Brewing With Home Assistant: From Modbus PIDs to ESPHome Fermentation Control with Greg Martin
Home Assistant PodcastShow Notes
Greg joins Phil and Rohan to share how he built a brewery control system with ESPHome and Home Assistant: Modbus PID retrofits, ESP32-based temperature control with one-wire probes and 24V valves, Bluetooth gravity sensors via proxies, pressure management, and full on-site HA installs with PoE satellites.
Watch this episode on YouTube https://homeassistant.fm/ha210
Support the Podcast Get early-access to episodes and an ad-free feed by supporting our Patreon. Support Rohan and Phil on Patreon
Share your story We wouldn't be able to do this podcast without community members and home automation enthusiasts sharing their stories. To register your interest to come share your home automation journey, head over to homeassistant.fm and click share your story.
Chapters 00:00:00 Intro, sponsors, and Greg’s background 00:05:30 From Modbus PIDs to ESPHome brewery control (gravity, pressure, 1‑Wire) 00:10:45 Turning it into a business: pilot installs, testbeds, and scale 00:15:45 Local-first architecture: on-site Home Assistant, PoE satellites, Bluetooth proxy 00:22:30 Hardware talk: Blue/Yellow/Green, mini PCs, RAM needs, migration plans 00:28:00 Home automations: locks, Reolink presence, candles, sump/dehumidifier monitoring 00:35:00 Water and power: AI-on-the-edge metering, overuse alerts, three-phase pumps & contactors 00:42:00 QoL automations: fish-feeding sensor, night stair lighting, backup ideas 00:49:30 Fun stuff: ESPN team goal lights, polling vs. streaming delays, event triggers 00:55:00 Data + reporting: Utility Meter, History Stats, InfluxDB, AI ideas, alerts, wrap-up
This episode was made possible thanks to our sponsors Home Assistant Cloud by Nabu Casa Easily connect to Google and Amazon voice assistants for a small monthly fee that also supports the Home Assistant project. Configuration is via the User Interface so no fiddling with router settings, dynamic DNS, or YAML.
Zooz If you're looking to upgrade your smart home - you can’t go past Zooz! Zooz offers a range of affordable and innovative devices, including water leak sensors, water valve controllers, smart plugs and scene controllers. For the best prices on all Zooz products, head over to thesmartesthouse.com
Hosts Phil Hawthorne Website Smart Home Products Twitter: @philhawthorne Bluesky: @philhawthorne.com Buy Phil a Coffee
Rohan Karamandi Website Smart Home Products Twitter: @rohank9 Buy Rohan a Coffee
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
More from Home Assistant Podcast
Phil and Rohan tour Patreon supporter Jason’s Home Assistant setup. Discover how he uses UniFi cameras as motion sensors, automatically aims a PTZ camera, and identifies backyard birds with BirdNet. Watch this episode on YouTube Show notes for this episode are available at https://homeassistant.fm/HA255
A temperature sensor, a smart plug and a baby who wouldn’t sleep started Mayan’s Home Assistant journey. Phil and Rohan explore how that first nursery automation grew into Zigbee heating controls, local white noise, custom lighting and a whole-house dashboard.
Phil and Rohan unpack Home Assistant 2026.10, from redesigned maps and easier trigger-based automations to AI setup, Matter devices and Z-Wave network maps. They also discuss reports about LG TV privacy and Shelly’s planned acquisition.
Phil and Rohan are joined by Trey from Tallahassee, Florida, to explore his local-first Home Assistant setup. From an X10 beginning and a MyQ API shutdown to Zigbee migrations, Trey has seen a lot!
Roland joins Phil and Rohan to share how a simple attempt to measure an old fridge's energy use led to a deeply data-driven Home Assistant smart home. Energy monitoring, solar forecasting, home batteries, EV charging, ESPHome, weather data and templates are all used to make his home smarter.