Home Assistant

Home Assistant is an open source smart home management platform.

I use Home Assistant to help support my 3D printing in the following ways:

Bambu Labs Integration

I have installed the Bambu Lab HACS integration which allows me to monitor my printing in a similar way to the mobile app, but I can keep a history and also tie other automations into it.

For example, when my prints finish, as well as getting a notification via the mobile app, I also get a notification via Pushover, which I also have integrated into Home Assistant. Unlike the mobile app, I get access to some additional options with Pushover on how I can modify my notifications. You could set up similar integrations to allow your smart speaker to announce when there is an issue, or flash your living room lights green when a print successfully finishes.

Panda PWR Integration

I have installed the Panda PWR HACS integration which allows me to monitor and control the Bigtreetech - Panda PWR unit that sits inline for the power for my printer.

This means I can power cycle the printer without having to be present, on my home network with the Panda Touch, or getting onto my home network to access the web-based control panel. Instead I can do it through the convenience of a Home Assistant dashboard. I can also have a notification for when a firmware update for the PWR unit is available.

Zigbee Hygrometer

As well as having a simple display on my Bambu Lab AMS via a basic hygrometer, I also have a hygrometer in my AMS that is linked via Zigbee to Home Assistant. While Home Assistant can get data from the AMS via my P1S printer, if they are powered down (to conserve power consumption), it can’t read it. In addition, the humidity sensor for the AMS in Home Assistant just gives me a humidity index. Using the dedicated hygrometer I can get a more accurate percentage read along with the temperature.

Again this allows me to get a notification of when things are too humid and I can then give the filaments a dry and also replace my desiccant (or more accurately dry it out and reuse it).