MK Smart IntegrationSmarter home. Real life.

A home project that got a bit out of hand

It started because I wanted to turn the lights off without getting out of bed.

Then it somehow became Home Assistant, Proxmox, networking, DNS, backups, custom dashboards, heating experiments and local AI. This is the record of what I built, what worked, and what definitely needed a second attempt.

Most of it reuses things I already own, with practical hardware added where it earns its place. The aim is a premium result without a premium-system bill—and only if the people living here actually prefer using it.

Energy is treated as one system, not separate apps for the car, charger, battery, solar and tariff.

See how it fits together Try the Smart Home Demo Hardware behind the home How I keep the story straight Meet the Team

Explore the project

Where do you want to start?

6 articles Architecture What runs where, why it is split up, and what still needs a proper test. 6 articles Projects Small local tools for energy, climate data and local AI, built to keep the useful facts close to home. 3 articles Integrations The bits that touch real rooms and physical equipment. More testing, fewer assumptions.

Start here

A few useful rabbit holes

Projects I built

Tools that earned their keep.

I built these because the usual options either hid the useful detail or did not answer the question I had. They may become public repositories later, after their own reproducibility and sanitisation reviews.

All I Wanted Was a 2.4 GHz Network for My Sonos SpeakersA Sonos compatibility problem somehow became root access to a Vodafone Ultra Hub, firmware-bank archaeology, custom Wi-Fi control and the beginnings of a Home Assistant network dashboard.All I Wanted Was to Add a Smart Device Without Downloading Yet Another AppWhy avoiding one more vendor app turned into a small LAN of Things: local protocols, MQTT, narrow-purpose bridges and Home Assistant as the useful front end.All I Wanted Was to Control Three Dimmers LocallyThree Varilight V-Pro Smart dimmers, a small Proxmox box and a dislike of unnecessary software turned into protocol analysis, a local controller, MQTT, Home Assistant discovery and a surprisingly complete management UI.Building My Own Octopus Energy DashboardA self-hosted Octopus Energy dashboard that preserves meter readings, tariff evidence and supplier allocations instead of guessing what energy should have cost.Climate History: A Small Service for Long-Term Room DataA five-minute collector and simple dashboard for investigating room trends without cramming everything into Home Assistant.Meet Peasant: All I Wanted Was to Save on Codex CreditsA local LLM born from a simple cost-saving idea: keep repetitive evidence work local, save Minion/Codex for jobs that actually need it, and see how far a tiny mini-PC can be pushed.