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WaitWaitWha
diggan
I think (some correct me) you can group most devices into the following categories:
1. Device requires internet for setup, and for usage
2. Device requires internet for setup, but after that don't need it anymore
3. Device can be fully setup without internet, and used without internet
Personally I aim to be fully within 3 as much as I can, but some devices are really hard to find at a good price point that falls into 3. All my HA devices are within 3, except some real-time cameras which I couldn't find below ~300 EUR if I wanted them in 3, so those are within group 2 and now isolated after the setup.
dietr1ch
I'm not buying any device that's not 3, everything else turns into a brick as soon as there's some larger change.
I have some older Google Speakers, and while they seemed to be 2, after being powered off for long enough they can't be set up again, not even with internet access since their firmware was also outdated and the app isn't able to set them up again.
mrandish
> I'm not buying any device that's not 3
Same here. My gold standard for this is hardware that comes with the open source Tasmota firmware (or which can be flashed to Tasmota). All 75 light switches in our new house run Tasmota firmware and to me it's the perfect combination of simple, flexible and yet deeply powerful. Devices can be controlled via MQTT, web requests, webUI console or serial and not only does it avoid any cloud dependency, Tasmota devices aren't even dependent on having a router to coordinate locally with each other! They can be set so that if they don't see a wifi router, they'll form an ad hoc mesh network.
To me, this is the ultimate in reliability because even if the internet connection is offline, even if the Home Assistant Raspberry Pi crashes, even if the wifi router crashes - as long as there's power, the lights will still always communicate and work together in their device groups. When we built the house I just ordered cheap ($15) wifi light switches from Amazon, flashed them with Tasmota, configured their device groups, labeled where they went, and gave them to the general contractor's electrician, who knew nothing about home automation. So we didn't pay anything extra for special installation, design or programming - in fact we got a $5 per switch discount because they didn't need to supply the dumb switches.
The only slightly tricky part was convincing the very old-school electrician he didn't need to run traveler wires for all the three, four and five way switches. Even after I explained it to him, he didn't quite believe me that they would work so he could test them with just his temporary construction power in an unfinished house with no internet, wifi or controller hardware. I just told him to start by installing the fixtures and switches for a hallway and he was amazed when switches along the hallway controlled fixtures they weren't connected to - including sharing dimming memory and the behavior of the micro-LED strip on each light indicating brightness and status!
hermitdev
Total stab in the dark here, but it could be the local time on the device. Your local clock needs to be relatively close to the actual clock. I've run into this more than a few times with an old Surface Tablet I seldom use. Powered off/battery dead, clock gets out of sync. Power on, cannot get online because everything is TLS/SSL now, even clock sync. Cannot even sync the clock, because of certificate issues. Manually set the time to approximately correct time has resolved my issues with long powered off devices. That is, assuming of course, the _ability_ to set the time on the device.
teekert
I have Hue lights, they're nice, always just work. But now (some time back) they suddenly require an account and I get ads in the app. I have always easily moved Hue lamps from the Hue bridge to the Home Assistant SkyConnect (now called Connect ZBT-1, much better ahum). I sleep better because I know I can do this.
wlesieutre
That’s why I’m sticking to Zigbee as much as possible. The only place where there’s an internet connection is at the Home Assistant computer which has a Zigbee USB stick.
birdman3131
I am ok with devices that default to 2 but can be converted to 3.
Don't recall if Shelly's default to 2 or 3 but I like that you can flash em to tasmota for a gaurenteed 3.
c0wb0yc0d3r
I learned my lesson with LIFX light bulbs. Luckily for me I was able to find an old version of the Android app. Manually installed it, and was able to rescue the few I have.
These days I’ve found that when in doubt get the device that is home kit approved. That usually ensures local only control. You have to fake it with home assistant, but it can be done with little fuss.
rafaelmn
When it's cheaper to replace device 2 than get device 3 I guess walling it off in a subnet makes sense. These devices need to get replaced eventually anyway so unless the manufacturer goes under in a year or two of purchase IDK really.
Depends on the kind of device though - I'm not so keen on changing switches for example and would not compromise there. But cameras or robot mops or voice assistant, throwaway stuff after warranty expires no matter who the source is.
mrandish
I like the taxonomy you've outlined. It would be great if the Home Assistant org were to formalize something like it into levels with logos manufacturers could use in ads and packaging. It would help clarify products for users and, most importantly, provide an incentive for manufacturers toward more local-first interop.
It might be good to invert the order above and name the levels with something like Platinum, Gold, Silver to clearly signal better and best. Manufacturer's marketing people love having external compliance logos, especially manufacturers of commodity hardware.
alexives
They have a bit of this with their "IoT classes". All of the integrations are denoted as either local or cloud based.
https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-th...
sneak
Home Assistant itself falls into category 2, with some integrations/utilities in category 1. The amount of stuff it pulls from the mothership and GitHub is crazy. I wish it were local-only by default.
antsar
Yes. This is frustrating. Notable examples:
Updating an ESPHome device config requires network to build/compile the image. [0]
Viewing your Integrations page leaks a list of integrations you are using to "brands.home-assistant.io". [1]
[0] https://community.home-assistant.io/t/esphome-completely-off...
