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Comment by kodah | Hacker News Reader

Not really weird anymore as there's a lot of entry level and cloud-based components for people to get into it with. My scene is the localized automation scene; basically home automation but with no cloud connected products.

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This. Every couple months I disconnect the internet and walk around the house verifying all my "smart" home automation products still work. Sometimes I'll make a second pass with homeassistant (or a service dependency, e.g. zigbee2mqtt) shutdown to make sure I can still physically use things (like a dimmer switch).

I detest cloud-based components, and have built my entire network on HA/Zigbee devices. I have a few Z-wave (because the devices weren't available in Zigbee), but I hate them because they constantly need to be re-synced.

I wanted to add a Christmas light display this year (I bought all of the necessary individually-addressable LED strips last year), but I just haven't had time to work on it. One day...

I don't understand why this is not more of a thing.

I really don't like the idea of relying on offsite resources for automation, but it seems to be 99% of what goes on in home automation.

What’s your favorite home automation? I like the idea but can’t think of / find anything that really excites me.

Start like you'd tackle any ambiguous problem at work: collect data. Start pulling in data from something as simple as a smart thermostat. Then add sensors to each room to identify hot and cold spots. Balance your HVAC with smart vents next.

I tend to chain my home automation projects.

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