Do you have any recommendations for a home automation hub/system?
My Wink hub died last week and I need a new home automation system or hub to replace it with.
Why not just buy a new Wink hub? I’ve been using Wink for several years and have been less than impressed with it for several reasons:
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- It’s slow
- The hub often loses contact with the internet and devices it is supposed to control
- The lag is several seconds, often more than 10 seconds
- The future of Wink is very uncertain
I got into the system by getting a cheap Quirky (now Wink) hub with a few lights at Home Depot. We needed a way to dim the light in my daughter’s room. She had a ceiling fan with only an on/off switch on the wall. Rather than having to install an aftermarket remote control in the fan, I thought I’d give this home automation thing a try.
Fast forward several years and I have quite a few lights and outlets controlled by an upgraded Wink hub. I have a Wink Relay (shown above) to control the system, but I’m not hopeful that I’ll be able to re-use it with a new hub.
My criteria for a new system are:
- Mostly wireless (no running low voltage wires everywhere)
- Have integration for lights AND outlets
- The hub should not depend on Wifi
- Very little lag
- Relatively stable company
I’m looking at the Samsung Smart Things Hub right now. It works with all my devices, it has an Ethernet port, and Samsung has committed a lot of resources to the system. It’s not going to disappear because one retailer stopped carrying it — like what happened with Iris at Lowe’s.
But, I’d like to know if any of you run Home Automation systems. Which system do you run? Would you recommend it?
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David
I’ve been a (mostly) satisfied SmartThings user since the Kickstarter. It continues to be my default recommendation, and satisfies your requirements. The only reason I point people in a different direction is if they want to avoid a cloud service.
Andrew
The cloud service is exactly the reason I dumped SmartThings. I found I never really used any of the smart functions anyways, so I eventually just unhooked the SmartThings hub.
I really wouldn’t mind having a local smart hub, but at the same time, I really don’t find a need to have anything automated.
I did really enjoy the Logitech harmony remote hub, but I’m in the process of moving and don’t know if I’ll need it in my new setup. Also, I bought in early, so I never got the remote that has the smart home buttons added on.
I think what I’d want is a temperature/humidity monitor (with a log and graphs, and all) to keep heating and cooling costs down during the change of seasons.
Rick O
The Wink Hub 2 has an Ethernet port and has WiFi as a backup. It had been much happier with it over the Hub 1 WiFi only version.
Benjamen
After reading some articles about the company I’m not to sure it’s going to be around. Last time I heard their employees hadn’t been paid for months.
Tom D
I use Hue bulbs. They’re pricey but so far, they just work.
Vards Uzvards
For almost three years now we’re using this VeraEdge controller:
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00PFGJZM8/
It has Ethernet port, but can use Wi-Fi too, and supports several wireless IoT protocols. Web UI is not very elegant, but it works. Mobile application is more limited in functionality (compared to Web UI). The most recent software update for the controller came out just a month or two ago, and before that updates were coming out from time to time, so this is not yet abandoned. The company has newer products as well, I believe.
Nathan
I would say look into the Vera system. or my vera. for that matter I have a vera hub I’d be willing to part with for a small fee.
But vera is the open platform version that uses zigbeen, Zwave and wifi. It is a bit more open than smartthings or some of the others. But like them Vera runs a offsite service based interconnection system and a software application base. There are apps you can put on the vera device to do extra things.
More importantly it will work with your existing wink harware. For example I use a wink branded garage door opener kit with my vera – as it’s Zwave. But it comes up on the vera as a GoControl _________. because that’s what the parent product was.
ANyway I’ve liked the system and might upgrade my box due to wanting to run some cameras. OH and My Vera will run cameras too. only thing I don’t like is the fact that it’s technically a foreign company. But then so are the others.
Vera is sold more to home installers than to DIY so it has a touch of a learning curve becasue it does more than wink could do. but they are similar systems.
Mike S
I have both Alexa connected, and Apple Homekit connected devices – sometimes, the same device is connected to both; in fact, most (nearly all) of the devices can be controlled by either system, as well as by a dedicated App from the manufacturer. Some of the devices require that you create an account with the manufacturer, and then the device is controlled from the Hub’s cloud to the manufacturer cloud, and then down to the device itself.
I have and like / enjoy these:
– an Apple TV 4k to act as a Homekit hub (ethernet or wifi – your choice).
– Ecobee Smart Thermostat w/ Alexa (its also an advanced Alexa hub).
– Echo Show 5 (Alexa hub)
– Leviton Homekit wall switches (wifi).
– Ikea Tradfri Bulbs w/ remotes, and their Hub.
– Lifx Smart Bulbs (works with every hub/system out there).
