How Will Automates His Parents' Pool from 2,000 Miles Away and a Period UK Home
Home Assistant Podcast
Will’s tinkering background and early computing
Will explains his engineering family background, early computers, and route into IT and tinkering.
Will joins Phil and Rohan to share how he tamed a period UK home and a remote Canary Islands vacation property with Home Assistant, ESPHome, and Zigbee. We dive into DIY pool chemistry control, fridge monitoring with a ‘strawtenna’, tactile dashboards, AI‑assisted heating, and why Shelly is everywhere
Show notes for this episode are available at https://homeassistant.fm/HA222
Special Thanks to Today's Guest
Will Osborne-Kennedy
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Chapters
00:00:00 Welcome
00:03:30 Will’s origin story and tinkering
00:08:30 Finding Home Assistant and ESPHome
00:12:00 Hot tub and pool control projects
00:17:00 Remote Canary Islands setup
00:22:00 Zigbee vs Wi‑Fi in old homes
00:27:00 Antennas and fridge sensor hacks
00:32:00 Dashboards and tactile panels
00:37:00 AI and heating optimizations
00:42:00 Remote access: fiber and TailScale
00:46:00 Multi‑site management and ideas
00:50:00 Favorite automations and LLM Vision
00:56:00 Home lab, IPTV, and Channels DVR
01:00:00 2026 goals: energy, irrigation, WLED
01:05:00 Shelly scripts and local‑first
01:07:00 Community vendors
This episode was made possible thanks to our sponsors
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Products Discussed
Shelly Bluetooth button/tile: https://amzn.to/4bJcvvy
Orbit B‑Hyve irrigation controller: https://amzn.to/4bJcvvy
HDHomeRun TV tuner: https://amzn.to/4klnoFU
Philips Hue Outdoor Motion Sensor: https://amzn.to/4cf3r1p
Hosts
Phil Hawthorne
Twitter: @philhawthorne
Bluesky: @philhawthorne.com
Rohan Karamandi
Twitter: @rohank9
This episode contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click on one of them and make a purchase, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
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