I built an offline smart home, and why you should too
I built an offline smart home, and why you should too
Tired of your smart home failing during internet outages? Me too, so I made the switch to an offline smart home. Here's how you can too.
There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.
Saving for when I have my own home....if that ever happens.
Completely agree with the off line sentiment. I remember about 5 years ago I got some cheap Chinese smart lights that needed me to create an account and give Tuya/Smart Life unrestricted access to my network. And the delay sucked turning the light on in app because the signal had to go to their main server and back.
Anyways, I discovered HA and it's been really fun messing with ESP32 and Zigbee devices. I even host my own security cameras with Frigate.
Obligatory plug for !homeassistant@lemmy.world
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using a URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !homeassistant@lemmy.world
I don't need any of those things
Some of them are wonderful, once you get used to having them. I have (mostly) smart lights in my house. Half the time you wouldn't know it however, since they work just like normal lights. However, you can also turn them on or off from your phone. Some also colour match to the outdoor light (helps with my daughter's bedtime).
The key is to make sure the "smart" bits are transparent to a normal user. They also need to fail to a dumb configuration, not a dead one.
Completely skipped the voice control which is the part I use the most.
If and when I'll make my home smart, I will try to use something offline for basic needs
Depends what you're automating.. Home Assistant isn't really suitable for larger homes, and it REALLY sucks at AV control compared to commercial systems.
It might be better than Google Assistant and Alexa, but its nowhere near high end systems
What are "high end alternatives?"
Large homes tend to use products like crestron or control4 which deal with AV better.
I've installed in houses which are literally 16 TVs and 32 audio zones.
Some products even work together with companies like this for native enhancements to their products to allow better control
That being said, some things in HA are cool
Where does it come up short?
AV control in particular.
You also can't develop device support for it in a nice way which requires confidential information to be stored
Defeat the fuckingcapitalists