4 ms·
Not super practical, but if you use Esphome and some cheap ESP-32 or ESP8266, it's pretty easy to get an LED blinking in HA. If you want something more useful
by Rebelgecko 3y ago
Not super practical, but if you use Esphome and some cheap ESP-32 or ESP8266, it's pretty easy to get an LED blinking in HA.
If you want something more useful you could look at incorporating sensors like a thermometer, light sensor, soil moisture sensor, magnetic door sensor, etc and using the sensor data to set up automations in the HA GUI. Maybe something like "activate water pump when soil moisture sensor goes below _____" (you could get the parts to do this for maybe $20-$30 on Adafruit, or cheaper from Aliexpress vendors with super slow shipping).
To take things a step up from there, I built an Airgradient kit a month or two and really enjoyed it. Requires some soldering knowledge, but nothing you can't learn while doing (just start out by soldering the cheap parts in case of oopsies). You can even have your kid try to modify their PCB designs (nothing crazy, maybe just put their name on it)