Franck Nijhof (Frenck)

Some people still talk about Home Assistant like you need YAML, coding knowledge, and a quiet evening just to automate a light.

There was a time when a pull request could get a quick look, a passing CI run, maybe a familiar name attached to it, and a simple “LGTM”.

Today I want to talk about something tiny in Home Assistant that explains a lot of “why did nothing happen?”

A day like World Environment Day makes it tempting to put a green sticker on technology and call it progress.

If I rent an excavator to dig a hole for a swimming pool, I do not suddenly become a professional.

I read GitHub’s incident write-up and had one of those annoying little moments where you immediately start thinking about your own setup.

Last week I was at the Home Assistant community meetup in Cologne.

We got the keys 48 hours ago.

I can't sleep.

📺 Rather watch a video version of this blog?

📺 Rather watch a video version of this blog?

After four years of community requests and 1,650+ reactions on issue #1182, GitHub finally added YAML anchor support on September 18, 2025.

People on the internet sometimes seem to have an idea of what my connected smart home looks like.

In January 2025, I visited the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to view all the latest products and innovations in consumer technology coming in the upcoming years.

Smart home tech keeps evolving, and HomeWizard is bringing something new to the table—a home battery that you can install yourself.