How I Automated the House: From One Outlet to Home Assistant and ESPHome

In short: I did not plan “smart house”. I planned to simply finish the renovation and live normally. But reality quickly made edits to — and over time automation has gone from “cool toys” to something that really saves nerves, money and time.

Below — is my path in several eras. Without fanaticism, but with technical details where they matter.

It all started in 2021. The house was being completed, the renovation was almost completed, but the city's power grid was never connected — bureaucracy, approval...

And when the renovation is at the finish line, there is another risk: in a half-empty house, things can disappear“. Including what is screwed to the walls. So we decided not to wait and put the basic autonomy: solar panels, battery, inverter — and try to survive.

The configuration was quite modest, but working: 5 kW panels /5 kW batteries /5 kW inverter.

And it was the autonomous that became the trigger for the first automation of — because you start counting every kilowatt.

The first “insight” was simple: the boiler(s) can't work 24/7 when you live on batteries. Control and schedule are required.

A friend advised to try a smart socket — and I bought it TP-Link Tapo P100 almost at random. The outlet immediately gave:

It worked so well that the same first outlet is still alive: since the summer of 2021, a boiler has been chasing through itself every day for about 2 kW.

Then everything followed the classics: “I will buy another — and all”. And then another one. And yet...

In the summer of 2022, the city network was already connected. At the same time, we put the electric boiler — as simple as possible, essentially a “boiler” with three TENs.

And then a second important thought came up: I don't feel “50°C in the pipe”. I feel air temperature. Plus the rooms are different, warm up differently, and “one temperature at all” — does not work.

I looked aside Tuya, because there are many inexpensive devices and simple scenarios “if/to”. Bought:

The boiler went into constant on mode, and its power began to be controlled through contactor: The socket simply closes the control contact, and the power part is pulled by the contactor.

The thermometer put in the bedroom on the second floor — there was colder. But... it got too hot on the first floor.

The decision was logical: divide heating by floors. Added in the boiler room electric valves on water. Powering — valve opens, water goes. Don't serve — overlaps.

A nuance that is important to consider: there are valves normally closed or normally open. And here you have to choose according to your logic and according to how you want the system to behave when the power is turned off.

Added a separate — thermometer to the first floor and the scenarios became more adequate.

With Time, he additionally localized in a room with "blunt" electric heads and smart sockets that work according to the same principle as electric valves.

In parallel, the garage was completed for two cars. 

It immediately became clear that it was not convenient to open the blinds manually, so I decided to automate them.  I put sockets there and took a simple motor for shutters: three wires — open /close /zero. The final positions are set with bolts.

To make it smart — put two-pole contactor: one pole “open”, the other “close”. You supply power to the coil —, the contactor switches and the motor works in the desired direction.

And another “is a useful little thing”: during blackouts, the smart socket turned into city network availability detector. It is inserted into the city line: there is a network — outlet online; no — offline. Simple, cheap, effective.

Then I matured to the obvious: a bunch of apps, a bunch of ecosystems, a bunch of disparate scenarios — is not a “smart house”. It's “zoo”.

So I came to Home Assistant. This is a powerful system that you put on your home server, and it:

After that I:

And most importantly —, the normal logic of automations has emerged. For example — “charging window” for boiler:

Boiler receives, conditionally, 5 hours a day. If there is an urban network — at this time, it is turned on. If the network disappears — is turned off. Outside “, the ” window does not turn on at all (or remains disabled forcibly).

With constant blackouts, the benefit is very noticeable.

Another nice feature: integration with CarPlay. I literally in a few minutes put the garage opening buttons — on the radio and this is from those “little” automations that you then use all the time.

In 2025, the shutdowns became tougher. And I put myself in the problem: there is not enough battery charge, and there is no normal monitoring of the inverter and — batteries.

I tried to monitor:

But it quickly became clear that many protocols are closed and support in the — community is weak. And then I discovered for myself ESPHome.

ESPHome — is a firmware + configuration system for ESP8266/ESP32, which allows you to quickly make a “smart device out of the board and connect it to the Home Assistant.

It actually looks like this:

To monitor the inverter, I had to combine ESP32-C6 i TTL↔UART converter.

And we also have a long-burning solid fuel boiler with quite primitive automation. To sleep more peacefully, I did temperature control through ESP32-C6 + DS18B20 (it was sold as a kit with a small resistor board). Now the boiler temperature lives in Home Assistant and I can do allergies, schedules.

I started with one socket “so that the boiler did not eat everything in a row”. And came to a full-fledged system, where:

Automation of — is not about “hype”. It's about comfort and control. Especially when you live in a reality where electricity may or may not be.