– Logitech Harmony Hub & remotes
– Yale SL lock
– FirstAlert OneLink Safe & Sound
– Bond Home Hub (for ceiling fan control) – was hard to get set up, but they’ve made improvements, connects with Alexa only
Since the Ecobee went in – my electric bills have gone down significantly (about $50/mo), and it provides excellent control, and has all sorts of graphs and data and reports.
The Ikea bulbs are great just for the remote control – no smart / connected parts needed. But – add the hub – and its connected to both Alexa and Homekit (and if you have / want it, Google, I think).
There are occasional glitches; and the Yale app basically doesn’t work anymore. But – with things connected to Homekit or Alexa – I can always control things. And – you can always just manually operate things if you want.
I plan to get the Insignia Garage Door Opener, since there’s a work around for getting it to operate a Chamberlain Security 2.0 Door, and they are now on sale.
Benjamen
Forgot about Ikea automation. I’ll have to look into that too.
Wayne R.
I’m a fairly hardcore geek. Been a network guy for almost 40 years now.
Had a Nest thermostat in the previous house, but then Google bought them. I figure Google already knows way too much about each of us, so I didn’t upgrade in the next house (but this one’s programmable, just not “web enabled”).
That said, I don’t see a real advantage to this smart home stuff. Spend money, give who knows access to extra data (for additional compilation to everything else), and what? Let me stay on the couch when I want the light to be different?
I’ve seen more than a few doorbell videos of porch pirates, so there’s some value there, but that’s all cloud-based too, right?
Overall, I don’t see the bang for the buck in this stuff. Am I missing something important?
(And yes, I know, they’re going to get a lot on us anyway but why make it that easy for them?)
Mike S
I try to keep my data out of the hands of the giants as much as possible. But – I felt that having my home allow me to interact with it in a better way was a trade off worth experimenting with – if I decide the benefits are not worth it – I can go back to the original state.
So – when I come home and the house is pitch black, from anywhere, I can just say “Alexa, turn on x lamp” – and now I can see, and not run into things, etc.
And – I made a new fake name and a new account for the Alexa stuff. That account doesn’t buy anything, and has no other existence, except for controlling the devices.
Also – buying a dumb light switch to automate porch lights at dawn/dusk – is basically the same price as buying one that will connect to your favorite service. Sure – you have to trust the service, its a trade off. But price wise – its essentially a toss up.
My non tech wife seems to enjoy the new features even more than I do.
Wayne R.
That last sentence is probably the key concept…
And putting occupancy sensor switches in the garage & basement means just walking in lights things up. Stupid simple effective addition without further complexity – that appeals to me.
Tim E.
Going non-cloud usually steps up the price and/or complexity quite a bit, and for the same kind of ease of use at that point I usually point folks to a professional level installed system. If you are more of a DIY type and don’t mind the tinkering, Hubitat is neat but last time I tried it, still had some quirks.
Smartthings has been good overall for me, but it does connect out to the cloud. The ADT version from a few years ago was awesome when it was being clearances out of Best Buy. I haven’t tried the newest smartthings hub, but haven’t had a particular reason to either, since as is smartthings has handled what I’ve needed of it.
For things like lights and outlets, Alexa can also now process those commands locally, you just have to enable it. So even if your internet goes down, you can still deal with the lights and plugs. That doesn’t include routines, so smartthings is still a better solution for that kind of stuff. I haven’t had any issues having both hooked up, though I also have both go through the Hue hub rather than natively connecting to the bulbs.
The nice thing is hub makers are still moving ever further away from proprietary hardware and into where they work with lots of 3rd party stuff, from locks to lights to blinds to plugs.
A further area of discussion is lumping home security in with home automation. While smartthings is decent and has security oriented features, it is still first and foremost a home automation hub. It isn’t meant to handle life and death home security situations. Using some of their security type sensors to do automation tasks is convenient, sure, but I always 100% try to steer people away from doing their only home security with such a system. Look for a dedicated security solution (smartthings ADT included, but beware of compatibility issues there, it isn’t actually the same as regular smartthings!). Ring (alarm, not the doorbells and cameras), Adobe, skylink, simplisafe, vivint, go with a platform dedicated to security, and look for one that is capable of being professionally monitored. You may not want that functionality now, but it’s a good indicator that the quality and responsiveness of the system is up to being used for such purposes. If the security-first system is also capable of doing home automation tasks (vivint comes to mind), then that’s okay, but again if you plan to use a system for security aspects, make sure you cover that base first and foremost.
Andrew Sanjanwala
Having an issue with this post going through, so I’m going to apologize in advance if it’s duplicated.
If you’re just looking for It works without much hassle, I’d cast my vote for SmartThings. It’s a simple to manage platform which allows you to pick up zigbee, zwave, and select wifi devices, while also enabling some degree of customization via addons that can be installed by moderately technical people. Lag is minimal. Most z-wave and zigbee products offer local command execution, so a cloud delay common to other devices isn’t present. It’s reliable. It’s well priced. It’s SAF (spousal approval factor) is high.
I started on Wink since I liked their price point, presentation, protocol support and felt they had a better long-term goal, but Wink was weak to start with its extremely laggy cloud-only controls, limited automation and poor reliability. While the brand lives on it, essentially died with the death of the Quirky/GE project.
Even though I’ve thrown my vote in for SmartThings, my heart is actually with Home Assistant. If you want more control and have the time to research the platform and learn how to best use it, Home Assistant will offer you the ability to truly automate things and does so with a platform that’s fully open source and constantly improving.
Andrew Sanjanwala
(Part 2 of my comment, which for some reason blocked my comment when combined)
The caveats of HASS are that the user must be tech savvy enough to…
– know what hardware it needs (a raspberry pi works, but offers far from ideal performance in the real world),
– know how to deploy it to said device,
– know what hardware they require to interact with their swarm of devices (ex. a zigbee/zwave USB stick,
– know how to configure this hardware with the software,
– learn how to configure the device entities, automation rules, and other parameters within HASS, and
– know how to actually maintain this whole thing.
The learning curve is off-puttingly steep but once it’s passed, the user can truly do anything with the platform and there are no running costs. It’s constantly growing and improving. You can also do as I’ve done and use your SmartThings hub as the hardware integration for your smart devices while having automations and advanced controls managed through Home Assistance. This has kept the WAF high in my house (she uses the SmartThings app and Google Assistant for voice-activated light controls) while letting me do stuff like have Google Assistant passive aggressively remind her to turn off the lights if they’re left on.
Champs
I’m tied to Lutron Caseta for the wireless controllers to add switches without permits or fishing behind asbestos era plaster. I’m happy with it and nearly willing to shell out for even better ELV dimmers and shades, but they’re pricey.
The hub runs on a wired connection and communicates with a proprietary (and responsive) RF protocol. The master dimmers and switches are hard wired in the box, but outlet controllers are plugged in. If you can see past the glaring omission of an integrated receptacle I think it ticks all the boxes.
schill
For me, a big plus with Caseta is the ability to use wireless remote switches that can be easily mounted like normal light switches. They make it very easy to work with 3-, 4-, or more-way switches. You only need one wired switch and them the wireless remotes can replace the other wired switches (or be added where there are no switches).
Benjamen
I have one of the old Lutron remotes that are discontinued, and it has been really solid. It paired directly with one of the lights and works even without the Wink Hub. I went to buy more until I discovered they are going for $100+ dollars.
I’m seriously considering the Caseta for just the lighting, because the switched are hardwired and you don’t have those situations where the light is off and the switch is on. Then maybe having another hub for all the other stuff.
Corey Moore
I haven’t been in home security or automation for awhile, but I pushed folks towards zwave, or other point to point networks that didn’t require, or big down your WiFi. I’ve seen that there’s been a huge upswing in options from New companies in these areas, but they all seem relatively the same in hardware and function, and seem to be bundled with different monitoring service contacts (which is where they actually make their money). It’s dated now, I’m sure, but I was a fan of Honeywell’s lynx+ tuxedo setup. Put plenty of em in high end homes, small/medium commercial offices, and lots of restaurants. To be honest, Honeywell has had issues with splintered software pursuits, but the systems standalone very well and are compatible with just about any kind of automation device you can think of, on top of security, life safety detectors and such (personally and professionally I always prefer hardwired for those), CCTV options, and their automation. “scenes” or schedules and zoning were super intuitive with little to no familiarity. There was an off brand thermostat I was asked to tie in with zwave once, that gave me some hassle, but I can’t think of any other time I wasn’t satisfied after installing one to whatever purpose. The vistas were a little more capable, though legitimately difficult to program, but the lynx was a great all around system, and the tuxedo was a great modernization as interfaces go. I won’t claim to be an expert in the field anymore, so this is just my two cents as a former alarm/security tech ?
Alan Wild
I recently replaced my wink hub2 with a Hubitat elevation. I had a minor issue getting a schlage door lock to communicate but it was resolved by installing a couple more zwave light switches (which act as repeaters). The Hubitat is a little harder to use but mostly because you can do so much with it. There is support for integrating with Google home and/or Amazon if you want to do that but everything mostly runs locally which is different than wink or smartthings that really need their cloud services to be work. Other users comment on the speed of the Hubitat but I’ve only noticed it one time (I felt like the speed of wink hub2 was mostly fine). Anyway, the time I noticed it was when I asked Google to turn off a fan (which is plugged into a zwave outlet) and the fan actually turned off _before_ the Google home message acknowledging the command.
