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I built an offline smart home

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Re: I built an offline smart home

#61

Post by j45 »

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…

This is really helpful to know - Zigbee for a while was a premium compared to other protocols and it's nice to discover that has drastically changed.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#62

Post by paranoidrobot »

corethree wrote: post #36

The futuristic idea of a smart home is that you can talk to your smart home. "Computer, dim lights by 30%" "Computer, open curtains." "Computer, vacuum the floor." "Computer, play some jazz" All of these are phrases are actual literal phrases that I use in my home, some on a daily basis. It can only be done, with current consumer tech, through the internet. All you need is a roomba, some 4$ smart bulbs, a spotify acc…

Have you looked into Assist with Home Assistant? It's offering local voice control with custom wake words.

https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/

Re: I built an offline smart home

#63

Post by j45 »

tcfhgj wrote: post #37
corethree wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually easier now then ever before. Buy smart bulbs for cheap off of temu. They all integrate with alexa or google home automagically. I now never touch a light switch. "Computer dim lights to 40%." I never bother touching a light switch. This guys set up is too complicated. The easy way to do it nowadays is to buy smart devices that integrate with the google or alexa echo system and you just talk to alexa or…

Alexa and Google Home are literally microphones with connections into the cloud

Even with the microphone switch turned off?

Re: I built an offline smart home

#64

Post by j45 »

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…

It's worth looking into.

I also had only a few switches and the trade off was I could now dim them, at different times and different ways.

Tied it in with a Logitech Harmony Hub at the time for instant movie mode. I got a lot of use out of that little hub to not have to go full home automation.

Home Assistant is great though, it's much easier now, it will know you're coming via app and turn off everything. You can do the good night thing too.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#65

Post by wincy »

moandcompany wrote: post #54
m463 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For this reasons I have no smart light bulbs in my house. hmm... wonder why bulbs can't fail normal. maybe they should make bulbs with a deadman switch. If they don't get a "ping" from a controller in a certain amount of time, they revert to normal light bulbs? or yeah... smart switches.

In my experience, unless you have a strong need for something like dynamic color temperature control over your light bulbs/fixtures, it's more practical and economical over time to use a "smart" light switch, rather than a "smart" light bulb. The smart bulbs may have appeal for people that are unable or not allowed to modify their light switches. By keeping the "smarts" at the switch level, you have a lot more choice…

We use the hue lights as night lights, and have them turn red, then off on a schedule. I have to turn them on and off again to reset them to white but my 6 year old knows how to do it, so that feels simple enough to me.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#66

Post by j45 »

XorNot wrote: post #21
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…

Motorised blinds has been the game changer for me. I never want to adjust blinds, but natural light is nice. Now my blinds automatically go up at 8.30, and close at sundown and I don't have to think about it - but my rooms are pleasantly exactly how o want them at all times.

It's very worth motorized blinds especially if you have a lot of windows.

Every setting you do manually throughout a day or season can be automated.

Tie it in with movie mode to close everything, etc.

Luvolite and their rebranded partners is a decent bang for the buck: https://www.louvolite.com/

I hear Ikea is worth looking at too.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#67

Post by Johnny555 »

tharne wrote: post #43
tcfhgj wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alexa and Google Home are literally microphones with connections into the cloud

I'm always amazed that everyone seems okay with this, and will even say so when pressed on it. But those same people will get a look in their eyes as if they're going to shit their pants, if someone else picks up their unlocked iPhone and starts scrolling.

I'm amazed that people are afraid of a home assistant in their living room, yet carry a cloud connected microphone+camera around with them all the time (with the added feature of sending GPS tracking data back to the manufacturer, carrier, and apps that you granted location permission to, like a weather app).

If you trust that your phone isn't listening when it's not supposed to, why don't you trust the home assistant (even if it's made by the same manufacturer)?

Re: I built an offline smart home

#68

Post by j45 »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #8

Offline by default is great. It lets me decide which devices are remote controllable (thermostat) and use a VPN to access my home network for everything else. I’ve got a mix of Lutron and Phillips Hue devices with a Honeywell Thermostat tied together with Home Assistant on a raspberry pi. (Lutron needs a hub. The hue devices connect directly to the pi.) It’s been absolutely rock solid. I’m using Lutron Pico remotes a…

Offline first is the only way to go.

The cloud is always someone else's computer, and any free service will likely end before your hardware needs changing.

Lutron switches are great too, I have them. I am not a super fan that you have to seem to have to buy their pro hub to get telnet access to the lutron switches and also not use the cloud.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#69

Post by squeaky-clean »

sh1mmer wrote: post #53
efitz wrote: post #29

Smart Home has kind of been my hobby for the last 7-8 years. I have well over 100 devices controlled by my smart home setup. Before I installed the first smart device in my home, however, I had a single requirement: EVERYTHING MUST FAIL NORMAL. By this I mean that if the internet went out or a vendor went out of business or I rage quit a vendor, then the device in question had to act like it was a normal non-smart de…

> after bedtime, the lights still come on when someone goes in the bathroom, but very dim, etc. I’d be curious to hear more about this. Most of the “smart” light solutions I’ve tried struggle to go directly to a specific lighting level without some bright flash as they activate. What brand switches/lights are you using to do this with?

(Not the parent poster) I have Phillips Hue lights and they can turn onto a dim setting without a bright flash. They also can fail-normal if you change the default settings.

They've added a popup to the app recently saying that soon Hue will require an account to work though, so I don't recommend them anymore. I've been meaning to move them to a separate offline network before they force update them to require an account. I originally purchased them because of how well they functioned locally without needing any Phillips cloud stuff. But sometimes I still use the official app instead of my homebrew setup.

If you own your own home, smart switches with dumb dimming capable lights are the way to go IMO. I'm still renting though.

Re: I built an offline smart home

#70

Post by js2 »

CharlesW wrote: post #52
js2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need an AppleTV or HomePod to act as the hub. Without that, you get no automation nor ability to control devices from outside your home. An AppleTV is also needed for Thread support. Using an iPad for a hub is deprecated and not supported in the new architecture. You can of course use HomeKit devices with Home Assistant in both directions. HA can obviously serve as the automation hub for HK devices ("accessories"…

> An AppleTV is also needed for Thread support. Or a HomePod mini, or a 2nd gen HomePod, or a supported 3rd-party device that can act as a Thread border router.

Ah, thanks for the correction on that. Maybe plenty of folks are happy with HomePods for their hub but all the complaints I read are also folks using HomePods. It's hard to know whether they have spotty WiFi or if HomePods are just inherently less reliable hubs.

I will say that having my wired AppleTV act as a hub, I've had no trouble at all. I have maybe 50 accessories and a bunch of automations, some fairly complex. e.g. my garage door automatically opens for me as I near my home as long as my iPhone is in CarPlay mode.

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