Home Automation with Home Assistant

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kb2001
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9:09p, 1/14/25
AG
I'm starting to dig into this more for my house. We have a few light bulbs that we control with Alexa, but I'm starting to look into more general solutions that are managed in my house directly, and voice control is not needed.

Home Assistant is the route I'm taking, I've already got my Ecobee thermostats setup there and it's working well. I want to start controlling lights more. In particular, I'd like to control our driveway lights this way, be able to dim them as appropriate for the situation, to do this on a schedule, and still be able to fully control the dimming level and on/off state at the light switch directly.

I've started looking at Zigbee and Z-wave systems, and am wondering what the Nerdery thinks about these two, and what kinds of devices people have experience with. There's an overwhelming number of products and brands out there, and I really have no idea what is quality and what is trash.

I'd like to control it through the switches, not the light bulbs directly. For example, we have 3 driveway lights, on one circuit, controlled with one light switch. I'd like to replace that one light switch with something that allows me to control it through a schedule in Home Assistant (without integrating with an outside 3rd party service), and also control it at the switch manually.

This is just the first goal I'm targeting, any advice would be appreciated. The Nerdery has come through many times, looking for any advice people can offer. Ideally, no internet required, only LAN access.
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Sweet Kitten Feet
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9:27p, 1/14/25
S
How technical are you? Also give Hubitat a look. That's what I use.
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Proposition Joe
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6:26a, 1/15/25
I will say prepare yourself for things not quite being completely ready for prime time yet. Everything can communicate, but it all doesn't yet communicate well. Between locks and lights I don't think we've ever had a full month of things working as expected.
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danieljustin06
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8:20a, 1/15/25
AG
I've been using Home Assistant for a year now and since I've moved I have dove deeper into it. I'm stilling looking into switches but I'm leaning towards z-wave being the best. With the switches make sure they're also a router over just a node and you'll have better connectivity. ZigBee has issues with it's network retaining it's connections after a power surge etc. Matter over thread devices seem non-existent so regular Matter over wifi is easy to find and is cheaper than z-wave devices. The problem with wifi is that if you have too many of them your router setup might not be able to handle all of the connections. That's a problem my buddy found out. I'm leaning towards the TP-Link tapo switches but with the recent developments with that company I haven't pulled the trigger yet. I also don't want to spend $25+ for multiple switches just yet either.

I did sign up for and pay for the nabu casa cloud subscription. The subscription goes directly to the support of Home Assistant development and it has grown by leaps and bounds over the last year.
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MGS
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In reply to danieljustin06 • 8:50a, 1/15/25

Quote:
The problem with wifi is that if you have too many of them your router setup might not be able to handle all of the connections. That's a problem my buddy found out. I'm leaning towards the TP-Link tapo switches but with the recent developments with that company I haven't pulled the trigger yet.

A big problem with WiFi is that you have to be very careful about equipment from shady Chinese vendors like TP-Link containing malware that will cause security issues for other equipment in your house.
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lb3
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In reply to MGS • 9:05a, 1/15/25
AG
I've paused my home automation efforts for now. I have some Wyze cameras and I wanted to use the motion alerts to trigger exterior lights. But I couldn't access the API with my Apple ID based account and when I created a new account, it basically got corrupted. Wyze tech support said it was an Apple issue and I couldn't find the right words to get Apple Tech support to elevate my ticket to someone who could manually edit my account.

Beyond my failed efforts, Home Assistant doesn't feel quite ready for mass adoption but if you like to tinker and can code a bit, it's a capable platform.
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bco2003
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10:41a, 1/15/25
AG
I really like Home Assistant. I haven't played around with it much, but some basic automations I use it for:

  • When the video doorbell detects a person present, it waits 10 seconds and turns on the hallway light (more mimicking a person's behavior inside the house, checking what's going on outside). If the hallway light wasn't already on, it turns off the hallway light after 5 minutes after the person leaves outside.