[1] https://community.home-assistant.io/t/wth-why-are-brand-icon...
Tigress8780
A fresh HAOS VM can not successfully boot without internet access, maybe due to how they are managing everything with Docker within HAOS? I noticed this because the VM was accidentally put into a network that does not have stable internet, and I kept wondering why it didn't boot.
Really hope that there is a fully offline solution.
Coelacanthus
> The amount of stuff it pulls from the mothership and GitHub is crazy.
It seems the problem of HAOS, not Home Assistant itself. I have install my HA in NixOS from its package manager, it seems not try to download somethings.
parineum
I'm curious about what you're issue was finding cameras as, to me, that's the easiest thing to find cloud free since they have a long history of being used in closed networks as POE, onvif cameras long before smart homes were really a thing.
jaktet
I can’t speak for OP but usually the issue with #3 for me is that the other criteria it needs to meet is that it works with whatever other integration I want. I remember when I looked the TP-Links were a good option but you just needed internet to set it up. Afterwards it just went on a vlan without internet. The camera needs to support Scrypted/Frigate for my use case but depending on needs for PTZ, Wi-Fi, resolution, night vision, etc, I may or may not be able to find one at a reasonable price that doesn’t require internet access for setup. TP Link makes good cameras at a good price but they require internet access to setup, so any camera that falls into #3 will get compared to a TP Link in #2
ytch
Agree, I buy some Dahua POE cameras, It can be configured via browser locally with powerful AI feature, and work without internet access, although some drawbacks:
# Some of them are limited to 25 fps
# The model name are really a mess
# Some models are without hardware reset button, the only way to reset is register device to Dahua's cloud service with China phone number (although it is not enforced)
jillyboel
Everything can fit in group 3, but manufacturers want to steal your data so they try to pretend otherwise.
ahaucnx
Not all manufacturers.
At AirGradient, all our air quality monitors can completely run local. Our official firmware is on GitHub and people could even flash their own (adjusted) version.
We believe this is how IoT devices should be and are very vocal about it. So I think there are a few manufacturers that think different.
alamortsubite
You're giving them the benefit of the doubt here. In my experience, not only are they greedy, but they're also inept and lazy.
asveikau
This is how a lot of home assistant integrations work. Sure, many HA users (self included) try to avoid dependence on cloud services and opt for local only solutions, such as zwave or ZigBee or products that work with local-only wifi. But the nature of the beast is that some devices out there are built to talk only to a cloud service.
Having a company start an upstream project is probably a better sign than not having that, however sure, they could pull the plug on their access to cloud service, people may have privacy and security concerns, etc.
reaperducer
they could pull the plug on their access to cloud service
It's happened to me twice.
The first time was about seven years ago, when Fiet Electric sent out a software update that deliberately bricked all of its home hubs, and consequentially turned all of the connected smart light bulbs into dumb light bulbs. Speculation on IoT forums at the time was that Fiet failed to properly license some piece of code that was critical to its system; but that was all speculation. I seem to recall that Fiet put out an e-mail long after the fact letting people know they could no longer use their "smart" devices.
The second time was earlier this year, when Sylvania ended its cloud service, and turned its smart bulbs into merely clever bulbs. They'll still work with the stand-alone Sylvania app, but new bulbs can no longer be added to Apple HomeKit setups. So you need to use two apps (Home and Sylvania) to control the devices in your home. That is, until the Sylvania app is no longer available in the App Store, or compatible with modern devices.
Avoiding Fiet Electric products was easy. But I thought I'd be safe with a big name like Sylvania.
The "L" in IoT stands for "Longevity."
microtonal
I completely agree with the grandparent. This is all avoided by using Zigbee or Z-Wave devices. All our smart lights are Hue. If they decide to stop supporting it, they can be controlled with the Samsung/Aeotec SmartThings Hub, Home Assistant, Zigbee2MQTT, or whatever you please. Similarly, our smart plugs are also Zigbee and we use a couple of Aeotec Z-Wave temperature/humidity sensors.
Best of all, less worries about yet another IoT device with probably vulnerable software that we have to put on a VLAN/IoT WiFi network. Zigbee and Z-Wave are also much simpler than WiFi/Bluetooth, so less likely that they are a swiss cheese of vulnerabilities.
nemomarx
what's the state of bulbs that don't use apps? I have some from IKEA that get paired to a Bluetooth remote, and it seems pretty good for now but I'm kinda nervous about relying on a device like that.
pkulak
> This is how a lot of home assistant integrations work.
