My resolutions for 2025

Yeah, I know, these resolutions are boring as F*ck 🖕. Some might even say having a New Year resolution is key to making resolutions fail! (Yes, Missy, I'm referring to you) 🙃 Whatever everyone thinks, I'm going to try! 💪

Soon™, I'll publish a blog summarizing my 2024, as it was an extremely interesting and eventful year. 2025, however, isn't kicking off slowly either. I'm writing this while I'm actually on a plane back home from Las Vegas after visiting the CES 2025 expo (Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest expo on any consumer technology out there), which is an adventure on its own; I will write a blog on that soon™ as the smart home was very well represented this year.

Anyway, back to my New Year's resolutions.

1. Write my ass off

I love to write. ✍️ I actually write a lot. In fact, even today, I still write most of the Home Assistant release notes myself, and I write a lot in my journals. Heck, I even wrote many blog posts I've never published! 😭

I really don't understand why I never published those blogs, though; I've been thinking about "why". Maybe my website is not up to par? Maybe WordPress is blocking it? (To be honest, it is kind of slow and maintenance-heavy. Let's not get started on all the drama around it).

I also realize it is just a flimsy excuse 🙈 Yet, I've taken the time to migrate my website to the Ghost platform. Ghost is nice, simple, fast, and easy to write and work with, and I've opted to let them host it for me, so that excuse no longer flies now 😆

Welcome to my new website 🎉 And not just that, this change comes with the ability for me to write newsletters as well. 🗞️

Okay, so I'm going to do more writing, blogging, newsletters, spam socials, and whatnot. What do I want to achieve? If I look back to 2025 in 2026, when would I call this resolution achieved? I'm going to set the bar high on this one.

• At least 365 messages were published on my socials.
• At least 26 new blog articles were published.
• At least 26 newsletters were sent.

😅 Already sweating as I'm writing out these... Let's go! 💪 🚀

2. Contribute to open source

I'm a full-time open sourcerer, meaning I get to contribute code to open source projects all day. I work full-time as an engineering lead for Home Assistant.

In 2024, I made around 700 open-source contributions (in this case, code contributions via a pull request). This is a lot, but honestly, it has been the lowest number I've had in years. My peak was in 2021 when I made around 3600 pull requests. That was a crazy figure.

Okay, so I'd like to make more open-source contributions. When will I achieve this goal? I'd be very happy if I could make 1000 pull requests this year.

I've reset my little physical pull request counter, so let's go! 💪 🚀

3. A working smart home

"Hey Frenck, since you work on Home Assistant, your smart home must be crazy interesting, right?"

Yeah, it is crazy interesting because... NOTHING works! I'm not even kidding. This is not Home Assistant's fault; I am the one to blame for this.

Over the years, my home has become a test lab for Home Assistant. I constantly break stuff (on purpose), reproduce bugs, constantly try out new concepts, or rename stuff for a screenshot in the release notes. Heck, I run the development version of Home Assistant on my "main production" Home Assistant instance. Yet, an awful lot of things are being actively controlled through it.

PS: While writing this, I realized I could probably write a blog on the current state of my smart home... 🤔 Guess that will help with my first resolution 😄

The above screenshot says it all. The background was to test the recently added capability to upload backgrounds (spoiler... it has nothing to do with my office). "Meeting mode" is unavailable... because it actually controls the flycatcher, which I only have around in the summer. The "3D Printer" toggle is interesting as well, as touching those controls will not control my 3D printer but my coffee machine 😆

TL;DR: My smart home is a joke, and the people living in it are the victims of the connected home mess I've carefully crafted. 😓

The resolution, in this case, leaves not much room for guessing: FIX IT! 🛠️

I found it hard to define what a "success" for this resolution would be, as much of it is subjective. I can at least describe some things; for example, all devices should be connected, working, and well categorized. The energy dashboard should be neat, and a bunch of working automations must be contributing to the comfort of not just me but also my family living in our home.

The most challenging part for me would be dashboarding. I'm more of an automation type of person, but my family should be able to have a fallback they can understand and use. I should ensure they can operate every device from a sensible dashboard.

I'll take you along my journey and share my stories. Let's go! 💪 🚀

4. Home improvement and chores

As we say in Dutch: "Omdat je huis nooit af is"; I don't think there is an English variant of this expression, but it means that one's home is never finished. I'm sure you recognize that.

I have a lot of chores and things I still need to do. Install roof isolation and renovate the top-floor rooms for the kids. My son's old room can then be renovated to become our new storage/guest room, and finally, the previous storage/guest room will become my new office!

I started working from my living room in 2019 and still do. I was amazing while the kids were little, but them growing up now also means that me sitting in the living room isn't always the most practical. They stay up longer in the evenings, take home their friends to hang out with, and do more of these things. Especially when I have video calls or meetings, I don't want them to have to adjust to accommodate for me having these calls in silence.

So, for this year, let's get myself settled in my new office! Let's go! 💪 🚀

But wait... there is more!

I like these four resolutions actually. They fit me. Of course, I think I could improve or improve many more things (including the common ones you'll see everywhere). Some examples include:

• I could lose a few pounds and exercise more! Honestly, I can't wait for spring to arrive so I can do outdoor workouts on my road bike again 🚴‍♂️
• I want to try live-streaming again. Sure, I am live once a month when we do the Home Assistant release parties, but I used to stream as well, personally. I really loved doing that. Might I hop on a few times while reading out fixing my own smart home.
• I would like to appear on a few podcasts. I love doing those; there is something magical and unique about them. Did you know I had my own podcast many, many, MANY moons ago? 😆
• I'd like to visit a few expos and developer conferences and meet like-minded people! I'd also like to apply for a few calls for papers and speak at some.
• I've written a few integrations for Home Assistant this year, and I want all of them to rank as high as possible on the Integration Quality Scale. I also still have a few concepts lying around, and I'd like to revive them to see if they are still worthy of a shot.
• Improve work/life balance a bit. I'm a developer; it is my hobby and my full-time job. Working fully remote, doing what I love, dilutes the lines between work and hobby. I don't have too many issues with that, but I should always keep it in mind and constantly improve.
• More date nights! I just want to get out more with my fiancee for dinner, theater, etc. In general, always spend a little more time with your loved ones! ❤️

Let that last one sink in for a minute... and with that, all I've left to say is: Happy New Year! 🥂

What is your New Year's resolution?

../Frenck