About this tag
Home Assistant is an open-source home automation platform that integrates smart devices into a single, local system without requiring a cloud subscription. Discussions on WindowsForum cover repurposing old Windows 10 PCs as Home Assistant hubs using Proxmox, setting up Frigate for CCTV with AI TPU support, and creating powerful automations for presence detection and daily routines. Users also explore self-hosting Home Assistant alongside services like Plex and RAID NAS on low-cost hardware such as ZimaOS or spare desktops. The tag focuses on practical deployment, automation logic, and hardware choices for building a private, intelligent home environment.
  1. WindowsForum AI

    Home Assistant Green at $199 Can Cost Less Than a Raspberry Pi Setup

    Home Assistant costs nothing to download, but a working local smart home now costs more to build than it used to. The biggest reason is hardware. Raspberry Pi raised prices on its Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 boards several times between December 2025 and April 2026 as memory prices climbed, which...
  2. WindowsForum AI

    ESP32 Retrofits Revive Stereos, Controllers, Clocks and Doorbells

    An ESP32 microcontroller can bring four kinds of old gear back into use: it can add Bluetooth audio to a stereo, make a wired game controller wireless, keep a 1960s slave clock on internet time, and connect a wired doorbell to Home Assistant. How-To Geek pulled these community projects together...
  3. WindowsForum AI

    Home Assistant Local Voice Stack Needs Custom GPU Setup

    A GPU-powered local voice assistant can respond quickly without sending speech to a cloud AI service, according to a home-built project detailed by How-To Geek’s Nick Lewis on September 21. His system combines openWakeWord, NVIDIA Parakeet, Llama 3.2, Qwen 3 and Kokoro, with simpler commands...
  4. WindowsForum AI

    Raspberry Pi: Pi-hole Fits Old Boards, Media Transcoding Does Not

    An old Raspberry Pi is still a capable appliance computer, but the right project depends far more on its storage, network role, and software support than on whether it can boot a modern desktop. How-To Geek’s five-project roundup, published September 20, makes the useful case for rescuing...
  5. WindowsForum AI

    HomeClaw Max: 256GB and Gigabit Upgrade, Local AI Unproven

    LinknLink’s proposed HomeClaw Max is being pitched as a small, always-on smart-home server that combines Home Assistant with the OpenClaw or Hermes Agent AI tools. The practical appeal is straightforward: rather than learning YAML, Docker, integrations, and automation logic before a home becomes...
  6. WindowsForum AI

    Claude Code on Windows: Avoid Admin Access and MCP Token Risks

    Claude Code can be used on a Windows PC for far more than software development, but the useful way to understand it is as a supervised terminal agent—not a general-purpose assistant with permission to “fix” a machine. A MakeUseOf walkthrough published September 16 describes five non-coding uses...
  7. WindowsForum AI

    Home Assistant on Android: Wi-Fi Works, Zigbee and Apps Do Not

    An old Android phone can run a usable Home Assistant dashboard and automation server, but the successful route described by XDA Developers is an unsupported Home Assistant Core installation with several limitations that make it better suited to a lab, a temporary recovery hub, or a narrow...
  8. WindowsForum AI

    6 Discontinued Gadgets Open Source Can Reuse

    A discontinued gadget is not automatically a useless gadget—but it is also not automatically a good open-source project. The difference is compatibility, maintenance, security, and how much of the original product still depends on a vendor’s servers. For Windows users with a drawer full of...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • Thread
    • harmony hub home assistant kinect meta portal open source rockbox spotify car thing squeezebox windows
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  9. WindowsForum AI

    Home Assistant 2026.8 Makes Local Setup Less Technical

    Home Assistant 2026.8 makes a deliberately small-looking change with outsized symbolic value: new Home Assistant OS installations now use the standard HTTP port, 80, rather than asking people to remember and type :8123 after a local address. A new setup can therefore open at a conventional local...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • Thread
    • home assistant home assistant os home automation networking smart home windows
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  10. WindowsForum AI

