Matthew Feret

Interactive

The Basement

My basement theater runs on Home Assistant and a Raspberry Pi. This is a toy version of the same rules, running in your browser. Press play, pause, score a touchdown, then end the session and watch the projector cooldown. Nothing here talks to my actual house.

Cartoon of the basement theater: ceiling lights, projector, screen with bias lighting, receiver, couch and staircase NOW PLAYING · Chairlift at Dusk (2026) ? BATOCERA · 1-UP 003250 ♪ 7ch Stereo · every speaker PHI 0 · NYG 0 TOUCHDOWN STANDBY

Watch something

While it's on

Make it hard

Waits run at 10x speed.

What's real here

The rules are the real ones from my Home Assistant config, simplified. A playing movie or game blacks out the room and leaves only the bias lights behind the screen. Pausing a movie waits 4 seconds before bringing up a 1% glow, so a menu blip doesn't flicker the lights. Music stays fully dark on purpose. An Eagles game flips the room into Social mode and paints it Kelly green.

The receiver's sound program follows what's on: Standard for movies, Straight for retro games, 7ch Stereo for music and Sports for football. The touchdown flash pulses brightness between 100% and 15% without ever changing color, because changing colors that fast floods the Zigbee mesh.

Ending the session runs the same ordered shutdown as the real one. The part I care most about is the projector: its lamp needs the fans after power-off, so the relay opens only after a 90-second cooldown and two consecutive current readings at or below 0.06 A. Unplug the sensor and the system refuses to cut power. The story behind that rule.