Why is no one talking about this combo?!

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Take a quick look at this. I have this conditional statement to basically look at the kitchen lights and only turn on the office lights if the kitchen lights are off. Right now, the lights in the office are off. And technically, the lights in the kitchen are also off. So, my expectation is that the lights here in the office should turn on.

[00:00:21]Here we go.

[00:00:23]It's thinking.

[00:00:28]The lights turned on.

[00:00:30]And it says, "The lights in the kitchen are off, so I've turned on the lights in the office."

[00:00:34]Here's why this is important. If I were to recreate this logic within Home Assistant, it would look something like this. Given some manual event, if the lights in the kitchen are off, then turn on the office light. I have a really important point, so stay with me.

[00:00:49]If I wanted to repeat this type of condition for other lights or for other situations, I would have to have a bunch of other if then statements. This can get really tedious, and this isn't really sustainable or can scale well with your infrastructure. So, the question is, how do you do this at scale? How can you create code that will or an automation that will basically do that type of if then logic, but you never have to really create a bunch of if then statements or have to constantly update the code to incorporate new systems or new lights or new whatever you want to call it into your house. Like, how do you do this and not have to always touch your automation?

[00:01:31]Let me introduce to you my new obsession.

[00:01:34]I'm not going to go into the detail about MCPs or how it works or what it really is. Just know that it is a way for system A to talk to system B without having to know much. This is a gross oversimplification, but uh just stay with me. This MCP server for Home Assistant gives the LLM all the information it needs to actually do work, to understand and to make decisions. So, in this case where I simply say, "Hey, if this thing occurs, then do this other thing." It has to know, for instance, what the kitchen lights are, like what are their states.

[00:02:11]And the MCP lets the LLM know, "Hey, if you want to know the states of the house or any, let's say, item within the house, here's what you can call." And the LLM will call it. Then the LLM has its answer. And then the LLM will be like, "Well, okay. Now that I know the state, uh I need to turn on a light or I need to make some kind of decision." And then the MCP server will then say, "Hey, if you want to actually do something or change a light, here's the thing that you can call." And then the LLM will be like, "Oh, great. Let's call it, and I want to change this particular entity."

[00:02:40]And then it will do it. It it basically is a window into your smart home, but a window that you get to control. So, no matter if you add or take away new devices, because it's connected to Home Assistant, Home Assistant is always giving the LLM the most up-to-date information about your home. That means I can create an automation once, and it stays good for its entirety.

[00:03:05]Million-dollar question, so what, right?

[00:03:08]Why would I want to do something like this? Why like even the example of the whole if then type of thing, like that's a really trivial example. How is that important? Why did I even show it? And here's the kicker. This really isn't about turning on and off lights or just automations in general. This the concepts that I showed you here with the if then and its uh scalability changes the way how we create automations, and it changes what kind of automations we can create. Let me dive deeper.

[00:03:38]First, I'm going to address the how. How does this change the way that we make automations?

[00:03:43]What you see here is an automation. It is an if then automation. If something, then do something else. And that is how basically all automations work. You have a trigger, and then it has some conditions that it needs to fulfill in order to do the trigger.

[00:03:59]But I didn't have to go through some Home Assistant interface. I didn't have to go into Node-RED or anything like that. All of this stuff is set up once, and then with text, I've just generated an automation. If I wanted to rerun that, then I would get the same output, essentially.

[00:04:18]This is game-changing, because now automations are less nebulous, they're less uh technical, they're more user-friendly with just regular plain text.

[00:04:29]I showed this concept before uh with Obsidian, where I've had my wife write into an Obsidian note, let's say, an automation, and then she was able to just trigger it from within Obsidian, just using plain text. But this gets easier with MCP.

[00:04:44]Let me give you a caveat, though. Just because you can do it this way doesn't mean you should do this way for everything. If you can write a simple automation using, let's say, more concrete methods, do it. If you have something that's a little bit more nebulous or you want to add a little bit more flexibility, then you have this tool set. But this new ability of how we create automations changes what kind of automations we can make. So, let me get into the what. This MCP server is for Home Assistant, so it lets me do things within Home Assistant. Turning off and on lights, understanding the state of entities, stuff like that. But what if you want to create an MCP server for, let's say, controlling things on your calendar? Or perhaps you want an MCP server to control how you create tasks?

[00:05:25]Or maybe you're using Monica, and you want an MCP server to control how you create contacts, how you get information from it, learn about birthdays, whatever you want to do with it. Like, the concept remains the same. If you want to do something, add some kind of logic or extend the ability of your smart home, you just need to add another MCP server, and then all of a sudden, your home has the ability to do much more.

[00:05:51]Okay, so I have this more complicated automation or command that I'm going to give my smart home. Essentially, I'm telling it to check if the dishwasher is clean, and if the light in the kitchen is off, then I want it to announce in the office the current date and time, and then turn off the lights in the office. The lights are currently on.

[00:06:11]All right, let's give it a go.

[00:06:23]Oh.

[00:06:26]The current date and time is Sunday, March 22nd, 2026.

[00:06:36]Okay. So, it did turn off the lights in the office. The plug for this one stopped working, but that's fine. And it did announce in the kitchen that the the current date and time, because the one in the office is currently disconnected.

[00:06:50]I forgot to plug it back in. But it still worked. It worked nonetheless.

[00:06:54]Despite all of the weird variables, of certain devices not being available, of lights not being available, it still worked.