this post was submitted on 17 Aug 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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I've had an ecobee for five years and it's been great... EXCEPT for that when they were doing a server migration or something a few years back. I swear for several months it was completely unreliable with Google Assistant and the Android App not being able to reach it half the time.
Like the OP said, it uses an external call to cloud servers and you have to trust that those servers will stay online and be reliable. It's been rock solid for the last few years so I think I was just part of some growing pains, but my god I was pissed during that time and about to buy a Z-wave thermostat.
Ecobees work local-only if you use the HomeKit integration in HA (no Apple devices or cloud connection required).
Really? I'm intrigued... VERY intrigued.
Indeed. My Ecobees are actually prevented from accessing the internet at all at the network level, and they still work great through HA. The only issue is that without internet access, the clocks drift ¯_(ツ)_/¯