Dear Home Assistant community I thought I entertain you with the dabbling of an elderly newbie.
To circumvent Google’s withdrawal of support for my Nest thermostats, I devised a cost-effective solution. I purchased a 4-channel Smart WiFi Relay and wired three normally closed contacts in series with the outputs from my Nest Heat Links, controlling upstairs heating, downstairs heating, and hot water.
I initially used Alexa to manage the system, leveraging temperature sensors in my newer Echo Dot speakers for thermostatic control. A default frost protection setting in Alexa was configured to maintain a minimum temperature of 14°C.
Seeking to eliminate reliance on cloud services all together, I acquired a used mini PC and installed Home Assistant (HA). I integrated two mobile phones into HA and set up a geofence to disable all heating when both devices leave the premises.
Additionally, I purchased two USB cable temperature sensors to provide accurate temperature data via broadlink to HA for precise thermostatic control of my central heating system.
The effectiveness of this setup will become fully apparent after October 25, 2025, when Google officially terminates support for early Nest thermostats in Europe.
I’m new to Home Assistant and I have an old brain so I welcome any suggestions and improvements that I should consider
Grab one of these: SLZB-06
and buy some zigbee (it’s a wireless smart home protocol) temperature sensors from Aliexpress (or amazon). I actually prefer the Phillips Hue Multisensors (you can get them for ~$10 each from ebay if you’re patient) but I’ve used a few types. This will take things to the next level.
Further dabblings …
Below is a Home Assistant automation YAML configuration to turn on heating devices (Device51971-1, Device51971-2, Device51971-3) when both phones (VOG-L09 and VOG-L29) leave the home area. This assumes the phones are tracked via device trackers in Home Assistant companion app. and the heating devices are controllable entities (e.g., switches, climate entities, or similar and te switches N/C contacts are wired in series).
alias: “Turn off heating when both phones leave home”
description: “Turns off heating devices when phones VOG-L09 and VOG-L29 are not home”
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id:
device_tracker.vog_l09
device_tracker.vog_l29
from: “home”
to: “not_home”
condition:
condition: and
conditions:
condition: state
entity_id: device_tracker.vog_l09
state: “not_home”
condition: state
entity_id: device_tracker.vog_l29
state: “not_home”
action:
