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My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

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Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#161

Post by boring_twenties »

jaywalk wrote: post #145
boring_twenties wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from those to a basic HomeAssistant setup, and really enjoy the fact that my light timers can be "30 minutes before sunset" instead of a fixed time that needs to be adjusted throughout the year. On the other hand, the fact that everything stops working if wifi goes down is a real bummer. I can't for the life of me understand why these "smart" plugs don't just use powerline ethernet. I guess I should just be th…

You should be using Z-wave instead of Wi-Fi for anything that you can, but in reality how often does your actual Wi-Fi network go down? HA runs locally, so it's not like you need Internet access. Unless your smart plugs are actually controlled over the Internet, in which case you should throw them away immediately and buy something better.

Not sure why another wireless protocol would be any better -- isn't powerline ethernet the obviously best choice for something that has to be plugged in to work, anyway?

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#162

Post by tremon »

buro9 wrote: post #23

When you sell a house like this... what do you leave behind and what do you take? This has increasingly been on my mind. I've no desire to sell soon, but there's a Nest doorbell that is wired in, so it stays. A Nest thermostat, which I could remove but when I got the boiler I chose to not have the control panel extra with timer as I knew I had Nest. Then the lighting, the motion sensors... should I take the few thous…

Speaking as a prospective buyer, I'd expect the seller to remove any and all cloud-connected devices before selling. To the point where I will explicitly list them as deductions in my offer.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#163

Post by zacwest »

sneak wrote: post #149
zacwest wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the maintainer of the iOS/macOS app these days. I'm not paid by Nabu Casa and I do it in my free time (if anything, Nabu Casa has avoided doing things which may inadvertently monetize my work to not my benefit, which I appreciate). There's no analytics nor reporting in the app. I've been slowly removing[0] things that talk to servers other than your Home Assistant server, but your private information's never left…

The app privacy label on the iOS App Store directly contradicts your claims. Is it out of date?

The privacy labels are larger buckets than what I went into, and they err on the side of being more inclusive. For example, Firebase collects usage data on notifications (when they are received, opened, etc.) by virtue of being used, so that privacy label cannot be removed. It's possible some of the "diagnostics" can be taken off the privacy label.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#164

Post by detaro »

boring_twenties wrote: post #161
jaywalk wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be using Z-wave instead of Wi-Fi for anything that you can, but in reality how often does your actual Wi-Fi network go down? HA runs locally, so it's not like you need Internet access. Unless your smart plugs are actually controlled over the Internet, in which case you should throw them away immediately and buy something better.

Not sure why another wireless protocol would be any better -- isn't powerline ethernet the obviously best choice for something that has to be plugged in to work, anyway?

powerline is sadly terrible when it comes to radio interference (which isn't surprising: it just dumps HF on power cables, and power cables go in long-ish straight lines - you got nice antennas). Regulation against that is just barely enforced.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#165

Post by sneak »

zacwest wrote: post #163
sneak wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The app privacy label on the iOS App Store directly contradicts your claims. Is it out of date?

The privacy labels are larger buckets than what I went into, and they err on the side of being more inclusive. For example, Firebase collects usage data on notifications (when they are received, opened, etc.) by virtue of being used, so that privacy label cannot be removed. It's possible some of the "diagnostics" can be taken off the privacy label.

Is it possible to entirely disable FCM in the client to avoid its phoning home to Google? If I wanted Google to have my home event data I would just use Google Home.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#166

Post by jonwest »

benley wrote: post #102
coreyp_1 wrote: post #86

I want SO BADLY to convert my switches to smart switches, but it feels impossible to find what i need. Good luck searching on Amazon, too. Search for Zigbee, and it will return page after page of zwave, proprietary, and other listings. It's impossible to wade through. I've tried and given up multiple times. This is what i need that is evidently so difficult to find: 1. Zigbee 2. 3-way 3. Dimmable 4. Beige (almond?) C…

I'd recommend checking out some of the "smart relay" devices that let you reuse your existing light switches. e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Compatible-SmartThings-Philips-ZBBrid... - this one says "2 way" but I'm pretty sure you can wire it up with two physical lightswitches to get the 3-way behavior that you're after. The wiring diagram on the amazon product page suggests as much. I've personally used this Aeotec z-wa…

For multi-way switches what I’ve usually done is wire one switch to the actual load (light) and a relay, and the other switches I pass the wire through as though the switch isn’t connected to the load and then use MQTT to provide the appropriate action. Probably not ideal, but it works and avoids sourcing specific relays and switches.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#167

Post by jonwest »

vladgur wrote: post #139
Havoc wrote: post #82

You can sidestep the cloud stuff if you've got a static IP and wireguard.

