I have tried Home Assistant several times. Each time I try it, I get it installed on a VM under my Proxmox hypervisor and start configuring my devices. I'll use my most recent try as an example. I have several Wyze WiFi power switches, and two "Smart Life" (Toya internally) combination thermometer/switch devices. The Toya devices integrated with HA after I signed up for a Toya developer account and did a bunch of configuring. I was able to read the temperature values, but switching the devices on/off did absolutely nothing. I didn't even try the Wyze devices; apparently Wyze doesn't integrate with HA.
I'm not opposed to buying new "smart home" devices, but I want something that actually works properly. What I'm looking for are:
- Devices that don't require internet access and an external API; I want to control them directly over my LAN.
- Devices that have built-in integration with HA.
Is there a list of devices that just "work" with HA? I've looked at the list of available integrations that "technically" work, but they often require signing up for API access with a 3rd-party company and jumping through hoops to get the devices working. I want something where I can assign it a static IP or DHCP lease and HA just talks to it. I was able to get my BlueIris DVR integration working, and it can double as a motion sensor, so I'm specifically looking for plug-in switches, thermometers, sensors, etc.
I'm going to pontificate a bit.
I get the impression that there just isn't quite as much "just works" on offer as there use to be. In the 3ish years I've been playing with HA I've seen several of them vanish and not return. This has gone hand-in-hand with "improvements" in IoT security.
Personally I have no problem with insecure APIs on my local network. But I'm 20 years out of date, the threat landscape is infinitely more vast and people I've never met are looking to fuck my shit up for a fraction of 1 bitcoin ;-)
Secure local access shouldn't really be a problem, but ultimately it will always require a non-zero amount of maintenance. Either from you (if you're lucky) or the manufacturer (if they're still in business).
Working off all that Zigbee is probably going to be your best bet. It just works pretty good, but I have yet to find a list of all the basics that always work perfectly for everyone. But most of it is cheap and plentiful enough that you can just try another device if needed.
Some folks seem to get away without repeaters, some don't. So repeaters and devices don't seem to be compatible, and that makes the notion of a self-healing automatically optimized mesh more of a theoretical ideal. Start with small test deployments and scale up gradually. RF isn't easy, there's going to be glitches. Devices with a graceful fallback are good... every bulb in your bedroom coming on at 3:00AM when the power hiccups may be an acceptable compromise to you, but might not be for the person you're sleeping next to ;-)
And this has devolved into barely coherent rambling, so I'm out. Sorry I couldn't answer your question, but hopefully I don't completely waste your time.