I’m sitting here, early morning in the UK, devoid of my normal IOT devices and with reviews waiting for me.. but all of that will have to wait for our return to Spain at the end of the month and after getting our new house in order. Meanwhile I’m getting a chance to do some reading (release notes) and minor updating of my UK Home Assistant setup.
Firstly – reading – I’ve been taking a look at the new ESPHome release notes for 2026 – very interesting – the development guys have taken a renewed interest in the ESP8266. I’ve said for some time that my use of ESPHome has been limited when it comes to ESP8266 because of heavy resource use – but it seems that work has been done to embrace the reality that the ESP8266 is here to stay for some years.
I continue to be able to buy Wemos D1-type ESP8266’s from China DIRT cheaply and now with USB-C connections (sorry American friends – those of us in Europe continue to enjoy trade with China (AliExpress, Temu etc.) while you’re getting stung by Trump’s tariffs) – so why not – they work a treat with Tasmota and now it seems we should be able to make better use of them with ESPhome. Not only that but there’s a renewed focus on multiple SSIDs in ESPHome with automatic use of the best connection – release notes are well worth a glance..
A quick comment on the original Aqara G4 video doorbell which I have been using since 2024 – this battery-powered camera It has been sitting her working quietly for months on end before needing battery replacement. It has long been in the back of my mind that I seem to replace batteries a lot.
The G4 doorbell unit uses SIX AA batteries, not cheap if you go for decent stock. Anyway – I left the doorbell with automatic IR lighting and it has only JUST occurred to me that this is probably contributing to battery use.
See photos taken early this morning – why I only just thought of this is beyond me – there’s a quite disgustingly bright council street light just across the road which runs all night through to sunrise. Absolutely no need for IR lighting. Take a look below – IR lighting, no IR lighting, sunrise. With a very slight adjustment I could improve the IR-free night image immensely and save precious battery power in the process.
This particular doorbell does not put out RTSP (in common with most battery-powered cameras – for power consumption reasons) but is otherwise a great, reliable device which via the Aqara app keeps me up to date with anyone coming through that gate (audio and video). I have sensitivity set low to ignore passers-by and constant traffic while picking up the delivery guy every time.
Meanwhile with my new best friend ChatGPT (only new because I’ve taken the plunge and subscribed to ESP-GO at 8 Euros all-inc a month – after almost abandoning ChatGPT due to VERY limited free use), I’ve been working on improving the look of my Home Assistant tiles.
So what’s new? Well, for some time I’ve had lighting tiles which have an icon which changes between yellow and grey depending on on/off/unavailable state – nothing special there, but with a little help, I’m now adding RGB capability indication to the tiles.
I use custom:mushroom-legacy-template cards iin Home Assistant for one reason – right-justified text which for reasons beyond me is missing from other cards. A downside of these cards is inability to easily add text and graphics other than primary and secondary text – but ChatGPT proactively pointed out to me that emoji characters have their own colours – I didn’t know that and so added them to the secondary text.
See the rightmost image above – when my bulb is set to colour, the icon colour varies accordingly, when the bulb is white, the emojis show 3 white shapes – when off or unavailable, they disappear altogether. I love it. See code below. Change the (only referred to once) entity to make this card work for you. The actual RGB light is referred to as “helens” as that’s who I got the light from. Choice of colours is entirely mine.
type: custom:mushroom-legacy-template-card
primary: Pete's bed light
secondary: >
{% set state = states(config.entity) %} {% set mode =
state_attr(config.entity, 'color_mode') %} {% if state == 'unavailable' %}
Unavailable
{% elif state == 'off' %}
Off
{% else %}
{% if mode in ['rgb','hs'] %}
🔴🟢🔵 On
{% elif mode == 'color_temp' %}
⚪⚪⚪ On
{% else %}
On
{% endif %}
{% endif %}
entity: light.helens
icon: mdi:lightbulb
tap_action:
action: toggle
hold_action:
action: more-info
card_mod:
style: |
ha-state-icon {
{% if is_state(config.entity, 'off') %}
color: #9e9e9e;
{% else %}
{% set rgb = state_attr(config.entity, 'rgb_color') %}
{% set ct = state_attr(config.entity, 'color_temp') %}
{% if rgb %}
color: rgb({{ rgb[0] }}, {{ rgb[1] }}, {{ rgb[2] }});
{% elif ct %}
color: #ffddb1;
{% else %}
color: #ffddb1;
{% endif %}
{% endif %}
}
ha-card {
border: 1px solid darkcyan;
text-align: right;
--card-primary-color: cyan;
--card-secondary-color:
{% if is_state(config.entity, 'on') %} #00ff00
{% else %} #a9a9a9
{% endif %};
background:
{% if is_state(config.entity, 'on') %}
radial-gradient(circle, #882800 30%, #461006);
{% else %}
radial-gradient(circle, #113864 30%, #261033);
{% endif %};
}
Meanwhile – back at AliExpress – don’t you just love the minefield that is an AliExpress advert? Note the headdline figure top right – “20A EU Smart Socket” – then look at the text in the first photo I’ve highlighted – “Maximum current supported is 10A” – BIG difference. I was just about to order a few for our new home… maybe not.
