Let's say I want to dip my toe into smart homes, maybe get a smart light switch or two. I care about:
- privacy
- staying out of the cloud (so things like TFA don't affect me)
- an open protocol interoperable between vendors
Can anyone recommend a good "for dummies" guide written from that angle? I know that software-wise Home Assistant is generally recommended, but how do you decide what hardware to get?
Not that Sonoff devices are "great" out of the box for using them off the cloud, but they are pretty easy to flash tasmota onto them.
With HA there are a number of plugins that will allow you to easily setup duckdns&ssl, there is a app on both the Play Store and App Store.
EDIT: I run HA on a Rpi3 just fine, I also added a zigbee USB dongle which I use to control my TRVs. I also have some cheaper wifi sockets that could have tasmote flashed onto them, but they are a plain to open and access the pads needed to reflash them. The SonOff devices I've been playing with recently are easy to open and flash.
I also use shellys for my fixture lights, again easy enough to flash with tasmota so they are running off the local network.
OMFG ALL THE EDITS: Just make sure that the devices have a ESP chip in them before buying them if you want to reflash them. There has been a trend as of late of using other wifi enabled chips which tasmota doesn't support. Can't find the device on blakadder? Try https://fcc.io/ if you can find the FCCID (and your in the US) before buying the device and look for the internal photos, there is normally a pretty decent close up of the main processor in there. Also googling "The Device Name Tasmota" will often find results of other geeks trying to flash tasmota onto them.
If you want privacy, staying out of cloud, and interop between device vendors, the home automation for dummies approach is:
Buy devices from Eve, which works with HomeKit and other HomeKit devices.
Other suggestions here miss the privacy angle insofar as privacy also requires security.
> Smart home company Eve built its entire business model on local control. “Our privacy platform is ‘what’s at home stays at home,’” Jerome Gackel, Eve Systems CEO, tells me. “With Matter, you do not need a cloud — you can have one, but it’s not a requirement.” Its commitment to avoiding cloud control is why Eve devices have been iPhone- and HomeKit-only thus far. But with Matter, Eve can move to the other platforms while remaining entirely local.
If you're up for some light soldering, I'd recommend picking up a few Sonoff Basics and/or wall plugs and then flashing them with ESPHome (https://esphome.io/). These devices are simple and cheap ($5-6 each), basically just an ESP8266 chip connected to a relay, a button, and a status LED. You have to solder to attach four pins to the board so you can flash it, then you can close it up forever. Future updates happen over-the-air.
I am far from being an electrical engineer, and found that these guides, plus a few YouTube videos, got me to the point where this feels routine. I now have over a dozen in my house, controlling all manner of things.
I've also had fun installing temperature and humidity sensors to Wemos D1 Minis ($2-$3, basically just an ESP8266 chip on a development board) to monitor climate around the house. During the winter, houseplants really like to have higher humidity... we bought a bunch of dumb humidifiers at goodwill, installed Sonos Basic relays inside them, and set rules for them to turn on when the humidity in the room drops too low.
Check out the Home Assistant [1] documentation and Google 'zigbee vs z-wave' (the two major interoperable standards) and you'll be on the right track I think. Comparing and contrasting will explain the caveats and benefits of each and why they are designed the way they are.
Note: By default these standards are NOT radio-secure and you need to pursue secure device pairing for devices like door locks and garage openers.
I use Home Assistant and a mixture of Z-wave and wifi devices. The way I choose wifi devices is by finding which ones can have Tasmota firmware flashed to them.
For example, in Australia, many hardware stores sell “Grid Connect” devices. This is a cloud solution for the likes of Arlec. However, most of these devices can be flashed with Tasmota. This removes the cloud and keeps everything in house using MQTT. Security is WPA2 and TLS. I run my IOT devices on a separate VLAN and use 2.4Ghz network as it seems to have more coverage and is more reliable.
Here is a list of >2000 devices which can take the Tasmota firmware:
You'll need an electrician to install them, but Shelly modules are what I use: https://shelly.cloud
They must be wired behind your existing wall switches so you don't lose any functionality - you can use the switch as normal.
There is no cloud; the modules themselves have a local web interface and some basic scheduling/timer features (as well as a rudimentary REST API), and are supported by Home Assistant if you need more advanced features.
I think something like this might be what you are looking for, though I think some of the products he uses rely to much on being battery powered, although there appear to be cable powered versions of these products too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85yH56DS5mg&t=5s
It's not "open", but Lutron devices (Caseta for DIY or small installations, RadioRA 3 for whole-home setups) are some of the best you can find at the moment. They're designed around local communication and directly synchronizing switches and remotes with each other, with an optional local hub for automation.
- privacy
- staying out of the cloud (so things like TFA don't affect me)
- an open protocol interoperable between vendors
Can anyone recommend a good "for dummies" guide written from that angle? I know that software-wise Home Assistant is generally recommended, but how do you decide what hardware to get?