As discussed previously we should investigate each of the software packages involved in providing our virtual bean counter , so that if (when) problems occur we have a working plan for resolving them. As Home Assistant (HA) forms the base layer of the system, it is a reasonable point to begin at. So, where does HA come from? It was started as program to control Philips Hue smart light bulbs written by Paulus Schoutsen and has since grown into a large community-based IoT open source project on GitHub . How long has it been around? Since 2013 , so over 10 years now and the operating system (OS) software is on its 13th full point release . The OS is now provided via the Open Home Foundation and is financially supported by a single partner, Nabu Casa , but all three projects are led by mostly the same people. It is a mature offering supported by thousands of contributors (the most active project on GitHub by number of contributors) and is as fully supported as an open source pr...