And it how the _current_ integration works. So what are we gaining here? I certainly don't yet have any option for a vacuum that isn't Valetudo.
sofixa
> And it how the _current_ integration works. So what are we gaining here
An official integration, supported (for whatever that's worth) by Xiaomi instead of random people reverse engineering their API until the next breaking change, or even worse, them deciding "this is DDoS so we'll ban anyone from using our API".
brnt
Although I bought my Dreame D10 because its on the Valetudo compat list, I actually never put it on, because it turns out OOB you actually don't need to setup anything for the regular mop function to work. It's entirely unconnected, which I prefer anyway. I miss out on remote access and mopping only parts of the room, but I can live with this trade off.
Once they turn them into true IoT shits, then I'll be worried.
iamjackg
"Integration" is just the term the HA project uses for code supporting a specific device/brand/platform. Home Assistant shows a label on each integration clarifying whether it's entirely local or cloud-based.
greatgib
I agree that it totally sucks. If you use home assistant, it is mostly to not give control of everything in your home to the cloud of a company. Especially to a Chinese one...
And there is no legitimate reason why control can't be local only, especially when home assistant is there to provide the gateway feature and remote access is needed!
So this action of Xiaomi is just a marketing way to be able to print "compatible with home assistant" on their box despite still forcing to use their cloud!
wkat4242
That is nice because the xiaomi stuff is all over the place in HA. Some devices (the air cleaner for example) have built in support but many of them need custom not really supported addons from HACS. Like the WiFi fans, weighing scales, rice cooker etc
kwanbix
I didn't know what it was, so: https://www.home-assistant.io
rrr_oh_man
It's the Land Rover of home automation systems.
(Very capable, but also making programmers out of home owners since 2012)
edit: I was referring to a sticker that I’ve seen often on enthusiasts' forum posts 'Land Rover - Proudly turning owners into mechanics since 1948'.
The old school Defender is a very capable off road vehicle, but its need for regular unscheduled maintenance is legendary.
Greetings from a Toyota HZJ80 driver :)
Someone1234
What is Land Rover the Land Rover of again? Highest cost per repair? Least likely off-road brand to be taken off-road? No.1 brand owned by rich land-owners? I legit don't get what that reference was going for.
Home Assistant is a free and open source way of cross-connecting smart devices. It is incredibly powerful. It can easily save you money (e.g. garage door/motion sensor + thermostat temp adjustments), or allow you to craft bespoke convenience/security features.
It is the central hub of a smart-home. Very reliable in my experience.
mminer237
Closest to the first. He's joking that you can't own a Land Rover without being a mechanic and you can't use Home Assistant without being a programmer.
I love Home Assistant, and except for the occasional update breaking config files it's been very reliable, but there is no way 95% of people could get it installed, let alone get it set up to do anything useful.
randomcarbloke
>What is Land Rover the Land Rover of again? Highest cost per repair? Least likely off-road brand to be taken off-road? No.1 brand owned by rich land-owners? I legit don't get what that reference was going for.
excepting the recent dross from them with the death of the real defender...they can usually be fixed roadside with a hammer and some grease, they're easily the most ubiquitous off-road vehicle globally (well either landrover or toyota) and with 80% of all made still running.
Not sure why your reaction was so emotional, but I think you're thinking of Range Rovers, again though, the old ones were superb, the new ones are for rappers, footballer, and the other assorted nouveau riche.
w0m
Are Land Rovers extra hackable? Will be in need of a new car in a few years and that would help o.0
654wak654
I think they were referring more to Land Rovers making mechanics out of car owners (Due to their famously bad reliability), but I may have misunderstood the joke.
slowmotiony
He meant shit keeps breaking and youll be constantly fixing it
goodpoint
HA is not hackable, is a massive blob
shepherdjerred
It's also the largest project on GitHub by number of contributors
https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2024/11/18/event-wrapup-g...
carlgreene
Home Assistant is one of the best open source projects I've come across. I've been using it for 5+ years on an older RPi and it's been pretty rock solid. Countless updates and everything just keeps on chugging.
I've landed on a mixture of MQTT and Zigbee communicating devices, the latter being much easier to set up and maintain. There's an integration for just about everything I've wanted, some better than others, but all in all just a great project.
diggan
> I've landed on a mixture of MQTT and Zigbee communicating devices
Almost everything I use is ZigBee, but at first, I used the built-in Zigbee support for it, not realizing what I was missing out on.
After a move, I setup everything again, but this time via ZigBee2MQTT instead and the compatibility is miles ahead of the built-in integration.
Just a word of advice to others who are using the built-in integration atm, not realizing the big difference between the two :)
cassianoleal
I experimented a bit with ZHA (native Zigbee integration) but soon realised I needed something better, and Z2M was that something.
It had all been working wonderfully, until I had a problem recently that meant I had to redo the entire Zigbee setup.
