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Guides & Tutorials

Setup and how-to pieces. If we ran it ourselves, the page says Tested in our lab.

The Home Assistant automation editor in our test setup, showing the TechnoGecko Christmas lights schedule blueprint form with lights and plugs, season start and end dates, sunset offset and weekday off time.

Home Assistant · Guides & Tutorials

Home Assistant Christmas lights automation: sunset, holiday calendar and away safety (with blueprint)

Turn Christmas lights on at sunset and off at bedtime in Home Assistant, with weekend schedules, away handling and a free blueprint you can import.

22 October 2026

Home Assistant · Guides & Tutorials
HACS becomes Marketplace in Home Assistant 2026.11: what to do
Home Assistant 2026.11 replaces HACS with the built-in Marketplace. What carries over, what stops updating, and the templates and YAML resources to check.
22 October 2026
Home Assistant · Guides & Tutorials
Connect Claude or ChatGPT to Home Assistant with the built-in MCP server
Turn on Home Assistant's built-in MCP server, limit what an AI can control, and connect Claude's free plan. Plus what ChatGPT requires, what MCP can't do yet, and privacy notes.
22 October 2026
Home Assistant · Guides & Tutorials
Add your Apple iCloud Calendar to Home Assistant (2026 update)
Two ways to get iCloud calendars into Home Assistant: the Apple iCloud integration (calendars and Reminders since 2026.10) or CalDAV with an app password.
22 October 2026
Home Assistant · Guides & Tutorials
Getting started with dashboards: Sections view, cards, badges and visibility
Build a Home Assistant dashboard in the Sections view: sections, Tile cards, header badges and per-user visibility, with a working YAML example.
22 October 2026