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Comment by LanzVonL | Hacker News Reader

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

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.

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.

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/

Yes and yes.

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