I run HAOS on a VM, with the Zigbee radio being passed through from the host. Recently I wanted to play with Thread so I added a radio and passed it through to the VM as well. All was fine, though I wasn't having a lot of time to experiment and the Thread dongle was connected in an awkward position so I decided to yank it out. At this point all hell broke lose. Z2M wouldn't start, throwing cryptic error messages. After a lot of trial and error, I removed both USB passthroughs, rebooted the VM, shut it down again, re-plugged the Zigbee dongle and re-added the passthrough. At this point the hardware side of things was fine but my Zigbee network was gone. To make it worse, a new one couldn't be initialised because it was trying to use the same ID as the previous one. I had to manually change the ID in the config YAML, restart everything, then re-pair all devices.
I really feel like this stuff should be more resilient to failures. Otherwise, it's pretty good!
Croftengea
> At this point the hardware side of things was fine but my Zigbee network was gone.
How come the hardware was ok but the network was gone? Did some Z2M config files go wrong because of two dongles? Did you try to restore VM from snapshots?
Losing the network and having to re-pair everything would be a nightmare for me given the number of Zigbee devices I run (~35) and that some of them are mounted in switch boxes in the walls.
3abiton
I second Zigbee2mqtt. Koen's work is legedenary, I also been fascinated by Zigbee and been using ever since. No need to 3rd part oem vendor lock-in. 99% of the devices I purchased currently nearly 52 on my zigbee network, were paird hassle free.
mavamaarten
I've actually done my migration the other way around. I started with zigbee2mqtt, saw that HA now offers ZHA and switched to that. It just works with all devices I own, so the end result is one less moving part I need to update so the choice was easy.
sedatk
Yes, I see all the praises about Z2M, but don’t see any details how it’s better. ZHA works just fine for me?
tills13
The nice part about mqtt is other things can subscribe to the same stream. I've also seen people do some really interesting things with hosting a copy of HA in the cloud -- this is what they connect to while outside their network -- and using mqtt to push updates to a local HA.
qwertox
I've been rolling my own stuff, mostly devices posting to custom python servers, storing data into influxdb and mongodb, triggering other servers on events, and lately also integrating Tasmota devices via MQTT, like the microwave, washing machine, computer monitors, small heating fans and the like. I migrated all Hue devices to zigbee2mqtt and am happy with the flexibility.
Initially (7 years ago?) I refused to use HA because I've all too often had the issue that then projects become stale and I need to migrate to something else.
But lately I've gotten the feeling that HA is really here to stay, with a community big enough for this project not to die and maintaining very good hardware support.
What I'm missing out on is an (Android) app, and I think that this would be a good reason to think about moving over to HA.
cassianoleal
I think the launch of Open Home Foundation [0] is a very good sign for the future of Home Assistant.
zyberzero
> What I'm missing out on is an (Android) app, and I think that this would be a good reason to think about moving over to HA.
There is! The Home assistant companion - it brings you a lot of functionality in terms of location, notifications, sensors and what not into the HA world.
grahamj
I think they meant they're missing having one now, and so will switch to HA partly to have one.
zapatos
Same story here. Everything goes through MQTT, and a single python script has my automation logic. All redeployable via Docker Compose. I never need to worry about updates breaking things, and there’s much less context for me to try to remember.
Home Assistant never “clicked” with me. It makes some hard things easy, but some easy things hard. I just don’t love YAML enough to write logic in config files…
I also hate that HA pushes you to run their whole OS. The docs usually assume you’re running HAOS.
holoduke
There is an app that is basically a wrapper arround the mobile version of HA. But it works quite well. The dashboards of HA are responsive and there is no need for a native version.
int_19h
Unfortunately the UI is very convoluted, with all the advanced concepts exposed upfront.
monkeydust
HA is awesome but I have found that over time entropy kicks in if you don't maintain it properly (which I haven't done for a year) connections fail, switches stop doing what they are supposed to...it's on my Xmas list to spend some time sorting it out!
sedatk
My friend has lost 15GB of sensor data because of corrupted MariaDB on his HA instance after an upgrade. It's definitely not a hands-off system.
shepherdjerred
Most people don't need 15GB of sensor data, so I don't think this is the best measure of HA being hands-off or suitable for the average person.
sedatk
What makes you think that this issue is related to the amount of data? I see many reported MariaDB corruption issues after HA upgrade on the forums.
theshrike79
If you need to store 15GB of sensor data, a MySQL derivate is not what I'd choose
rsanek
15GB is tiny, db selection doesn't really matter at that small of a scale
sedatk
Why is that?
Someone1234
I include this when considering buying something integrated.
For example Philips Hue is overpriced, but their Home Assistant integration is top tier and ultra-reliable. Contrast that with myQ garage door openers (LiftMaster, Chamberlain and Craftsman) recently breaking Home Assistant support on purpose, to essentially replace it with nothing, and they're dead to me.
