank turned into a full Home Assistant irrigation system. In this video I show how I combine rainwater storage, a Gardena Micro-Drip setup, 7 Third Reality soil moisture sensors, SONOFF smart valves, pump control and Home Assistant logic to decide when watering should — and should not — happen. It also has all the usual Smart Property reality: a dead tank sensor, a nearly €300 pump that failed after a month, a constantly clogging gutter intake, questionable plumbing decisions, and almost €1,000 spent to grow tomatoes, basil and exactly three peppers. 🏡 Home Assistant files from this project: https://github.com/BeardedTinker/video-assets/blob/main/smart-irrigation-home-assistant 🌱 Third Reality Smart Soil Moisture Sensor Gen2 (*) https://www.thirdreality.com/products/smart-soil-moisture-sensor-gen2?ref=BeardedTinker 💧 SONOFF Hydro ONE — single-channel Zigbee smart water valve (*) Production valve used by the final system https://sonoff.tech/en-eu/products/sonoff-hydro-series-hydro-one-zigbee-smart-water-valve-swv-zfu-swv-zfe?ref=601&utm_source=affiliate 💧💧 SONOFF Hydro DUO — dual-channel Zigbee smart water valve (*) Tested during the earlier two-zone prototype phase https://sonoff.tech/en-eu/products/sonoff-hydro-duo-dual-channel-zigbee-smart-water-valve-swv-zf2e-swv-zf2u?ref=601&utm_source=affiliate Chapters 00:00 - It Started With Rainwater 02:12 - How the Water Actually Gets There 03:17 - Seven Sensors and a Lot of Guessing 05:33 - Open, Close, and How Much Water? 07:06 - Home Assistant Has to Say No 08:08 - The Real World Does Not Care About Your Automation 10:03 - I May Have Built This Wrong 11:11 - Almost €1,000 for Three Peppers 13:23 - Do You Want Another One? If you want a follow-up, let me know what you want to see next: the Home Assistant logic, dashboard, water usage, soil sensor strategy, weather integration, second tank, or what I got wrong after another season. 💻 GitHub: https://github.com/BeardedTinker

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• JJeff Geerling2026-09-21Video✓ Read

  Raspberry Pi locks down RAM upgrades in Firmware

  It's not just because of the RAM pricing situation. Links mentioned in this video: - Raspberry Pi EEPROM issue from Oct 2025: https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761 - Raspberry Pi Forum Post: https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=399212 - Hacker News discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49786689 - Geekworm guide for determining Factory RAM size: https://geekworm.com/blogs/news/prevent-ram-swapped-raspberry-pi-5-how-to-verify-factory-ram-size And special thanks to a viewer for pointing this out via email in late April! I never got a satisfactory answer about this from Raspberry Pi, but they have some official responses on the forum now, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/geerlingguy Sponsor me on GitHub: https://github.com/sponsors/geerlingguy Merch: https://www.redshirtjeff.com 2nd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GeerlingEngineering 3rd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Level2Jeff

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• JJeff Geerling2026-09-18Video✓ Read

  I found an atomic clock at the world's largest vintage computer show

  I thought I had the best time. Then someone brought over a cesium atomic clock, and I wasn't sure. Segal's law: "A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure." Some of the things I mentioned in the video: - VCF Midwest: https://vcfmw.org - ShadyTel: https://shady.tel - Meinberg GPS Antenna: https://www.meinbergglobal.com/english/products/gps-antenna-converter.htm - Pumping Station One: https://pumpingstationone.org - Tattler Solutions WOPR rackmount display: https://tattlersolutions.com/wopr/ - Duchtronix AVR Scope Clock: http://www.dutchtronix.com/ScopeClockH3-1-Enhanced.htm - My TrueTime Pi configuration: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/truetime-xl-gps-time-server-restomod/ - MacMesh: https://macmesh.xyzzy.computer - Mr. Macintosh: https://www.youtube.com/c/MrMacintoshBlog - L2J video on the Prototype Apple Network Server 300: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tupEO0mrf0c - Quadra 800 MiSTer FPGA core: https://github.com/danifunker/MacQuadra800_MiSTer - PicoPCMCIA: https://www.yyzkevin.com/picopcmcia/ - PC110 Motherboard Recreation: https://github.com/ahmadexp/Open-Source-PC110 - dosdude1: https://www.youtube.com/@dosdude1 - Ron's Computer Videos (helped me get some clips!): https://www.youtube.com/@RonsCompVids - Retro Tech Foundation: https://www.retrotechfoundation.org - TAPR TICC: https://tapr.org/product/tapr-ticc/ Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/geerlingguy Sponsor me on GitHub: https://github.com/sponsors/geerlingguy Merch: https://www.redshirtjeff.com 2nd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GeerlingEngineering 3rd Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Level2Jeff Contents: 00:00 - Something unexpected 01:02 - NTP Demo on a bunch of old Macs 04:49 - Other YouTubers 05:24 - Hard disk clock, atomic clock, and RF station 05:59 - Oscilloscope time 06:23 - WOPRs and MacMesh 06:59 - The rack of Mac Servers 07:20 - New hardware for old systems 07:50 - dosdude1 GSM cellular demo

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• BBeardedTinker [YouTube]2026-09-16Video✓ Read

  You’re Probably Missing These 4 Home Assistant HACS Projects

  Another HACS Gems roundup — this time with four very different projects that actually survived testing. We start with MoviesDB and SeriesDB, two related projects that bring movie and TV series tracking directly into Home Assistant. Then there is Tank Card, a very simple but visually effective way to display tank level and volume. Weather Forecast Card goes in the opposite direction with a huge amount of customization, and finally we have a very niche Croatian project for DHMZ sea temperature data that I genuinely wish I had installed earlier this summer. As always, I installed everything, configured it, found the quirks, and only kept the projects that I could see a real use for. 🎬 MoviesDB https://github.com/charly166/ha-moviesdb 📺 SeriesDB https://github.com/charly166/ha-seriesdb 💧 Tank Card https://github.com/jinx-22/tank-card 🌦️ Weather Forecast Card https://github.com/troinine/ha-weather-forecast-card 🌊 DHMZ Sea Temperature Integration https://github.com/shaxxx/dhmz-sea-temperature Chapters 00:00 - Four HACS Projects Worth Looking At 01:20 - MoviesDB and SeriesDB 04:50 - Tank Card 06:25 - Weather Forecast Card 08:12 - The One I Wish I Had Earlier 10:20 - Which Ones Stay? 💻 GitHub: https://github.com/BeardedTinker 🛒 Bearded Tinker Shop: https://shop.beardedtinker.com ❤️ Become a Channel Member: https://www.youtube.com/@BeardedTinker/join If you find my videos useful, you can also support the channel using the Super Thanks button below the video. Every bit helps support future testing, projects, integrations and videos. If you know a HACS project that deserves to be tested in a future roundup, leave it in the comments. Just remember: if I install it and something breaks, I may blame you in the next video. 😄 #HomeAssistant #HACS #SmartHome #HomeAutomation #Dashboard

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