  • We use ecobee thermostats which have the remote sensors, which have a motion sensor incorporated. My family never turns off lights. If the ecobee sensor doesn't detect motion for 30 minutes in the room where the light is on, Home Assistant turns off the light(s) in those rooms.

I have Wifi switches and plugs throughout the house. The router is telling me I have 83 connected devices (including everything, PCs, Roku's, cameras, switches, etc.). Even with all of those, I max out my 650 Mbps internet connection speeds uplink & downlink throughout the house. That's over an eero mesh system, with 3 access points and wired ethernet backhaul connecting them.

But ultimately Wifi interference is not a problem for me.
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danieljustin06
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In reply to MGS • 11:23a, 1/15/25
AG
Exactly why I haven't bought anything yet. TP-Link has the best connectivity to HAOS though.
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kb2001
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11:05p, 1/15/25
AG
Thanks for all the feedback, very much appreciated. The impression I'm getting is Z-wave is more reliable than Zigbee, but wifi devices can be better if your network can handle it. I'm running Ubiquiti gear with 2 WAPs, I think the small footprint I'm targeting initially shouldn't a problem. I currently have 19 wifi devices on the home network, I don't think that will be a problem for me

I looked a bit more and it seems that Z-wave operates on ~900MHz while ZIgbee is at 2.4GHz, which could be problematic for wifi interference. I guess nobody has wireless landlines anymore so the 900MHz interference wouldn't be a problem.

I haven't much reference to Matter devices before, so I'll look at that a bit more as well.

I looked a bit at Hubitat as well, seems intriguing. I'm trying to find their source or references to it, I'm curious how well I can add custom integrations to it, and I'd prefer to run in a local VM rather than having to purchase a dedicated device for it.

Thanks again!
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adamsbq06
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12:43a, 1/16/25
AG
Put all your smart devices on a separate network isolated from your computers and stuff.
andy@andrewadamsav.com
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danieljustin06
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In reply to kb2001 • 9:42a, 1/16/25
AG
I'm moving to all Ubiquiti gear too. Your setup will handle it all and go ahead and setup a VLAN for any smart home wifi gear as the poster above said.

Adams, are you able to get sale Ubiquiti discounted?
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Pinochet
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9:27p, 1/16/25
I've been using Home Assistant since before covid. Zigbee through their ZHA integration is good and is almost as good as a separate Zigbee2MQTT setup. Zigbee interference isn't bad as long as you keep your WiFi off the interfering channels. Just google for a picture and you'll see where the interference really is. The bigger thing to know is that USB 3.0 ports have an interference problem if your stick is plugged directly in. Just get a cable to move it a few feet from the device running HA. I upgraded mine to a PoE Zigbee device that is separate from the computer running HA. They're not expensive and work much better than a USB stick.

Z-wave is fine too. It works over longer distances but uses more energy (shorter battery life). The sensors and other devices are typically more expensive. A zigbee S31 plug with power monitoring is cheap. Zwave plugs not so much.

You won't overload your WiFi with MQTT devices. The data sent is tiny. Like bytes and kilobytes over a day at most. I've never had an issue with that. I will say that you should look for things that are local only. If it's a Tuya/SmartLife device, it won't work when your internet is out. Most WiFi based plugs, lights, and switches are a private label Tuya device. Some can be flashed to ESPHome or Tasmota, which will solve the problem.

There's a YouTube channel called DigiBlurDIY that has all the HA/Zigbee/Zwave info and tutorials. Makes it really easy. He also has a very helpful free discord where everyone there is light years smarter and can help you (or take you further down the rabbit hole). I wish I had found that channel before I made a bunch of mistakes that I had to fix.
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adamsbq06
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In reply to danieljustin06 • 10:54p, 1/16/25
AG
no they have a minimum purchase requorement to start selling their stuff. While my vendors carry UI products theygive better pricing on their own product so stuff like OverC from SNAP etc. I still prefer UI I have a couple guys in texags that I have systems their I manage for them remotely
andy@andrewadamsav.com
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