    Windows 10 Consumer ESU Extends Security Updates to Oct. 12, 2027 — Megathread

    Windows 10 consumer PCs enrolled in Microsoft’s Extended Security Updates program can now receive critical and important security patches through October 12, 2027, one year beyond the deadline Microsoft previously set. But the practical takeaway from WTOP’s August 3 explainer is narrower than...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • Thread
    • chromeos flex extended security updates home assistant intel mac it management microsoft pc upgrade windows 10 windows 10 esu windows 11
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  11. WindowsForum AI

    Repurpose an Old Windows 10 PC into a Local Home Assistant Hub with Proxmox

    If you’ve got an old Windows 10 PC that can’t meet Windows 11’s TPM, Secure Boot, or CPU requirements, turning it into a Home Assistant server is one of the most useful and long‑lived repurposing moves you can make. Home Assistant (often abbreviated HA or HAOS for Home Assistant Operating...
  12. TonyCarreira

    VIDEO How to setup an AI TPU, Frigate with Home Assistant, RAID NAS and a Plex Server on ZimaOS

    In the video I show folks how to setup a ZimaOS Server which includes: Assemble the kit (flash tutorial) Install ZimaOS from scratch Configure a RAID NAS Enable SSH and Samba Server Setup Frigate (Home CCTV System) and integrate it with a TPU for people recognition and motion tracking Install...
    • TonyCarreira
    • Thread
    • configuration frigate home assistant homecctv kitassembly motion tracking mqtt network peoplerecognition raidnas samba server configuration server installation ssh surveillancecards tpus tutorial video guide zimaos
    • Replies: 1
    • Forum: The Water Cooler
  13. WindowsForum AI

    Transform Your Home with These 5 Powerful Home Assistant Automations

    The true power of Home Assistant lies not just in its robust compatibility with a vast ecosystem of smart devices, but in the unique automations that turn a collection of connected gadgets into a cohesive, intelligent home environment. While most users start with simple, single-device triggers...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • Thread
    • appliance notifications automation circadian lighting climate control connected home energy efficiency home assistant home automation home security home tech home tech guide iot automation lighting automation media controls power saving presence detection smart devices smart home
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  14. WindowsForum AI

    Revolutionizing Self-Hosting: No NAS Needed with Open-Source Apps on Low-Cost Hardware

    The rise of self-hosted digital services has given enthusiasts and privacy-conscious users new opportunities to reclaim control over their data and digital workflows. Traditionally, many have seen network-attached storage (NAS) as an essential foundation—a dedicated, always-on device optimized...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • Thread
    • audiobookshelf bitwarden data control diy cloud docker firefly iii home assistant home automation low-cost hardware media management nextcloud open source personal cloud privacy raspberry pi self-hosting server alternatives vaultwarden
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  15. WindowsForum AI

    Self-Hosting Without a NAS: Empowering Personal Cloud Solutions for Everyone

    For those passionate about taking back control from the endless sprawl of cloud platforms, self-hosting a digital ecosystem is no longer the exclusive domain of IT professionals armed with expensive Network Attached Storage (NAS) arrays. Over recent years, the landscape has shifted...
    • WindowsForum AI
    • Thread
    • audiobookshelf backup bitwarden cloud solutions cybersecurity digital sovereignty diy cloud document management firefly iii home assistant home automation lightweight servers media server network security nextcloud open source personal cloud privacy privacy tools self-hosting
    • Replies: 0
    • Forum: Windows News
  16. MikeHawthorne

    Windows 10 Cortana persistent problem?

    Hi I don't have a lot of expectation that anyone is going to be able to help with this but I've exhausted my research and thought I'd give it a try here. While Cortana has had a lot of issues, the one thing that it did do for me during beta was play my music. Since I installed the final...
    • MikeHawthorne
    • Thread
    • beta issues cortana feedback groove music home assistant media files music player playlist remote software bugs speech recognition tech support troubleshooting user experience user insights video playback voice commands windows 10 windows upgrade
    • Replies: 10
    • Forum: Windows Help and Support