So Xiaomi adding support, assuming it is reliable, definitely moves them into a better category.
michaelmior
In case anyone using a myQ opener comes across this, I feel the need to mention ratgdo which many have found to be a great inexpensive upgrade.
eddieroger
I installed a pair of these, and haven't looked back. Yes, there is a little bit of a curve with rewiring your opener, but there is great documentation available, and safety in the fact that if you mess up, your door just won't open. If you snap a picture ahead of time, it's easy to undo. And from there, you can hook it in to Home Assistant or HomeKit and do whatever you want, which is amazing. My Home Assistant notifies me when the door has been open for 5, 10, 30, 60 minutes, as well as if the sensor is obstructed for the same intervals.
progman32
Second this product. I wanted an Ethernet version so I made my own (it's integrated into esphome and the circuit is documented here https://github.com/Kaldek/rat-ratgdo). Apart from general usage, I use mine to tilt the garage door a small amount if it detects bad air quality in my shop (using an IKEA air quality sensor via home assistant).
grahamj
I'm aware but I'm one of the like 5 people that bought the overpriced MyQ-HomeKit adapter and it's still working to provide HA control. If it ever dies I'll be going ratgdo or opengarage for sure
dingnuts
It's inexpensive if you discount the cost of your education learning how to wire in something like that.
There's an order of magnitude difference in project size between setting up the old MyQ integration with home assistant and learning how to use.. whatever that thing is.
Sometimes I think clever and educated people forget what it's like to be less intelligent or educated.
I want a solution I can download :(
15155
You only need to reconfigure 4-6 color-coded, low-voltage wires in exactly one spot (at the opener.) Clear picture instructions are provided.
If you're using Home Assistant at all, you are more than capable of installing this device.
The old MyQ HA integration was absolutely more difficult to configure and install.
michaelmior
That's a fair point, but it's still likely less expensive than replacing your existing opener if you include the cost of an electrician doing the wiring for you.
lotsofpulp
Perhaps an iSmartGate Pro works?
aidenn0
May I suggest OpenGarage? https://opengarage.io/
pininja
Can this detect if you’re left your garage door open for a while and notify me?
room500
I added ratgdo to my HomeAssistant and have HomeAssisteant send notifications if the garage door is open (with a button that closes it)
sedatk
As long as it can report open/close status, you can create an automation for that. That’s what I did.
mohaine
I'll just second to avoid myQ at all costs.
1. They want to charge for some integrations. I could see this if they didn't make local only impossible if you want anything beyond the clicker. Why aren't these just bluetooth and or wifi so my car and open when I pull up and close when I leave? Hell, if they just added an 'open if closed' and 'close if open' it would make it way better for the car to controll. IMO they are purposely making the non myQ options suck and stuck in the 80s just so they can upsell to a monthly subscription.
2. Their security is a joke. After moving to new phone their app would refuse to login yet would still show me notifications for door events. The only way to stop the notifications was to uninstall the app.
My newer garage door is lacking wifi just so I can add my own automation without even bothering with theirs.
microtonal
For example Philips Hue is overpriced,
I wouldn't call them overpriced (at least not all products), their quality is typically great, you get what you pay for. We have had Hue lights for over 10 years (pretty much every light in our house is Hue) and never had any issues. I think over that period one light broke. And like you said, the integration is great. In our house we have it configured to use both through the Hue hub and SmartThings.
drdaeman
> their quality is typically great, you get what you pay for.
You're lucky. I also have almost all lights from Hue, and in almost 6 years I've had 6 or 7 completely dead bulbs (out of ~40). One more lightbulb failed in a weird way - it sort of worked, but in 90% of cases refused to completely turn off and still kept some of the LEDs lit. I haven't bothered to disassemble it to see how that happened. And one more light works normally, but somehow fails to report its status to HomeKit. It can be controlled but always shows up as "updating..." - guess it's a software bug of some sort, since it works in the Hue app.
No Home Assistant here at the moment, just regular Hue+HomeKit setup. I have tried HA a few times, but found no significant additional value over what I already have. It's just as dumb as all other "smart" home solutions, still has very limited diagnostics if something is not working (maybe if one really groks its internals it can be debugged better, but I don't) and requires maintenance. I was thinking about building something with plain simple Zigbee2MQTT and a bunch of DIY scripts to make it a little smart, but haven't yet had time for this.
tills13
Yup. I paid like $40CAD for a single Hue lightbulb in 2017 and it's still going. In that time, I've had countless cheap Canadian Tire brand (NOMA) & Walmart brand LED bulbs burn out and need replacing totaling WAY more than $40.
