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I built an offline smart home

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Re: I built an offline smart home

#11

Post by minimalist »

blagie wrote: post #2

Tuya devices are available in Zigbee for about $5, and the Zigbee versions have no way to phone home. The nice thing is you can: 1) Buy eight random Tuya Zigbee outlets ($40) 2) Three PIR presence sensors ($10) 3) Fancy Sonoff Zigbee USB device ($20) 4) Three RGB-CCCW lightbulbs ($15) 5) Three or four temperature/humidity monitors ($15) And you're at the $100 mark with a basic smart home without breaking the bank, wi…

Only thing I'd add is to try to get devices that can be flashed with esphome[0] for future-proofing. There is an onramp[1] for devices that can be flashed with Tasmota.

Also be very wary about devices that are not (verifiably) UL listed / CE rated, especially if the device is to be plugged into mains and tucked behind some furniture (or worse yet, installed into the wall). [According to internet folk lore] some of these can be grounds for being denied insurance coverage in the event of a fire or other damage [citation needed]. Personally, I don't mess around with random-china-devices and mains outside of the workbench.

[0]: https://esphome.io/index.html

[1]: https://devices.esphome.io/guides/tuya-convert/

Re: I built an offline smart home

#13

Post by abnry »

smeej wrote: post #6

I keep trying to talk myself out of wanting to do this. I live in a very small studio-style home with a total of four lightbulbs in it. It takes fewer than 20 steps to get from any one corner of the house to any other. But every time I read an article like this, I can't help but think how cool I would feel if my house could tell I was coming and turned my lights on and my heat up, or dimmed and then turned everything…

Next thing you know, you're learning how to flash ESP firmware and how Zigbee protocols work.

The cool factor is maybe 25% of it for me. It's mainly an obsessive hobby.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#14

Post by jayd16 »

smeej wrote: post #6

I keep trying to talk myself out of wanting to do this. I live in a very small studio-style home with a total of four lightbulbs in it. It takes fewer than 20 steps to get from any one corner of the house to any other. But every time I read an article like this, I can't help but think how cool I would feel if my house could tell I was coming and turned my lights on and my heat up, or dimmed and then turned everything…

Automation isn't as smooth as it sounds but it's nice to be able to control things from your phone.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#15

Post by shermantanktop »

smeej wrote: post #6

I keep trying to talk myself out of wanting to do this. I live in a very small studio-style home with a total of four lightbulbs in it. It takes fewer than 20 steps to get from any one corner of the house to any other. But every time I read an article like this, I can't help but think how cool I would feel if my house could tell I was coming and turned my lights on and my heat up, or dimmed and then turned everything…

We've got an offline setup, using HA, HomeKit and zwave. Some of the best features for us:

- ability to turn on house heat when we're headed home from a trip, or turn on the AC for the pets if there's a heat wave when we are traveling.

- ability to turn on the tea kettle when driving back home from an errand. Needs prior setup of course, and a switched outlet that can handle high current.

- ability to align porch light schedules with sunset/sunrise. I never have to think about it.

The "don't want to get up, i'll just do it from my phone" thing is nice, though, especially if you are stuck under a cat.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#16

Post by shermantanktop »

interroboink wrote: post #9
smeej wrote: post #6

I keep trying to talk myself out of wanting to do this. I live in a very small studio-style home with a total of four lightbulbs in it. It takes fewer than 20 steps to get from any one corner of the house to any other. But every time I read an article like this, I can't help but think how cool I would feel if my house could tell I was coming and turned my lights on and my heat up, or dimmed and then turned everything…

A good one to keep in mind: https://xkcd.com/1205/ ("Is It Worth The Time") Though of course the fun/cool factor is a separate thing (:

The tooltip on that comic captures how i feel about nickel-and-diming my own attention. But maybe that just means I think doing HA stuff is fun.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#17

Post by enoch2090 »

smeej wrote: post #6

I keep trying to talk myself out of wanting to do this. I live in a very small studio-style home with a total of four lightbulbs in it. It takes fewer than 20 steps to get from any one corner of the house to any other. But every time I read an article like this, I can't help but think how cool I would feel if my house could tell I was coming and turned my lights on and my heat up, or dimmed and then turned everything…

Sometimes it's not the time saved, but a change to your mindset, that you don't need to even think of walking across the room to reach the switch before sleep. Such change accumulates and at a point I felt the difference, hopefully that works for you as well.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#18

Post by Gyrantula2 »

>Building my offline smart home took the better part of a weekend

Yeah, right.

Nobody in their right mind should be making their home "smart" for the convenience or efficiency. It's a hobby. A frustrating, inconvenient, burdensome, potentially expensive, challenging, neverending hobby.

It taught me to love light switches.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#19

Post by ihattendorf »

minimalist wrote: post #11
blagie wrote: post #2

Tuya devices are available in Zigbee for about $5, and the Zigbee versions have no way to phone home. The nice thing is you can: 1) Buy eight random Tuya Zigbee outlets ($40) 2) Three PIR presence sensors ($10) 3) Fancy Sonoff Zigbee USB device ($20) 4) Three RGB-CCCW lightbulbs ($15) 5) Three or four temperature/humidity monitors ($15) And you're at the $100 mark with a basic smart home without breaking the bank, wi…

Only thing I'd add is to try to get devices that can be flashed with esphome[0] for future-proofing. There is an onramp[1] for devices that can be flashed with Tasmota. Also be very wary about devices that are not (verifiably) UL listed / CE rated, especially if the device is to be plugged into mains and tucked behind some furniture (or worse yet, installed into the wall). [According to internet folk lore] some of th…

> Some of these can be grounds for being denied insurance coverage

Is there a reason you think insurance wouldn’t pay out because you used a non-listed device? This is something I frequently see people asserting without any basis in reality, and I’m curious where it comes from. People do stupid things that insurance covers all the time. I do agree that you should only use listed devices whenever possible.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#20

Post by Aloha »

I went with the Apple HomeKit compatible camp, because it does indeed all work locally across your local LAN without a network connection - its not foolproof, but it mostly just works, and works well at that - and more importantly works when the internet is out.

The biggest thing with Apple is they get that houses have more than one person living in them, and provided everyone has an Apple device, it all just works.

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