Reference implementation: Hobby Excellent 540 FU (2019)
Turn a travel trailer (caravan / Wohnwagen) into a fully monitored, remotely accessible, and extensible smart system using Home Assistant, ESPHome, and open standards.
This repository is a complete solution / reference architecture, not a Home Assistant integration or HACS component.
It documents a real, running system, built incrementally and used in practice.
✅ Designed for travel trailers
❌ Not intended for motorhomes
❌ No 4‑point leveling logic (front‑only leveling)
This project follows a few clear principles:
- System, not gadget – this is a complete caravan automation stack
- Mobile‑first UX – dashboards optimized for phones & tablets
- YAML‑first – no click‑ops, everything version‑controlled
- Vendor‑neutral – ESPHome, Zigbee, MQTT, Bluetooth
- Safe by design – no unsafe automation (especially leveling)
- Adaptable – Hobby is the reference, not a hard requirement
Home Assistant runs locally inside the caravan and acts as the central brain.
Typical setup:
- Raspberry Pi 4 running Home Assistant OS
- ESP32 nodes running ESPHome
- Zigbee coordinator + Zigbee2MQTT
- Bluetooth adapters / ESPHome BT proxies
- Local LAN with optional remote access
All logic is implemented using Home Assistant packages, templates, scripts, and dashboards –
no custom Python integration required.
Front‑only leveling designed specifically for travel trailers:
- ESPHome IMU‑based sensors
- Set‑level & reset calibration workflow
- Dedicated Lovelace UI
- Manual guidance only (no actuator automation)
📁 Package: packages/caravan_leveling
Power monitoring and alerting focused on off‑grid usage:
- Battery voltage, current, SOC
- Charging state awareness
- Threshold‑based alerts
- Prepared for AGM → LiFePO₄ upgrades
- Designed to integrate chargers, DC‑DC, solar later
📁 Package: packages/caravan_power
Comfort and safety monitoring:
- Multiple interior zones (sleeping, living, kitchen, bathroom)
- Outside temperature
- Trend‑based alerts (too cold / too hot)
- Prepared for Truma heater integration (Bluetooth path)
Centralized lighting control:
- Zigbee‑first approach
- Grouped by zones
- Manual override always possible
- Easily adaptable to different caravan layouts
Fresh‑water tank level monitoring:
- No drilling solutions preferred
- ESPHome‑based
- Continuous percentage calculation
- Works with common multi‑probe tanks
Location awareness for a mobile system:
- Automatic GPS device detection
- Location display & status
- Foundation for geofencing & travel modes
Connectivity visibility and diagnostics:
- WAN status monitoring
- Starlink + LTE failover awareness
- Router state integration (GL.iNet)
- Clear “online / degraded / offline” states
Central notification framework:
- Push notifications
- Optional TTS
- Quiet hours
- Suppression / maintenance mode
- Severity‑based behavior
Mobile‑first dashboards:
- Caravan overview
- Power
- Climate
- Connectivity
- Leveling
- Maintenance / diagnostics
UX follows a simple severity model:
- 🟢 OK
- 🟧 Attention
- 🔴 Alarm
Reusable ESPHome patterns:
- Modular ESP32 nodes
- OTA‑ready
- Clean entity naming
- Designed for reuse across caravans
Custom enclosures for ESP & sensors:
- STL files included
- Designed for caravan environment
- Easy mounting & service access
📁 Folder: hardware/
The Caravan (Mobile) start page is the primary operational dashboard when traveling. It is designed to be mobile-first, high-contrast, and easy to read, especially on phones.
- Fresh Water – current tank level with trend indication
- Battery – state of charge with early warning visibility
- Temperature – current interior temperature
- Connectivity – active WAN (e.g. Starlink / LTE)
- GPS – positioning status
- Heating – Truma / heating integration (experimental / lab)
- Security – doors, windows, alarm state
- Level – caravan leveling status with quick access to calibration
Each tile links to a dedicated sub-page for deeper diagnostics and control.
This repository is not HACS‑installable by design.
It is intended to be cloned or copied into an existing Home Assistant setup.
- Clone or download the repository:
git clone https://github.com/DanStasiak/caravan-home-assistant.git
- Copy the relevant folders into your Home Assistant
/configdirectory:packages/dashboards/templates/scripts/esphome/hardware/docs/
- Restart Home Assistant
Enable packages in configuration.yaml:
homeassistant:
packages: !include_dir_merge_named packages- ESPHome devices are discovered automatically via mDNS / native API
- Zigbee2MQTT devices appear via MQTT discovery
- Bluetooth devices appear via native adapters or ESPHome BT proxies
- Dashboards are provided as YAML and can be imported or included manually
Reusable across most travel trailers:
- Dashboards
- Notification & alert logic
- Connectivity monitoring
- ESPHome patterns
Trailer‑specific adjustments:
- Lighting zones
- Water tank wiring
- Sensor placement
- Entity naming conventions
The Hobby Excellent 540 FU is the reference, not a limitation.
- Leveling: Production
- Other subsystems: Active development
- Used during real travel and continuously refined
This is a DIY project.
You are responsible for:
- Electrical safety
- Regulatory compliance
- Hardware modifications
Provided as‑is, without warranty.
This repository is structured with clarity, documentation, and reuse in mind, to allow future community use and potential HACS-style distribution of individual packages.
Issues, discussions, and pull requests are welcome —
especially improvements that make the system easier to adapt to other travel trailers.
This project is developed, tested, and maintained in real-world use, entirely in my spare time.
If this repository helps you build, learn, or improve your own Caravan / Travel Trailer Home Assistant setup,
I would greatly appreciate your support by buying me a coffee.
👉 Buy me a coffee:
https://buymeacoffee.com/dstasiak
Your support helps fund hardware, sensors, test setups, and ongoing development — and is very much appreciated.
This project is developed, tested, and maintained in real-world use, entirely in my spare time.
If this repository helps you build, learn, or improve your own Caravan / Travel Trailer Home Assistant setup,
I would greatly appreciate your support by buying me a coffee.
👉 Buy me a coffee:
https://buymeacoffee.com/dstasiak
Support helps fund hardware, sensors, test setups, documentation, and ongoing development.
Community contributions are welcome via:
- Issues for questions or discussion
- Pull requests for improvements and extensions
- Documentation enhancements for broader caravan compatibility
While this repository is currently a full reference implementation, parts of it are intentionally structured to allow extraction into standalone, HACS‑installable packages in the future.
Planned candidates include:
- 📐 Caravan Leveling (travel‑trailer safe)
- 🔔 Notification & alert framework
- 📶 Connectivity & uplink monitoring
- 🌡️ Climate / zone aggregation templates
These packages will be grouped under:
packages_hacs/
Each package will include:
- Independent README
- Clear prerequisites
- Auto‑discovery notes
- Versioning & changelog
- HACS‑compatible structure and metadata
This approach allows:
- Clean reuse outside this repository
- Easier community adoption
- Optional installation without the full system