Creating Home Assistant Automations with Elixir GenServers

The article delves into using Elixir to create a home automation engine via GenServers for Home Assistant. It introduces the topic by discussing the author’s interest in home automation and reflects on the challenges faced when using various tools. The author highlights the benefits of using Elixir's concurrency model for writing automations, explaining how to connect to Home Assistant's WebSocket API, subscribe to state changes, and manage events. Subsequently, practical sections include code snippets and examples demonstrating automation triggers, such as turning on lights at specific times and creating wake-up sequences, as well as handling real-time events. The post also discusses testing strategies for GenServers, capturing WebSocket messages, and potential future features like cron-like scheduling and a simplified API for automations.