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Comment by LanzVonL | Hacker News Reader

I just don't trust smart home stuff, it all seems like a big data collection nightmare at best, at worst you could have criminals and government nannies both spying on you 24/7. I still use incandescent lights though too.

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There are some smart home hubs that support self hosting. Home Assistant and Hubitat are both really good solutions.

Are those Free and Open Source? If there's a security problem can I fix it myself and flash new software?

Home Assistant is FOSS software that just runs on a Linux box, its functionality/integrations all come from FOSS plugins that you can write and/or modify yourself.

HomeAssistant is FOSS and it has an incredible number of integrations, it's extremely capable though not as user-friendly as commercial offerings when it comes to setting it up, which is to be expected.

In similar vein ESPHome and Tasmota are 2 independent FOSS projects that can replace proprietary firmware on many commercial smart devices based on ESP32.

Some WiFi-based smart devices like those made by Shelly work without internet access and integrate with HA via local HTTP API.

Fully local smart home is possible, but you'll need to research what you're buying - as a general rule, you should avoid WiFi-based smart devices unless they offer a local API. Everything else (ZigBee, Z-Wave) should work offline without proprietary hubs, though I'm sure there are exceptions.

And the LibreTiny version of ESPHome supports the common WiFi microcontrollers that have been “replacing” the ESP range, that have been popping up in devices made by Tuya and the like such as

BK72xx: BK7231T, BK7231N RTL87xx: RTL8710BN, RTL8710BX

https://esphome.io/components/libretiny.html

But yeah, using both Tasmota and ESPHome I’ve moved all (bar one) of my “WiFi Only” devices to being fully local devices.

(The exception being my thermostat for my heating, that uses a tuya-mcu and a LCD driver IC so I don’t really want to reflash that and faff with the tuya-mcu this side of winter, and I’m planning to replace it with a OpenTherm controller next year anyway. In the meantime I’m using a local tuya integration in HA to just send it commands directly)

Thanks, I have to admit I just wrote the whole thing off from the get-go. But then again I've been around long enough to see things like X10 take off and then get abandoned. Like IBM's Home Director and other products in that space, which from where I sit, is the exact same market as smart homes but without the mobile focus.

It's good to see that people are able to hack this stuff and make it less reliant on the companies. Heck they're probably selling some of it at a loss and hoping for recurring revenue from usage stats and other spying.

Yes and yes.

CloudFree [1] specifically sells HomeAssistant compatible devices that you flash with your own ESPHome or Tasmoto firmware, giving you total control. The prices are decent too (no affiliation, just a happy customer) but you can pay a little extra to have them flash it for you.

The bulbs aren't as good as Philips Hues though.

[1] https://cloudfree.shop/

I recently set up Home Assistant and a bunch of ESPHome-based sensor devices. It was pretty easy (for someone who's technical enough to write YAML, use SSH, and do some basic soldering) and now I have a "smart home" which is totally bullshit-free and cost like $80 all-in. It was a fun like weekend project I can recommend it!

Also: what is the point?

Convenience ? One minute of me debugging a http request to fix my light is evaluated dearly.

If that happen once it will offset years of voice light off/on and other lazy ass of poor design workaround.

Totally agree here, if tech isn't ultra reliable, maintenance free, and feature rich, why am I bothering?

Not just with HA, but tech in general really. I love the idea of FOSS, but it's important that stuff just works, every time, without hackery.

I really like being able to have different light moods throughout the day, in different lamps around the room, instead of a single lamp in the ceiling. This would be very tricky to do with dimmable switches.

If I want a light to be on, I turn it on. I don't go much for mood lighting, I have lamps and overhead lights and depending on the level of illumination I want or need at the time, one, some, or all might be powered up. But I've never thought of getting up from my ass groove on the couch and going over and operating a switch is a huge deal. And I'm pretty lazy.

This. I tried IKEA’s stuff and it drove me bonkers. We’ve had light switches for over 100 years. Why would I want to replace a perfectly good light switch with flaky buttons and smart bulbs that need to be repaired every month?

But I still wanted to use Home Assistant to control lights. The solution? Smart light _switches_ and wall plugs.

I went with Lutron Caseta wall switches and plug-in dimmers. (Expensive at $60/switch.) Lutron has been doing commercial automation for a very long time and it shows.

1. They work without any automation. Most dimmable LEDs will work.

2. The remotes connect directly to the switches and don’t need a hub.

3. The pro hub model connects to home assistant. You can use unpaired remotes as switches. (Using the correct blueprints.)

I’ve had this set up for over a year and I’ve yet to replace a battery on the many dozens of remotes I have. And I’ve never had a problem with the switch not working.

I get to do all the tinkering I want without breaking my house. :)

Note: I do have some Phillips Hue bulbs for color but those are in lamps separate from overhead lighting.

For sure. Don’t use it. But some of us find it enjoyable to write automation scripts and get our homes behaving exactly how we want. Might I suggest you refrain from shitting on some one else’s hobby just because it’s not for you? I’m sure building a ship in a bottle “wastes” lots of time too.

That’s one of the things Matter is supposed to help with - part of the spec is that all devices need to have a local-only / no-cloud / no proprietary app option

An ESP32 (or 8266 honestly in most scenarios) and ESPHome/WLED/anything that supports MQTT will do the job reliably and without concerns of data collection/spying. Isolate their network and open a one way firewall port for the proxy/dashboard you want to use. For most devices, soldering is minimal and simple. You spend a little more time on initial setup, but all those concerns slip away.

I’d love to see someone try to spy on my Zigbee and Z-Wave networks as they communicate with my self hosted Home Assistant instance.

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