Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

Comment by joshstrange | Hacker News Reader

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I use Zoneminder currently with ~$50 PoE cameras (I have an assortment based on what was on sale but most are 4K with audio). I block the MAC addresses of the cameras so they have no internet access at all. You could accomplish this also by putting them on their on VLAN that doesn't have access but I didn't have a good way to do that when I first set it up. My plan is to switch to a Reolink NVR in the near future so that my camera setup can be all-in-one instead of running in docker on my NAS.

Zoneminder can be a bit a of bear to deal with but I'll be forever grateful to it for helping me get my foot in the door seeing how I would not have bought a Reolink NVR without first proving how valuable a security camera system would be.

As with all my "Smart Home" stuff I want it all to run locally and I abhor smart wifi devices (Z-wave and Zigbee only). Zoneminder is ideal for this setup and the zmninja [1] desktop/mobile app is pretty decent as well. I run the desktop app 24/7 on a monitor above my main monitor and it's so nice to just glace up to see if there is a package, someone at the door, etc. I was never able to get ZM's detection working reliably enough (too many false positives) so I just record 24/7 and go back and check footage if needed (Older than 30 days or if the disk is low triggers a cleanup/delete).

[0] https://zoneminder.com/

[1] https://pliablepixels.github.io/

> I abhor smart wifi devices (Z-wave and Zigbee only)

Are you saying you are only OK with Z-wave and Zigbee?

Yes, I only use Z-wave and Zigbee. With the exception of my smart speakers which I see as a necessary evil to be able to control my house. I know smart speakers are a non-starter for some people but the added value and my tentative trust in the manufacturers have made them acceptable to me. An Echo from Amazon is a different story from the Alibaba or cheap Amazon (not made by Amazon but sold by them) wifi smart devices.

I feel similarly, I have smart speakers and then all zwave. I even avoided zigbee because it uses the same frequencies as wifi. However, I have been a bit disappointed that zwave devices seem to continue to be expensive while zigbee and wifi devices continue to fall in price. I recently broke down and started making some wifi and bluetooth sensors flashed with esphome. So far they have been pretty stable. But I suspect that will change if I get too many.

Yeah, I hear you on the Z-wave costs. I only have like 4-5 zigbee things (mainly light bulbs for fans that don't have seperate fan/bulb switches and 1-2 old SmartThings devices I still use) for the same reasons you mention (WiFi) as well as better range (though less mesh hops). I now have 2 Z-wave bulbs but they were not cheap (like $25 vs $9 for zigbee), I only use bulbs for fans or lamps that aren't on a switch, having physical switch fallbacks is a high priority for me.

What home automation hub are you using? I'm on SmartThings right now (been with them since the Kickstarter) but I've been eyeing HomeAssistant. I have HA running on a Pi right now with the ST integration so that I can play with it without going "all in" and I'm liking it so far. That said it's way more hands-on than ST but also feels a little more stable. I have used SmartApps extensively but always hated how fragile they felt, in HA I might have to look at a YAML file or code but it does what I tell it to do without issue. WebCORE is cool but it also worries me when it comes to long term stability since I don't trust SmartThings/Samsung very much.

I migrated off of and sold my smartthings hub after they went cloud only. I am all on Home Assistant now. It does require tinkering from time to time but once things are working, you usually never have to touch it. But when you go all in on HA, i would recommend going with an Intel nuc or other small machine. I used the raspberry pi 3b for a while and it was just a little sluggish sometimes. The new pi 4 is probably fine. But i also had sd card issues from time to time and HA is very write intensive once you start logging everything.

That's very good to hear. I have it running on a raspberry 3B right now but that's without it controlling my devices directly (it's through a SmartThings integration right now) and I was considering getting their custom "Home Assistant Blue" hardware. $140 feels overpriced for it, especially since I need to buy a Z-wave stick for it as well, but it would be a nice all-in-one that is "supported". If you don't mind, what Z-wave stick and hardware did you settle on?

I'm using the aeotec zwave stick. And you can look at what the home assistant blue is built from. It's just a droid arm something or other. You are paying for the nice case and maybe some extra support.

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