Rudy is me

Getting food data from Voedingscentrum in Home Assistant

I use an app to track my food intake and I wanted to get the data from that app into Home Assistant. The app is made by a publicly funded organization in the Netherlands called Voedingscentrum. I was hoping they would have an API I could use, so I emailed them.

Add a todo task using Home Assistant Voice

I've been messing around with todo lists in Home Assistant (and Nextcloud through CalDAV) lately and had a thought yesterday. How easy would it be to use the voice assistant to add a task. Turns out it was a default command. However, the default command requires you to add the task description and the list to the command. I wondered how hard it would be to have the voice assistant ask for these. This also turned out to be pretty easy. All it required was a single, simple automation.

Weather background image on Home Assistant dashboard

We've had a tablet showing a family week planner, weather information and some notifications hanging in our living room for a while now. Recently I've played around with the styling and thought it would be cool if the background image changed depending on the weather. In this article I'll explain how I made this.

Aurora Borealis

I've seen the Northern Lights a few times in my life, but never this clear from my home in The Netherlands last night.

Popup timer in Home Assistant

My four-year-old son has been obsessed with time lately. He wants to know how long everything takes, up to the minute, and asks how many minutes it takes every few minutes. So much so that I decided to make a timer I can show on a tablet hanging on the wall in our living room we use as calendar, running Home Assistant. This is how I made it.

Hiking near Grolloo

Hart van Drenthe is one of my favorite nature reserves to hike in. I usually start near Grolloo and follow the "Sprokkelspoor", which takes you over small trails meandering through the forest, heather and swamps.

Hiking in Terhorsterzand

Terhorsterzand, in Drenthe, is one of my favorite pieces of nature in The Netherlands. It's compact, but versatile. With forests, sand, heather and wetlands. I love hiking there.