this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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homeassistant
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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io
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Anything new I buy has the ability to directly talk to homeassistant without a third party. Zigbee, zwave, ip. If its cloud it can fuck right off, I don't need it.
Many brand names are using these protocols to talk to their bullshit hubs that then send your data out of your network. I've got a hodgepodge of stuff like samsung sensors, Ikea switches, ip cameras and all kinds of stuff.
It isn't even that hard to set them up. HA can detect most devices on the network and recognise them.
Why does one need to connect everything like this? The only connected system (besides computers/entertainment ) I have in my entire house is a security system. What benefit is there to all that other stuff? Doesn't it add quite a bit of cost?
Most security systems these days are just whitelabeled zwave etc sensors with a proprietary hub and a monthly charge.
The nice thing about HA is that you can pull almost everything into it and then add whatever automations you want. Recent example was my SO complaining about how dark it was going to the car when they leave in the morning. Super easy to set up an automation that turns on the floodlight switches when the front door opens between dusk and dawn. All kinds of stuff like that that's really useful.
I only tend to dabble, but I have Home Assistant set up - one example I'm on a flexible electricity tariff which is based on wholesale prices. It chages every 30 minutes. I have an automation that grabs tarrif info. If the price goes below zero (which it does sometimes when the grid has more energy than it knows what to do with, my hot water heaters all automatically turn on.
You can definitely have all the gear and not need it. I've set mine up a little at a time to do specific tasks. Some examples:
Alert me if my side gate is unlocked at night, because that is the access to my business.
Check if there is water in the chicken house reservoir, as that means the chickens have dropped a pebble in the valve again.
More cost upfront, but as we've seen time and time against companies will start charging subscriptions for thing they previously didn't.
Then there'd the privacy benefits. Not needing to rely on some company to keep servers alive. Being able to more easily troubleshoot/upgrade/swap individual parts. Not having to use a different app for basically every single device. All that sort of stuff