When you’ve armed your home with smart gadgets and IoT paraphernalia, there are several ways you can enhance their functionality. There’s Home Assistant, which offers an easy UI to manage your smart home equipment. For a full-on surveillance system, you can opt for Frigate, MotionEye, or ZoneMinder. Then you’ve got Node-RED, a visual programming tool that makes automating your living space a cinch.

Rather than forcing you to type lines upon lines of code inside an IDE, Node-RED helps you configure your devices (or nodes, as they’re displayed inside the tool) using triggers, events, and flows. So, here’s a list of the cool projects you can build with Node-RED.

5 RFID-based access control

Secure your home, one tag at a time

For the uninitiated, RFID locking mechanisms let you configure ID tags to secure your home. But you can pair them with Node-RED to further enhance their utility. For instance, you can use the RFID scanned by Node-RED to limit or grant access to certain users.

Or, you can configure the automated RFID system to accept special PINs to unlock a certain set of doors, making it easier to accept packages while you’re away without compromising the security of your home.

4 Automated window blinds

Vampires and late risers will hate this one

Investing in motorized blinds can help you remotely control the amount of light entering your room(s). But if you’re into tinkering, motorized blinds open the door (or windows, in this case) to Node-RED-powered automation.

For a straightforward setup, you can automate the blinds to synchronize with the morning/evening hours. Alternatively, you can pull the solar azimuth values for your location on an SBC and use them to specify the exact time to activate the blinds.

3 Automated thermostat

No more fights over the thermostat

Ever wanted a thermostat that would automatically modify its heating/cooling modes based on the climate? You can use another device (like a Raspberry Pi) to pull the local weather chart and use it to set up automation triggers inside Node-RED.

For an even more reliable setup, you can build a weather station with your favorite SBC/microcontroller, and use its readings as the triggers for the thermostat.

2 Automated sprinkler system

That can even detect moisture levels in your soil

If you’ve got a backyard, you can combine your sprinkler with Node-RED to automatically water the floral denizens of your home. Although you’ll have to replace the manual valves with smart valves, this project can ensure your plants get watered at the right intervals.

For a simple irrigation system, you can schedule your sprinklers to remain active for a specific duration every day. Or you can enhance the utility (and complexity) of this setup up a notch by checking the soil’s moisture level with your favorite microcontroller and using low moisture levels as the trigger for the automated sprinkler.

1 Automatic light control

To save electricity while you’re away

Turning off your lights and other devices when you’re away can save quite a few bucks on your energy bills. Node-RED lets you automate this tedious process in a handful of ways. If you’re using Home Assistant, you can set up presence detection for multiple users and prompt Node-RED to power down most of your lighting, heating, and other equipment when everyone’s away.

Alternatively, you can set up door sensors in your house to scan for a user’s presence before flicking the lights off. Or you can go for a simple setup where Node-RED turns your lights on/off in accordance with the time.

Building an automated smart home with Node-RED and Home Assistant

Although you can deploy Node-RED as a standalone container, it’s best used in tandem with a Home Assistant. That’s because configuring it as an HASS plugin lets you add every sensor, smart gadget, microcontroller, and user from Home Assistant to the Node-RED’s UI, thereby saving you the trouble of importing them manually. Plus, it’s a lot more powerful than the YAML/trigger-action automation provisions you’ll find on Home Assistant, especially when you factor the cool Node-RED palettes into the equation.