When I moved into this flat, I made myself one rule: I would not put a single hole in a wall I don’t own. Everything had to plug in, stick on, or sit on a shelf — and come off clean the day I move out. Two years later, my rental is genuinely automated, and I could pack the whole thing into one box in an afternoon.

Here is exactly how a normal day runs now, device by device, so you can copy the parts that fit your place.

Everything here runs locally through Home Assistant — no cloud accounts deciding when my lights turn on. Some links may be affiliate links; they cost you nothing and help keep the site going.

The morning runs itself

Curtains open with the sun. I didn’t touch the rail. A small curtain robot clips onto the existing track and pulls the curtains along — adhesive bracket, no screws. At sunrise (or 07:00 on dark winter mornings, whichever is later) they slide open on their own. Best €60 I’ve spent: waking up to daylight instead of an alarm changed my mornings more than any other gadget.

The kettle is already hot. The kettle sits on a smart plug. When my alarm goes off, Home Assistant switches the plug on, so by the time I’m in the kitchen the water has just boiled. (One safety note: only do this with a kettle that has its own auto-shutoff — every modern one does.)

Coffee, same trick. My filter coffee machine is loaded the night before and sits on a second smart plug. Alarm off → plug on → coffee brewing. I didn’t modify either appliance; I just control the power.

Lights that follow me, not a switch

Every lamp runs on either a screw-in smart bulb or a smart plug. I haven’t touched a light switch in months — and crucially, I changed no wiring, so the landlord’s switches still work normally for guests.

A stick-on motion sensor in the hallway turns the lights on when I get up at night (dimmed to 10% so it doesn’t blind me). In the evening the bulbs shift to a warm tone automatically. Nothing here needed an electrician — just bulbs swapped into existing sockets and a couple of 3M-mounted sensors. If you want the specifics, I wrote them up in the smart plugs guide.

The honest bit about the oven

People always ask about the oven. Here’s the truth: you should not switch a built-in oven on and off with a smart plug — it’s too much current and it’s not safe. What I actually do is keep the real cooking on something I can control safely: my countertop oven / air fryer runs on a smart plug. That one I can automate and, more importantly, force off: my “leaving home” routine cuts its power, so I never again stand on the train wondering if I left it on.

For the big built-in oven, the win is a reminder, not control: a simple timer in Home Assistant nudges my phone if I started cooking and haven’t tapped “done” within a set time — a soft safety net, no rewiring.

Leaving and coming home

Tapping one button — or just walking out the door, since my phone’s location triggers it — runs the “away” routine: kettle plug off, lamps off, air fryer off, heating turned down. One action, whole flat safe.

Coming back reverses it. The door sensor (stuck on with adhesive, peels off in seconds) notices the door open, and if it’s after dark the hallway and living-room lights come up to greet me. The smart lock — which sits over the existing thumb-turn, no drilling — logs that I’m in and re-locks itself after a minute so I can’t forget. I compared the ones I tried in the no-drill smart locks guide.

Wind-down and “good night”

At sunset the curtains close and the lights warm up without me asking. When I say “good night,” one routine switches off every plug and bulb, drops the heating, and checks the front door is locked — if it isn’t, my phone tells me before I’m in bed.

What it cost and what I’d skip

All in, the reversible setup landed in the low hundreds of euros, spread over many months — I added one piece at a time, which is the whole point. If I started again I’d buy the smart plugs and the Home Assistant box first (that’s the foundation — here’s how I set it up), then the curtain robot, then everything else. The full shopping list is in my 100% reversible starter kit.

The point was never to live in a sci-fi house. It was to make a rented flat quietly take care of the boring stuff — and to know that when the lease ends, it all comes off the walls and moves with me.