About this site
Updated:
My name is Fritz Zetik, I am from Vienna and I work there in software development. Home automation is not my profession — it is what is left over when you have three homes and are not in any of them every day.
I run Home Assistant in three homes: a city flat in Vienna, a second home in Merano and a house with a garden in Kapfenberg. This site is the long version of what has to fit into forty seconds on Instagram.
Why three locations are worth something
The same need meets completely different conditions: different buildings, different tariffs, different countries, different devices. If you want to know whether a solution fails because of your home or because of the device, you get three data points here instead of one.
What this is not: a controlled manufacturer comparison. A thermostat in an old building and one in a house with solar storage cannot be played off against each other. The differences are part of the story, not part of a test bench.
How a post is built
Roughly four fifths everyday use, one fifth technology. First the problem, then what actually happens, then the limits. The technology comes last, because it answers the question rather than being it.
Every post belongs to one of six recurring questions:
- Smart or pointless? — one device, one real test, one verdict.
- This saves me … — which steps genuinely disappear.
- What happens if …? — pull the trigger and watch.
- What went wrong? — false conclusions and what they cost.
- What lands on the bill? — meters, standby load, forecasts.
- Three places, one routine — comparisons and ongoing projects.
What you will not find here
- No savings claims without measurement. If I give a figure, I measured it. Otherwise it says “not measured”.
- No finished verdicts on unfinished projects. Anything still open carries a Work in progress notice at the top.
- No instructions for licensed work. Electricity, gas, heating, water: that is what qualified trades are for. I document what I did; I am not signing anything off.
- No addresses, credentials or identifiable third parties. Neither in images nor in configuration excerpts.
Bruno
Bruno is the dog, not the mascot of a marketing concept. He shows up where he already is — in front of the stove in Kapfenberg, at the door when I come home, at the water fountain.
What does not exist here: GPS tracking, automatic dog detection, doors that open for him, or drinking-volume measurement. That would be invented. Bruno does not have to perform, and he is never made warm or bored for the sake of a shot.
Posts he appears in carry his paw mark.
Contact
Corrections are welcome. If something is wrong it gets changed, and the revision date is shown at the top.