I actively avoid and move away from HA type devices that do not work without WAN. There's no reason that me pushing a GUI button to turn off a light needs to do anything more than travel to my AP, to HA and then to the light. Let's not bring the cloud into this.
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 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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You don't like being forced to buy a new garage door opener every time the manufacturer's product manager takes a shit?
FWIW i use myQ locally with no issues. I use the myq “homekit bridge” to integrate with home assistant locally.
That's interesting, I don't think that was an option back when I was using MyQ. I guess that's why Matter would be such a big improvement for things.
First myq was completely open to integrate, then I believe they locked it down then they opened it up to homekit a year or two later.
I won't buy one out of principle. Any product or company that was a pain to work with during my days as a control4 integrator is blacklisted from my home. I won't do app-based setups, either.
I am still using a DIY/homemade one I made back in 2020ish.
https://xtremeownage.com/2020/07/29/diy-garage-door-opener-home-assistant/
Still works perfectly. Less than 20$ of materials total. 100% local control. Locally compiled, open source firmware.
Would recommend.
Ditto here. I spent even less - a Wemos D1 mini and a relay, all housed snugly in a 3D printed case.
Has worked flawlessly for years now.
All I can say is, thank the gods for esphome and Home Assistant.
And, the best part- Home assistant keeps getting better and better!
Yeah - I'm kinda amazed at how much functionality I'm able to get from such good FOSS like HA. I just wish they had a once-off donation capability I could use. I'm not into subscriptions at all, so I usually make a donation each month to a different tech project that has made my life better.
You can make a one-time donation via GitHub Sponsors.
Fantastic! I don't know why I didn't think to check GH Sponsors. I support plenty of other projects the same way. Thanks for sharing.
I pay for the subscription solely for the purpose of supporting it. Most of the functionality it offers, just isn't useful to me.
Shame. I just don't do subscriptions.
Yeah, MyQ is hot steamy garbage. I gave up on it after giving it a chance for way too long. Their app, of course, will continue to work, but they would constantly change the API forcing the integration devs to scramble.
I use sonoff wifi switches with Tasmota now. They're set to turn on then immediately off, simulating a button press. Combined with z-wave door sensors and some template sensor stuff copied from a forum, it's super solid.
I like Shelly hardware. The devices default to local communication and cloud is optional. Custom firmware can also be used, but not really needed. I wished they made more kinds of IoT stuff.
Since the device state can be queried with HTTP requests, it's easy to integrate it to my monitoring system (Prometheus/Grafana).
I wish I could get their stuff in Zigbee.
Exactly, the community has been asking them to make ZigBee devices and they just announced the new...ZWave line of products 😭
Nothing wrong with Z-Wave. I have 3 radios (2 zw [one for Aeotec HEM since it generates tons of traffic], one zig) just so I can use whatever is cheapest or available for a particular application. All of the "energy controlling" (meaning, not light bulbs) is ZWave because it seems to have more robust state verification built into the protocol. Also, it's 915MHz and I live in a very crowded RF environment on 2.4.
No no, don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with Z-Wave, I just prefer ZigBee because I've found more expensive devices or no alternatives on Z-Wave: buttons, temperature/motion/door sensors, bulbs. What Z-Wave devices do you have?
I agree mostly; for example, ZW bulbs are outrageously expensive. I have a Kwikset lock, a couple Zooz ZEN15s, some dimmable lamp modules, Aeotec HEM, a Remotec IR AC controller, GE switches, and Honeywell T6 Pro thermostats.
I just ordered a pair of the ratgdo devices for full, local-only control. Ratgdo also allows control of the lights separaely, so I'm going to automate the light turning on when someone goes into the garage.
local control of my garage door
This is wild. I never imagined I'd even need to control a garage door remotely o.O
For me it adds some reassurance if my garage door is closed while I'm away
I've definitely forgotten to close mine once or twice, even though my custom (LoRa) integration is just simulating pushing the button on the wall by closing a relay contact and watching for closed status with a reed switch, it means I can do it from anywhere.
Yeah, my IoT network is segregated from any of my regular network. The control node can be accessed by VPN but otherwise has no access to or from the internet
That's my setup too!
Unfortunately my furnace (Rheem) only works this way which is so disappointing. I wish it could be cracked so that it could work independently with home assistant.
Anyone have some recommendations for a camera system without a cloud component?
Anything RTSP will do, but I'd recommend VLAN the shit out of it unless you are confortable having it call home every second.
I use wyze cameras with custom firmware.
Ooo, you can do that with Wyze? That'd be the best of both worlds. I'll go search on it, but if you have any advice, I'm all ears.
We use Reolink wired with PoE and recently switched from ZoneMinder + ZMNinja to Frigate + Home assistant and are very happy so far.
I'm using zoneminder. It might be a high bar to entry, but once set up, it's great.
Have you checked out Frigate? It's a local service that captures RTSP streams from cameras and uses neural net image recognition to trigger events / recordings. It has good integration with Home Assistant.
Personally I've been pretty happy with Unifi Protect. Reliably records locally but accessible remotely and notifications are quick within a few seconds. Cameras can connect to HA and support RTSP if you want to link them into Frigate.
I have Blue Iris NVR with Reolink cameras. A bit of tweaking, but it was easy to follow tutorials online and they integrate into HA nicely. Blue Iris isn't free, but I couldn't get Frigate to work and don't have the background to troubleshoot it very well. I'd say it's worth the cost, though.