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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greatalbatross

Long time lurker to newb arc (self.homeassistant)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by afk_strats to c/homeassistant

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I've been toying with the idea to implementing HA for a couple of years.

I have no fewer than 10 "smart device" apps on my phone and the privacy implications make me sick. I've been a Google Home and it's been a sad experience.

Over the holidays, I got Proxmox working on an old laptop and ordered a ZigBee stick and some sensors.

Installing HA using helper scripts was dummy easy and the laptop is performing solidly. Got hung up on network setup and z2m but pulled through with some Google-fu.

Did I have to do some tinkering? Yes. Can I control all - literally ALL - my smart devices on one customizable dashboard? F*** YEAH!

I am looking forward to accomplishing more, unplugging from the cloud, learning a lot, and hopefully making some life tasks less annoying.

Thank you to this community for the awesome work, conversation, and inspiration!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Welcome to HA :) freeing all of the devices from the cloud can be quite a rabbit hole, but at the same time it's very satisfying. If you're concerned about privacy or devices still phoning home you could consider installing pihole or disallowing specific wifi-connected devices to communicate on the internet via your router settings

[–] afk_strats 1 points 1 week ago

Oh for sure. This whole thing is a rabbit hole. PiHole\Adguard is definitely on my to-do list

[–] Vinny_93 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I recently started myself. Debugging in the real world is tedious for my wife sometimes, but it just needs some fine tuning. I still have a cloud doorbell, sadly, because that's what I had in the before times. Also I'd still like to find a good solution for multi room audio. All in all I am not at all disappointed with what is possible both on web and in the android app.

I was thinking of routing my own external access but decided to just let it run thru Nabu Casa to support their work with a subscription.

[–] afk_strats 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm in a similar situation and my strategy is to play the long game and win on convenience. I am giving my partner a curated HA dashboard as an option (vs the native apps). Once I feel like an integration is "production ready", I put it in the curated dashboard. That way, she can choose her preferred interaction method... with the hope that eventually she'd just prefer HA and the functionality would be relatively equal without the cloud stuff.

I'm dreaming big

[–] Vinny_93 1 points 1 week ago

Oh yeah the dashboards are no issue for her. She understands most of the workflows I create. But a while back I installed the Sonoff SNZB-06P in the living room and the lights would suddenly turn off because she didn't move. And I'm still working on thermostats since the main one can't communicate with the TRV's.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

great job, I didnt go the self install route.But used HASSOS. The best thing I have had with HA is setting up a broadlink socket, the app could not connect. Turns out HA has seen them an linked up, blocking the app

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well done!

I too love the fact that HASS is a common platform for everything.
It makes duct taping lots of different devices together into automation so much easier.

[–] afk_strats 2 points 1 week ago

I guess you can't beat openness and community for cross-compatibility