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How a QA Engineer Built 99 Home Automations Using Home Assistant and a REST API

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A Lead QA Engineer documented how experimenting with Home Assistant led to building 99 home automations, starting with a simple goal of opening a garage door from a car screen. Finding no native integration for his building's Alfred Smart access-control system, he reverse-engineered its web app to discover a plain REST API and rebuilt the commands directly in Home Assistant. He automated five sequential gates across two entry routes, fine-tuning delay timings through repeated real-world testing until each sequence ran reliably. A location-based trigger prompts his phone at around 200 metres from home, asking which entrance he is using, while a dashboard health check continuously monitors API availability to prevent silent failures. The project has since expanded to cover floor heating, cooling, appliances, and security automations throughout his home.

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How a QA Engineer Built 99 Home Automations Using Home Assistant and a REST API · ShortSingh