I just looked and they have gotten like 20% more expensive though... that said, their non-smart bulbs are still pretty affordable comparatively.
dividedbyzero
We have almost two dozen Ikea Tradfri bulbs and they've been great. We had a few older Hue ones too, those never seemed to keep their state across power loss and their light quality was pretty bad given the price, really not impressed.
echoangle
Look for Zigbee devices and most stuff just works out of the box. And when you’re not upgrading firmware, there’s no way for the manufacturer to break anything.
bitdivision
Zigbee is wonderful, especially alongside things like zigbee2mqtt device support [0]. The downside is that its not uncommon to see non-compliant devices, or buggy implementations which is almost more annoying.
I recently installed a zigbee thermostat in my bathroom, which turned out to be flooding the network and causing the rest of my network to become unstable
pcl
If you’ve got a spare garage remote control, a raspberry pi or Arduino board, a soldering iron, an optocoupler, and a sense of adventure, you can easily integrate your existing garage door opener into Home Assistant or what have you.
In fact, the Arduino starter kit comes with a few optocouplers and instructions for basically exactly this project!
Or you can get a tube of a dozen 4N25 optocouplers for like $8 on amazon.
https://store.arduino.cc/products/arduino-starter-kit-multi-...
Carrok
I retrofit my 20 year old garage door opener with a $13 Shelly switch (Shelly 1 Gen3 ). Now my garage door is smart with zero outside dependencies. Blog post I used as reference: https://simplyexplained.com/blog/make-garage-door-opener-sma...
VTimofeenko
I am looking to install a garage opener and due to meatspace constraints I will probably have to use jackshaft. Jackshafts are predominantly LiftMaster and Chamberlain => the smarts are myQ, which I don't want anywhere near my network. Genie jackshafts seem fine, but Genie's reputation is bad to the point where garage door companies may refuse to work on them.
These motors also usually come with the ability to hook up a hardwired button. There are a couple of pre-made (konnected, ratgo) solutions or one could jury rig a z-wave relay.
Alternative is Overhead Garage door company that have separate SKUs for the unit, the battery and the smarts so one can pick two and use the same relay (my current plan).
There may be _some_ proprietary shenanigans with LM and Chamberlain hardwired buttons but Overhead's one really seems to just work through bridging two contacts
15155
Just use a LiftMaster/Chamberlain jackshaft opener, never connect it to any network install the ESP32-based ratgdo device into the wiring harness, be done with this issue.
Nothing else compares due to the digital integration. ratgdo uses the simple serial protocol that the opener button uses, so it has access to a lot of information.
VTimofeenko
Thanks, that's the plan. To be precise - - I thought about getting the opener+battery from Overhead and ratgo/konnected.
Since you mention those two manufacturers specifically -- do you know if there's something that disqualifies the Overhead company's one? One downside that I could think of is that I'd be vendor-locked in for parts when it croaks.
asveikau
Not sure how it works with a jackshaft vs. the more traditional residential opener, but ratgdo can speak the myQ protocol and control it from mqtt or home assistant. I have it working with my Chamberlain opener as do many others.
VTimofeenko
Besides the questionable rent-seeking behavior from myQ:
* I don't want to use an integration that needs a round-trip through the cloud to work. Long-term changes are inevitable (company goes out of business, randomly changes API, etc.)
* I fundamentally do not like Amazon Key integration. It gives someone else control over my security hardware which makes me very uncomfortable. I am not sure if it's opt-in or out, but the point is that a myQ device that is installed _can_ be configured to let arbitrary third party to open the door.
If I have a choice, I'd rather set up a system that I control from the get-go rather than try to lobotomize a system that I can't fully control.
azinman2
Why don’t you want myQ anywhere near your network? Last I saw, 3rd party security analysis has actually been shockingly good.
That said they’re rent seeking to use their products, eg $100/yr or thereabouts for Tesla integration.
efitz
> Why don’t you want myQ anywhere near your network?
Precisely because they're rent-seeking. I have a wifi-enabled garage door opener that I paid a lot of money for. Why should I have to pay MyQ every month to effectively just let something other than their app or their proprietary switch open the door?
rsanek
Hue is amazing, the reliability of their products is truly impressive. I've had ~40 lights for years and not a single one has died or ever had connectivity issues.
syntaxing
Meanwhile MyQ “closed” their API and broke all HA integration because it “cost” the company too much. Where in reality, they just wanted people to use their app since they started serving ads. Say what you want about China and the security implications but a lot of their IoT companies are way more opened than our US counterparts.
seanvelasco
low-end Chinese phones, including Xiaomi and Huawei, show ads on system apps like Settings and Contacts. soon, smart home appliances might also display or speak ads. there's nothing stopping these Chinese companies from doing so - both technologically and ethically.
Xiaomi definitely should not lead the way in smart home automation.
noicebrewery
What makes you think this is unique to Chinese tech companies? Windows 11 put ads in our start menu.
seanvelasco
do you mean putting Bing on the start menu? Microsoft just made them opt-in by default and hoped that folks won't notice or care. you can disable them.
for Chinese devices, there's no way to disable them.
the difference is, for Windows, having Bing on start was a feature (although a bad one). for Chinese devices, you just get ads - you're stuck with ads while changing your brightness.
noicebrewery
No, not just Microsoft services or features (or subscription based software), ads for games and apps on their store get jammed in the start menu as well.
