This post is about on how I managed to transform my Smart Home from using vendor-based solutions to open-source and local-only systems. I am actually cheating. Although my solutions work entirely local, the fact that I want to use it remotely, also requires a cloud account to access it, namely the Nabu Casa account which is 75 bucks per year.
Where I came from
My first Smart Home steps based on Apple’s Homekit integration and devices that work with it, like Nanoleaf’s LED Panels. I recently offered them for free on 2nd market since they do not work with Wifi 6 standards. “Planned obsolescence” unfortunately.
As I am an Apple user I focused on solutions that work with it by default since I wanted to use the Home app to control everything, so I finally came to Philips Hue.
Philips Hue
Long story short: this is the worst system you can buy for the most money. Yes, it integrates well with Apple Home. Yes, it works with the native Hue app. No, it does not work well at all with anything else, so I dropped it.
WLED
I built my own light strips using ESP32 modules for several places and use cases. They are Wifi-based which should be the easiest - wait for it, there are caveats.
Wifi-based stuff
Simple: DO NOT RELY ON IT! Especially when you are using a Mesh network. Usually Mesh systems allow a certain amount of devices to join the network and when you “escalate” with devices, esp. with self-made ones like I did with WLED-based ESPs, you can easily reach the upper end of what your Mesh is capable of to handle. Also, most Wifi-based smart home devices only support the 2.4GHz network.
Zigbee for the win
This is based on simple radio protocols and much more stable than Wifi. There are limits as well regarding device counts but you won’t reach them. The range also is much higher than simple Wifi. If you start with it, just pickup a cheap Zigbee Hub or USB Stick to run with your own computer like a Raspi like the Conbee stick or the Sonoff Zigbee stick. I use them both.
But Philips Hue is also Zigbee
Yes, but it only supports certain devices that are NOT Philips Hue (e.g. Ledvance RGB Strips and RGB Lightbulbs, Lidl Silvercrest LED Strips), others are just not recognised during the pairing process or just won’t offer the full set of settings.
Self-hosted solutions
I run IoBroker for several years now. It is using my Conbee Zigbee USB dongle to integrate several Zigbee devices such as plug sockets (different vendors) or window contact sensors from Aqara. I am still running this system in a VM on a Proxmox system and it works just well. The same system also controls my Homematic (IP) system. This may be fairly unknown outside of Germany but it is very stable and reliable. I use presence sensors and thermostates in this ecosystem, so IoBroker controls the heating depending on if a window is opened or not.
My other major system now is Home Assistant. I kept this out of sight for a long time but now I am fully into it. If you seek something to easily control your home, especially lights, then have a look into it. One thing: only use the Home Assistant OS based solutions. I tried the Docker variant before and it does not offer all of its potential. I now run HA in a VM on my Proxmox machine with a separate Zigbee dongle from Sonoff.
Problem: multi-system smarthome
If you are running on multiple different systems, you will get into trouble as well. Some system are integrated better on certain systems than on others - this is what you will have to figure out for yourself. Regarding Zigbee I can say that you should try to use a system that works in all systems, like Tuya. There are adapters for it in IoBroker and HA, so you can share them flawlessly.
Others are different like Homematic. This works pretty well in IoBroker but has to be manually configured in HA - and even then it does not offer all features (e.g. the “window open” property of a thermostate). The latter is the reason why I am still running IoBroker to control the thermostats depending on the window states.
Scenes
Home Assistant allows to create complex scenes including various devices such as lights from different systems. Once the devices and entities are set up, it’s a bliss to use them in scenes or automations.
Bringing it all together
With Home Assistant you also get a comprehensive tool to create UI surfaces that you can use either on your phone you tablet devices. Since I changed to HA completely, I bought several iPads from the 2nd market and mounted them in almost all rooms to control everything - and I really mean everything! It took me a while but it was worth it. The last step I made was re-pairing my Philips Hue devices again with HA and dropped the Hue Bridges completely. The new scenes do actually work now with all the devices like a charm (Philips Hue lights are not that bad, though overpriced, but the ecosystem is).
Downside
Since I shifted mostly everything to HA, I am not able to control everything via Siri or Alexa. I used to control my dumb ceiling fans using Siri, a Broadlink IR Booster and Homebridge. Now it’s using a Zigbee-based IR Booster in HA. But: there is a solution: though the built-in voice assistant of HA is crap, there is currently a beta device available that can be set up to use ChatGPT and/or Google Gemini - which allows for a most comprehensive interaction using your mouth hole to control your smart home - I ordered one and it will touch down here soon!
Conclusion
Open your eyes, invest about 150 bucks for a Raspi 4/5 and a decent Zigbee dongle and start over with Home Assistant - it’s suprising which integrations are available for it. This is my list of must-haves for your HA system:
- file editor
- HACS (custom app store)
- Zigbee2MQTT
- Zigbee
- Tuya
- Mobile
- Spook (toolbox)