How Home Assistant made me love automation flows in real life

Description and use

Automated gate access, alarm control, and vehicle locking with Home Assistant, including sequential gate opening, Verisure alarm management, and Toyota lock integration, enhancing security and convenience.

Problem

Automating physical access and home systems was cumbersome and manual, lacking integration with Home Assistant.

Outcome

Automated gate sequences, alarm modes, and car lock/unlock, reducing manual steps and improving home security and convenience.

Workflow

• 1. Reverse engineered Alfred Smart REST API to create rest_commands for each gate.
• 2. Built scripts to open gates in sequence with timed waits, adjustable via a popup.
• 3. Added health check badge polling API to detect offline status.
• 4. Implemented GPS-based arrival prompt with accuracy filtering and gate selection.
• 5. Integrated Verisure alarm via Securitas HACS integration, adding Disarmed/Partial/Full buttons.
• 6. Extended Toyota HACS integration with custom lock.py to enable lock/unlock and timed notifications.
• 7. Created panel buttons for arriving/going out to open garage doors in sequence.
• 8. Configured Home Assistant dashboard with Bubble Card and Mushroom for control and monitoring.

Evidence

I rebuilt both as rest_commands in Home Assistant, sending the same headers the web app does.

Source

The alarm disarms when we get home. Me and my partner are not detected home after closing the door, but no alarm was set? It is automatically set.

Source

I wrote a lock.py for it. That made the car automations possible: unlocked for 3 minutes → a notification, still unlocked at 6 → lock it.

Source