And as other commenters have pointed out, lots of budget phones and hardware jam ads all over the place.
Premium hardware too (hello Smart TVs)
undefined
est
> for Chinese devices, there's no way to disable them.
Uh can you stop spreading misinformation? Try google "disable xiaomi ads" it takes you like 5 minutes to make all ads gone on MIUI or HyperOS. Sure the opt-out buttons were hidden deep behind menus for maximizing profit.
But be warned, in certain countries you are getting a modified ROM from your local re-seller, in that case some ads can't be disabled and they are not from Xiaomi. The only solution is to flash your ROM to the official releases.
RonaldDump
[flagged]
dtquad
Windows 11 "advertise" Microsoft services for Windows 11. It's more like feature announcements.
evilduck
I wish they were that restrained.
While they do include MS services in their advertising it's way more than that. They include a bunch of other crap, including hardware offerings like trying to sell you XBox controllers in popups near the taskbar. They advertise Candy Crush, Instagram, Adobe Express, etc, as listed apps "preinstalled" in Windows. They push clickbait MSN articles (ads) for games, travel, and buying guides in the search button of the taskbar that is enabled by default. They then push those in a widget popover panel too. They make Edge the default browser out of the box (and are relentless about getting you to switch if you change it) and Edge itself then shoves ads in your face with default bookmarks like Ebay and Netflix and Walmart and featured content. IIRC even things like their Maps, Weather, and Photos apps also had web advertising placements.
There's probably more but I can't bear to use Windows more than minimally necessary so I've probably missed a bunch.
maxglute
You get ads for agreeing to buy a cheap subsidized device, like amazon devices. There's lots of guides out there to disable ads/msa.
>soon, smart home
How? With what screen or speaker? The half inch oled on my smart ricer cooker? Xiaomi has been in the smart home market for ~10 years, with 100s of products, except pushing for storage subscription in the mi home app, they haven't done anything aggregious. My robovacuum, air purifier, air conditioner didn't screamed ads in the middle of the night. There's nothing stopping any tech company that inputs to a screen or speaker from monetizing ads, except for past behaviour, and so far Xiaomi home has been very good.
GBiT
Samsung, and some other major players put a lot of ads and bloatware in their phones, TVs, laptops and other appliances. Xiaomi doesn't have ads on global versions of TVs and Phones. I know the Chinese version does have ads.
As a homeowner, I don't know what is worse. Using stuff where the local government can watch and spy on every step or some Chinese guy watching your boring life if you are low-level person.
sexy_seedbox
> low-end Chinese phones, including Xiaomi and Huawei
Did you mean Oppo and Vivo?
jwr
…unlike appliances from non-Chinese companies like, say, Amazon? :-)
There is nothing "Chinese" about enshittification of the world around us. My LG TV insists that my "home screen" is not my property, even though I bought the TV, and invents new ways of showing ads and tracking me invasively. Amazon devices show ads and speak ads. Even Apple devices, even though apple pretends they are above this, show ads in app store search results, and send you ad notifications.
I won't even honorably mention Windows, where my computer and the main UI is basically considered a free-for-all for the Microsoft marketing department.
xbar
I might modify your argument to say that there is nothing uniquely Chinese about enshitification of the world around us.
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pammf
I love Home Assistant but I now have a pretty strict minimum effort rule after years of configuring integrations and building dashboards that I would forget about after 2 months:
I only do automations (no dashboards at all), and try to keep them as simple as possible. Once I feel I’m reaching diminishing returns territory, I stop.
Only use HA if I need to mix different vendors (e.g. turn on the hue lights if the tuya sensor switches to on) or if the vendor app/service has a limitation that doesn’t allow me to do what I want. For instance, I have some automations for my Mitsubishi airco units cause their app sucks. Otherwise I’ll just use the default app or service.
Only configure an integration if I’m going to use it in an automation; I have a bunch of integrations detected that I don’t configure.
I decided to follow these rules a couple of years back, and since then I could address all my needs with almost 0 maintenance.
AdrianB1
How many apps do you have installed to control everything? And how is the stuff integrating if you have equipment from different vendor that need to talk to each other, like AC units with PV inverter to start and shutdown based on electricity net production and real temperature in the rooms (using external thermometers, not the one in the AC)? And how do you consolidate and monitor power consumption in a single place, are you using a different solution for that?
c0wb0yc0d3r
It sounds like I use HA in a similar manner. For me, I make HA available to Google Home and HomeKit. HA is just glue to hold everything together.
