Home Assistant has to-do lists—here are 5 clever ways to use them

Home Assistant provides native to-do list integrations like Local Tasks and Shopping List, as well as third-party integrations for Todoist, Google Tasks, and more. You can use them as traditional to-do lists, but there are clever ways to get a lot more out of them.

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You don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Let Home Assistant manage your lists

Automate your lists to free you from work

Home Assistant is all about smart home automation, and your to-do lists are also something you can automate. Instead of having to manually fill out your lists yourself, you can have Home Assistant fill them out for you using automations.

For example, you can use an automation that works with Home Assistant’s local calendar to automatically add a task to your to-do list at the start of each month, asking you to test your smoke detectors. Once checked, it will disappear from your to-do list until the start of the next month. You can do the same for other recurring tasks like changing HVAC filters, taking out the trash, watering plants, etc.

You can also use external calendar entries from options like Google Calendar integration to generate tasks. For example, you can use birthday entries to automatically create tasks like buying gifts or sending birthday cards at appropriate times.

Smarter tasks that respond to your home

Real life is never a fixed schedule

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The real power of to-do lists in Home Assistant is that they don’t have to be rigid. Your to-do list can adapt to what’s happening in your home.

For example, instead of having to think about buying batteries all the time, you can set up automation that adds the correct battery type to your shopping list every time a smart home device indicates that its batteries are below 10%. You can track how many times your robot vacuum has run and automatically add a task to empty it after the tenth time, or monitor appliances like washers, dryers, and dishwashers using appropriate smart plugs or smart home sensors, and add a task to empty them once the cycle is complete.

Tasks that adapt to you

Create a more flexible schedule

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The problem with many to-do lists is that they are inflexible. You can add a task, such as dusting, to appear on your to-do list every other day. If you ignore it one day and do it the next, your to-do list might end up telling you to start again the next day.

With Home Assistant, you can use automation to dynamically add tasks based on when they’re completed. Instead of adding a new dusting task to your list every other day, your automation only triggers when you mark the current task as complete. Once done, the automation will create a new task two days later.

You can even create automations that reschedule tasks for you. For example, if you have a task of hanging laundry in the morning and the forecast calls for rain, your automation can automatically move the task to later in the day when the forecast is better.

Never forget to buy milk again

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In addition to Local To-Do integration, there is also native shopping list integration in Home Assistant. This is a simple dedicated to-do list that does not include some of the features of the Local To-Do integration, such as due dates and descriptions.

Even though the shopping list is simple, it can still be incredibly useful. For starters, it’s accessible to everyone in your household who also uses Home Assistant. This makes it an easy way to access a shared shopping list that anyone can update.

The real magic happens when you use other Home Assistant features. For example, you can set up zones for your local grocery stores and create an automation that triggers when you enter that zone. If your shopping list has unchecked items, you can generate a notification telling you to buy the milk while you’re at it.

You can also use automation to populate the list for you. For example, with a smart plug, you can track how many times your coffee machine has run. After a certain number of times, you can automatically add coffee beans to the shopping list. NFC tags or smart buttons are also useful ways to quickly add common items to the shopping list when you run out of them.

Make it easier to create and track tasks

Use your voice to add to your lists

There are two key elements you need for any good to-do list. You need to be able to easily add new tasks and you need a way to see which tasks you need to complete. With Home Assistant, you can do both.

By default, a to-do list section is added to the Home Assistant sidebar, where you can quickly add new tasks or check off completed ones. However, you may prefer to create a more elegant custom dashboard, using conditional cards that will only show incomplete tasks. You can then display it on a wall-mounted dashboard to provide a visual reminder of the tasks to be accomplished.

Adding tasks can also be done in other ways. By default, the Assist voice assistant will automatically add an item to your shopping list if you say something like “add peanut butter to list.” This makes it quick and easy to add items to the shopping list as you think of them.

Dimensions

84x84x21mm

Weight

96g

Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition is a privacy-focused smart speaker designed as an alternative to Amazon Alexa and Google Nest Mini. It adds voice assistant capabilities, including local-only processing, to a Home Assistant-powered smart home.

Let Home Assistant do the work

To-do lists aren’t particularly exciting, but with Home Assistant you can make them less tedious. With automation and other tips, you can spend less time managing your to-do list and more time getting things done.