Home Assistant is a fantastic tool for automating your smart home according to your wishes. But the more devices you add, the more complex the whole thing becomes. Here comes Magic Areas into the game! With this extension, you can make your home even smarter - without having to spend hours configuring it.
For detailed instructions and an explanation of all configuration options, I recommend the YouTube video linked below. In this video, every single setting is explained in detail so that you receive comprehensive instructions for the exact setup. You can find any code from the video in this article so that you can use it directly without having to type it in.
What is Magic Areas?
The standard Home Assistant function allows you to divide devices into rooms (areas). However, these areas are often nothing more than simple groupings. Magic Areas extends this concept and gives your areas smart functions. You can use it to:
- Automatically check whether someone is in a room.
- Improve motion-based automation.
- Control devices intelligently according to use.
- Activate automatic night modes.
What is Home Assistant?
Home Assistant is an open source platform for home automation that aims to connect and centrally control all devices in the home. It is designed to provide a unified user interface and simple, flexible control for a variety of smart home devices from different ecosystems. Here are some points in favor of Home Assistant:
- CompatibilityHome Assistant supports thousands of devices and services from various manufacturers, including lighting, air conditioning, heating, cameras, weather sensors, voice assistants and more.
- Local controlUnlike many commercial smart home platforms that rely on cloud services, Home Assistant runs locally on your network. This means increased privacy and reliability, as your smart home devices work even without an active internet connection.
- Automation and scenesOne of the main features of Home Assistant is the ability to create complex automations and scenarios. For example, you can have lights switch on automatically when it gets dark or turn on the heating when the temperature falls below a certain level.
- Simple user interfaceHome Assistant offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to monitor and control devices. This interface is fully customizable.
- Integration with voice assistantsHome Assistant can be integrated with voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant to enable voice-controlled control of your smart home devices.
- Open source and community-drivenSince Home Assistant is open source, it is supported by an active community that is constantly developing new integrations and improving existing ones.
- Data protection and securityAs a locally running platform, Home Assistant has the advantage that the data remains within its own network. This protects privacy and increases security compared to cloud-based solutions.
In summary, Home Assistant is a powerful and flexible solution for those who want to design their own smart home and control their devices centrally, regardless of the manufacturer or ecosystem.
Installation of HACS and integration of in Home Assistant
Step 1: Installing HACS in Home Assistant
Home Assistant Community Store (HACS) is a custom add-on for Home Assistant that provides access to a variety of custom integrations and plugins developed by the community. How to install HACS:
- Check requirements: Make sure that your Home Assistant is ideally up to date.
- Download Execute script: Open a terminal for the Docker container version or the core version.
- Docker: Dial into the container with:
docker exec -it homeassistant bashor (similar) - Core: Switch to the user who is running Home Assistant
- Execute the following command for both variants:
wget -O - https://get.hacs.xyz | bash -
- Docker: Dial into the container with:
- Restarting the Home Assistant: After the files have been copied, restart Home Assistant.
- Integrate HACS into Home AssistantGo to "Configuration" > "Integrations" > "Add" in the Home Assistant interface and search for HACS. Add it and enter your GitHub token if prompted.
For the supervised version, please refer to the Documentation of HACS itself to read about the installation.
Step 2: Add Magic Areas integration via HACS
Once HACS is installed, you can simply add Magic Areas:
- Open HACS: Go to HACS in the Home Assistant interface.
- Search for integrationClick on "Integrations" and use the search function to search for "Magic Areas".
- Magic Areas installFind Magic Areas in the list and click on "Install". This will add the integration to your Home Assistant.
- Restarting the Home Assistant: Start Home Assistant again to apply the changes.
- Configure Magic AreasAfter restarting, you can set up and customize Magic Areas via "Configuration" > "Integrations" in Home Assistant.
Conclusion
With these steps, you have successfully installed HACS in your Home Assistant and added the Magic Areas integration. This powerful combination opens up a world of additional features and customizations that have been and are being developed by the Home Assistant community. More blog posts and videos on useful integrations to follow. If you don't want to miss it, subscribe to my YouTube channel!
Automations with Magic Areas
Once Magic Areas is installed, you can improve your automations. A few examples:
1. automatic light control
Only switch on the light when someone is actually in the room:
- alias: "Control light automatically"
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.magic_area_kueche_occupied
to: "on"
action:
service: light.turn_on
entity_id: light.kitchen2. energy saving through intelligent appliance control
Switch off appliances when no one is in the room:
- alias: "Turn off the TV when no one is there"
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.magic_area_living_room_occupied
to: "off"
for: "00:10:00"
action:
service: switch.turn_off
entity_id: switch.television3. activate night mode
Let your home automatically switch to night mode when no more movement is detected:
- alias: "Activate night mode"
trigger:
platform: state
entity_id: binary_sensor.magic_area_bedroom_occupied
to: "off"
for: "00:30:00"
action:
service: scene.turn_on
entity_id: scene.night_modeYouTube video implementation
Conclusion
Magic Areas takes your automation to the next level and makes your smart home even smarter. Instead of using simple motion sensors, you can use real presence detection and room-based logic. Try it out and experience how your home works for you all by itself!
Have you tried Magic Areas yet? Share your experiences and automations in the comments!
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