The End of the Light Strip Saga, and A New Beginning for My Home Automation
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The End of the Light Strip Saga, and A New Beginning for My Home Automation
Who would have guessed that sometimes the most obvious answer is also the correct one? (Well, I can name one guy.)
For the past two weeks, I’ve been writing about my experiment with an RGB light strip that I got from Amazon and wanted to make compatible with HomeKit by using either Homebridge or Home Assistant running on my Mac mini server. As I shared in the latest issue of the Monthly Log and expanded upon in the pro segment of Connected earlier this week, I was struggling with creating a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) connection between my Mac mini running a Debian virtual machine for Home Assistant and the light strip sitting outside on my balcony. What I thought was strange was the fact that although my Mac mini’s built-in Bluetooth antenna could find the strip, albeit with a low signal, the USB Bluetooth dongle I was using for Home Assistant (since VMs cannot use a Mac mini’s internal Bluetooth radio) couldn’t find it at all.