Use Claude to draft Home Assistant automations
A busy parent connected Claude to Home Assistant with MCP and used it to create automations, including a stove-on detector based on power draw.
- What they did
- The person had largely stopped touching their Home Assistant setup, then linked Claude to the instance through MCP and asked it to do the automation work instead of writing YAML by hand. Claude looked over devices and existing automations, suggested logic for occupancy and state checks, and helped build a helper that judges whether the stove is on from range power readings. It also added alerting and an exhaust-fan routine, while the person still checked the plan, code, and backups themselves.
- How it went
- They said jobs that once took days could be finished in minutes. One commenter reported an automation that would usually have taken days working on the first try in about 10 minutes. The main caution was that Claude can make things more complex than needed and may need access to more Home Assistant data than some users want to share.
- Tips
- Keep backups out of the agent’s reach, and review any YAML or plan before letting it apply changes. MCP-based setups can also use a lot of tokens, so keep the scope tight.
Try it yourself with Claude
I use Home Assistant and want help building an automation for [goal]. My devices and entities are [list your relevant entities, IDs, and what each one measures]. Please inspect what matters, suggest the simplest reliable logic, and draft the full YAML or helper setup I need. Before you make any change that could send a notification, delete something, submit a config, or otherwise apply settings, stop and ask me to approve the exact plan first. After I approve, show me where each piece goes and how to test it safely.
Fill in the [brackets]. Agents can make mistakes, so review anything before it is sent, paid or deleted.
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