Skylar.Tech

Matrix chat bot module for Node-RED

I've been using a self-hosted federated Matrix server for chatting with family members and recently deployed it for one of my clients and needed a decent way to administrate the

Programming

Fix for concurrent requests breaking Symfony's Remember Me

Currently I am building software in Symfony 5.2 and noticed that my remember me was not working correctly (many of my users kept complaining about getting logged out everyday). I debugged it and found that concurrent requests can actually break the remember me

Symfony

Doctrine Fixtures always exclude table

In application development you usually have migrations you run to pre-seed default application schema and data into the database (it is also used for updating and rolling back database changes)

Tunneling local traffic to internet for FREE

When working with code locally on your machine there are often times you need a public URL pointing to your local machine (such as webhooks). You could easily just open

Home Automation

Overriding Home Assistant components

You've always been able to create custom components for Home Assistant by creating a custom_components folder inside your HA directory but did you know you can use this method

Programming

Convert Doctrine entities to arrays for checking changes

I've been building a bunch of Sync code for a CRM and custom website recently and needed a quick and efficient way to track what entities/fields actually got changed.

Servers

Install Kimai2 in Unraid for time tracking

Time tracking is essential for freelancers, small businesses, and other critical use cases. I have a full time job and do a bunch of consulting and programming on the side

Unraid

Installing MQTT in Unraid

I use MQTT for all of the sensors in my Home Automation setup. It runs on my home server and all of my devices/sensors connect to it to publish

Home Automation

Hiding unavailable Chromecasts in Home Assistant front-end

I prefer to keep only active devices displaying in Home Assistant's front-end to keep things clean and was previously using Node-RED to accomplish this. Now with recent update's to Home

Home Automation

Recommended cheap privacy-focused thermostat for Home Assistant

Lots of smart devices these days require you to use the cloud and have an active internet connection in order to use the device. This is pretty crazy because in

Home Automation

Great way to display triggered sensors in Home Assistant

Having a quick view of triggered sensors can be extremely handy (such as if you forgot to close a door or want to know where motion is currently occurring). In

Servers

Adding Redis as cache for Nextcloud in Unraid

I recently added Redis as a cache for my Nextcloud instance to increase it's performance. This has mainly reduced MySQL database queries and cleared up some errors I was getting

Node-RED

Restarting crashed game server containers with Node-RED

Ever have a game server lock up but not fully crash so it doesn't trigger a restart? I've been having this issue recently with my Sven Co-op server and I

Game Servers

Speed up fastdl for game servers by utilizing CloudFlare's Free CDN

Various game servers use a setting called fastdl that lets the game clients download server files from a web server instead of the game server. This can drastically improve download

Home Assistant

Installing Home Assistant in Unraid

I've received questions about how to install Home Assistant in Unraid as well as what the best method to install it is. I hope this post answers these questions and

Node-RED

Tracking game server stats using Node-RED, InfluxDB, and Grafana

Tracking server statistics can be extremely handy and I just haven't come across many great options for game servers. There are free options like GameTracker but their tracker only queries

Home Assistant

Announcing Home Assistant events from wall-mounted tablet

I recently set up my Wall-mounted Amazon Fire Tablet running WallPanel to voice when any of the doors to the house open/close (including my garage door) and has actually

Programming

Symfony & Doctrine repository running queries on wrong Entity Manager

Today I setup Symfony 4 with two entity managers (two different MsSQL databases) and was having issues with my custom repository functions for entities on my second entity manager querying

Unraid

Graphing PowerEdge r710 power usage using Telegraf, InfluxDB & Grafana

Being able to monitor how much power a server is utilizing over a period of time can be extremely handy. In this post I will show how I handled this using Grafana for graphing, Telegraf for gathering data from the iDRAC6 (over IPMI), and InlufxDB for storage.

Home Automation

My Smart Lighting Setup

I've been getting requests to show off my smart lighting setup using Home Assistant & Node-RED so here it is. I have quite a lot of inputs and sensors that

Home Automation

Day & Night theme for Home Assistant using Node-RED

Did you know you can make an automation to change the theme of Home Assistant? This works great if you want to setup a day/night theme. Lets see how

Home Assistant

Circadian lighting with Home Assistant and Node-RED

Updated Feb 20, 2020: The developer of node-red-contrib-sun-position updated their node so now the flow is quite a bit shorter. Circadian Lighting is syncing your color lights with the local

Home Automation

Wall mounted tablet running Home Assistant

Home Assistant is connected to all of the smart devices in my house so having quick and easy access to it is important. This is why I decided to take

Home Automation

Hide/Show Chromecast from Home Assistant front-end using Node-RED

Chromecast integration in Home Assistant is nice but it is annoying having the cards left there when the device is offline. This especially gets bad once you have more than

Home Assistant

Fixing slow Hue motion sensors in Home Assistant using Node-RED

Currently Home Assistant only polls for Hue motion sensor data every 5 seconds which makes motion events slow and unusable for automatic lights and other automations. There was an open

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