I have so far failed at setting up wireguard in my home, much less making it work with HASS. Can you share some pointers?

If you’re using Docker, the wg-easy project made it pretty easy. Otherwise I’d recommend PiVPN which worked well also with minimal setup. Setting WireGuard up from scratch was a failed endeavor multiple times for me but both of those mentioned projects made it significantly easier.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#168

Post by zacwest »

sneak wrote: post #165
zacwest wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The privacy labels are larger buckets than what I went into, and they err on the side of being more inclusive. For example, Firebase collects usage data on notifications (when they are received, opened, etc.) by virtue of being used, so that privacy label cannot be removed. It's possible some of the "diagnostics" can be taken off the privacy label.

Is it possible to entirely disable FCM in the client to avoid its phoning home to Google? If I wanted Google to have my home event data I would just use Google Home.

Yes. The toggle in Privacy will make the app not initialize Firebase. The library will still be in memory, but I don't believe it does anything. I also do not want Google to receive anything, which is why it's going to be removed once we have a replacement.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#169

Post by javawizard »

luma wrote: post #119
ryanianian wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sufficiently advanced home automation is indistinguishable from a haunting. Lighting controlled by home-assistant is endlessly frustrating. Especially if zwave. The networks are slow, the devices are awkward to configure, and when things go wrong debugging is difficult. Sometimes it takes my lights a good 60 seconds to respond during which time I'll try a few different button dances which all then get lifo queued...…

You have a serious problem with your ZWave network if it is performing as you describe. I have just over 70 devices live right now and have none of these problems. Monitor your logs and see if some node out there is screaming or otherwise taking up a lot of bandwidth, as your experience is not at all typical of how ZWave should work.

I have exactly the same problem. Glad to hear this is not typical of all ZWave networks.

It's funny because I have exactly three types of devices:

- Several Inovelli Red dimmers - A few Zooz Zen34 remote switches - An HUSBZB-1 USB stick attached to the machine running Home Assistant

And I've never heard of anyone else having the same sort of trouble with any of the above. Definitely an exercise in frustration.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#170

Post by lm28469 »

nouveaux wrote: post #78
lm28469 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine the state of these houses one or two generations down the line. I witnessed "smart" houses when my parents' blinders died in "down" position and had no manual override... or when the electricity was down and they couldn't start their wood stove because it needs electricity to work... I think some people are just so drawn to tech that they end up in these kind of rabbit holes. It reminds me of my nerd…

>I witnessed "smart" houses when my parents' blinders died in "down" position and had no manual override... or when the electricity was down and they couldn't start their wood stove because it needs electricity to work... Are you saying you have a stove that doesn't have an electronic starter? Are you on a digital or analog thermostat? Does your home heater work without electricity? New technology will always have an…

> Are you saying you have a stove that doesn't have an electronic starter?

Yes, during the same trip (to my parents') I visited an old friend and his parents' house had a good old wood stove, ie: a metal box with a chimney and a door to put wood in it

> Are you on a digital or analog thermostat?

analog (I use my body to determine if I'm cold or warm and my brain to act accordingly)

> New technology will always have an early adoption phase.

Fortunately lots of tech die in that phase and are never seen again, looking at "the house of the future" of the 40s, 50s, 60s I'd say most of it never goes mainstream

> Smart blinds ... no reason why they cant be as reliable ... It's not a complex thing.

Adding even a bit of complexity to an extremely simple system makes it much less reliable and less durable. You need PCBs, antennas, motors, software (with their updates ?), electricity, all of that to do something you could do with your arms in two seconds. Not even talking about the amount of e-waste generated and the fact that no one will be able to source spare parts by the end of the decade. And we all know these things aren't even built to last in the first place (motors with plastic gears, &c.)

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