I tried do make a dashboard some time ago but it felt rather complicated. Google Home and HomeKit integrate the best into my life and the lives of my family that there is no way HA can compete. Maybe that will change if I find myself in a house that I own… Maybe spending time to make a dashboard will have a better value prop.
shepherdjerred
At the other end of the spectrum, I just managed to split up my HA automation files and mount them into a ConfigMap on my K8s cluster
https://github.com/shepherdjerred/homelab/tree/main/cdk8s/co...
c0wb0yc0d3r
I assume then, you don’t use HAOS? What benefit do you see by managing your config this way? Do you also have an operator to reload HA when when you update configs?
shepherdjerred
It’s mostly a fun way to learn Kubernetes for me. I don’t have an operator.
nevi-me
Better late than never, I have 3 of their bulbs in the house, and not being able to integrate with HA prevented me from buying more (at least before Matter was announced).
I've been using them with Google Home, so the lights weren't automated with HA. I'll try the integration out.
hereonout2
I have bulbs from wiz, which already have HA support.
Being new to all this home automation stuff I was quite intrigued how they worked though. They're exposed on the WiFi network over a really simple UDP based protocol which led me down a rabbit hole of writing a little go client to mess about with them, took a few evenings.
Not saying Xiaomi bulbs would be quite as simple to write an integration for, but they might have been. It's kind of fun seeing how people have reverse engineered all these custom protocols.
Havoc
They sold bulbs under various brands. I’ve got some very old ones branded yeelight that work entirely offline with HA.
Tried to rebuy got a different brand and they don’t work offline properly. Bit of a crapshoot
These days I try to buy preflashed tasmota gear. Things like athom.tech
Fabricio20
I got some of those Yeelight ones (gen 1/gray plastic and gen 2/white plastic!) but my experience has been really bad. Even if their app allows you to enable local mode it's laggy and just... stops working after a while, it also seems to break if it can't reach xiaomi servers (pihole). Wondering how you got yours to work, mine are just trash at this point and i've since switched to proper local devices.
Havoc
Zero lag. If they lose power they revert to cool white. All local. Checked home assistant and its direct integration (yeelight)...no mqtt.
And looked up my old notes - copied in below though don't recall details of what I did. Suspect maybe I used the python stuff just to check that lan is enabled rather than editing
------
https://github.com/Squachen/micloud
pip install micloud
miiocli device --ip 192.168.1.88 --token FOOBAR info
miiocli device --ip 192.168.1.88 --token FOOBAR info
On iphone go to yeelight app, select the apps overall setting menu and enable lan control
gpi
Got my hopes up but it's a start. Was hoping to see more local support as opposed to Xiaomi cloud
tetris11
Just use ZigBee or Z-wave devices and then use a bridge to connect to HA.
Anything else is just WiFi and vendor lockdown
Fabricio20
Personal anecdote but at least for me WiFi devices are significantly more reliable and there exists good brands that don't have any vendor lockdown, such as Shelly or Sonoff. Others can do Tasmota. So you shouldn't go around discarding it just because it's wifi. I live in a concrete and metal house. My WiFi coverage is spotless with several APs around the house.
Can't really do that with ZigBee. Almost all of my zigbee devices just fail to connect every other day. Z-wave offers that mesh network promise but man is it out of reach in the price range.
WiFi is everywhere/in every house, I seriously think more vendors should offer devices that just integrate into it instead of trying to build this bespoke network on the same band. Specially since 2.4GHz is going into disuse more and more as people switch to 5GHz for phones/pcs/etc..
tetris11
I'm just worried about OTA updates. Shelly and Sonoff are playing nice now. They might not always.
Plus, unless you fence off your wifi device from the router, it might be phoning home on you. At least a module without a WiFi stack can't do that
mgrandl
Some of the best home automation stuff is cloud-less wifi. For example Shelly switches with Tasmota are awesome and I much prefer those over zigbee bulbs.
cassianoleal
The WiFi and BLU Shelly devices are pretty rock solid, and couldn't be more compatible with HA.
harry8
I've had a reasonable run with athom pre-flashed tasmota kit and HA.
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/5790427
Low effort, low maintenance, works good. mqtt & wifi, tasmota has everything you could want in a timer interface while still exposing switching etc to override it HA.
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In my opinion this is not Xiaomi into Home Assistant (HA). To me, an integration would mean that I need nothing from Xiaomi, all activities are within HA.
from the Github page[0]:
> Xiaomi Home Integration and the affiliated cloud interface is provided by Xiaomi officially. You need to use your Xiaomi account to login to get your device list. Xiaomi Home Integration implements OAuth 2.0 login process, which does not keep your account password in the Home Assistant application. However, due to the limitation of the Home Assistant platform, the user information (including device information, certificates, tokens, etc.) of your Xiaomi account will be saved in the Home Assistant configuration file in clear text after successful login. You need to ensure that your Home Assistant configuration file is properly stored. The exposure of your configuration file may result in others logging in with your identity.
[0] https://github.com/XiaoMi/ha_xiaomi_home?tab=readme-ov-file#...