Brian
Thank you for this information. I’m also on Wink Hub 2 and use Schlage door locks. I was leaning towards the Hubitat vs SmartThings as I’m leary of Samsung. It seems the Schlage door locks are not very compatible across the board and favor Wink. I was hoping Wink would get bought and live on but I should probably get proactive about migrating to Hubitat. If/when Wink stops working it will probably be abrupt and will cause serious issues in my house. The horror of having to carry a key again 🙂
Vards Uzvards
I have a Schlage door lock accessible via Vera Home.
Matt
INSTEON is the way to go.
It runs on powerline as well as its own WI-FI nextork.
they have modules / devices for pretty much everything.
It is compatbile with Alexa / Google.
Has its own web / app interface.
easily programable.
Great technical support.
I have their controlled / dim-able outlets, light switches, dimmer modules for plug in lights, in line dimmer modules for lighting in furniture, ceiling fan controls, leak detection, etc.
They have security and Fire alarm as well, but those devices are not POE, so I stuck with Nest / Ring respectivly.
Happy to talk more about the system if you are interested
Benjamen
I was aware of Insteon, but shied away from it because it wasn’t compatible with other devices.
I’ll have to take another look.
On the plus side it’s sold at Menards
Robtr8
#1, I have an AirPort Extreme router because it can handle up to 50 things. Also because maintaining the router via the iPhone is just dead a** easy.
#2, I use AirPort Express modules as remote speakers all over the house. That’s my distributed audio system.
#3, I use two WeMo switches to control the front porch lights and back patio lights. They come on at sunset and off at sunrise. No Zigbee, they just use the WiFi. Belkin is pretty good at keeping them up to date and I have had no problems with them. I did try IFTTT for a minute but that wasn’t very reliable. The WeMo app works perfectly.
#4, I have a WeMo console humidifier that lets me know when it needs a refill.
#5, I have a 1st gen Nest thermostat. LOVE it. In our climate we often need heat in the AM and cooling in the PM. This was the first thermostat that could do both at the same time.
And that’s it. I hate talking too Siri so I doubt Alexa and I would get along.
No video or alarms. I have dogs.
Oflannabhra
This whole segment is such a nightmare for recommendations. Most systems only support certain integrations, have subscriptions, and different companies have strengths in different verticals (eg, security, video, lights).
Despite the promise of simplicity heralded IoT platforms, they’ve given rise to more complexity and confusion.
I’d recommend either:
1) picking one system and sticking with it, or
2) go ad-hoc and select systems not based on interoperability, but on features.
I like IKEA’s approach, even if it is a bit behind the market.
PETE
I have 3 home automation systems. They are 6, 4, & 2 years old. They each took 9 months to get here once I made a deposit. They’ll turn the lights off occasionally when asked. More often than not I have to make sure they turn the lights off. If left alone they’ll distribute all the toys evenly thought the house. They’re self learning so maybe in 10-40 years all 3 system will be able to work autonomously without needing too much input. lol
b33tl3
I have been using Smarthings for a few years and it works most of the time. Nest no long works since Google locked people out but other stuff works. I use Amazon Fire tablets mounted to the wall running ActionTiles https://www.actiontiles.com/ to show status and control devices. I use a Konnected Alarm https://konnected.io/ paired to Smarthings to control my home alarm.
I have been looking at homeassistant https://www.home-assistant.io/ it is pretty cool looking and be run on a Pi or as a docker container. More of your automations are local and not in the cloud.
mike
Smartthings is great for starting out – mid advanced level automations. The forums and community driven apps / devices make it a very powerful solution that is still ‘pretty’ and meets all wife approvals [Most important part of HA]
Hubitat was branched off what ST started as, but with a cloud removed focus. This is mid-advanced + level, but not nearly as pretty out of the box, though the dashboard software can get very fancy.
HomeAssistant / Vera is High level, really digging in to the system stuff. I dont recommend them unless you have particular requirements that push you that way.
Frank D
I’m on Insteon with an ISY controller from UDI, works quite well, can expand as you like, add programs, takes a bit of a deep dive though but not much of an issue for smart people who like a bit of tech and figuring things out. (note I do not have the limited insteon home whatever box)
Only issue I’m having at this point is accessing the ISY from the mac through Java. Java got on Apple’s shortlist and so I have to use an old PC to work on things.
I do run into some on/off glitches from time to time, but that is mainly due to an old custom home with multiple panels and I’m guessing some electrical noise.
UDI is working on a new box that would go beyond just Insteon and incorporate control of many other brands’ gear.
Evadman
You will be long-term unhappy with whatever you pick honestly. there are no standards for interoperability or future proofing, so at some point, it’s all going to die. I would suggest looking for a robust company or open standards so it lasts as long as possible.
My house is mostly custom-built or modified stuff. Probably 50% is X10 protocol, 30% is Wink and 20% insteon. In pretty much all cases, I hacked them up on the hardware and software side. for example, swapping out some resisters and making my own modifications to X10 switches so that florescents wouldn’t ‘flash’ as the internal caps charged with the small leak current required of X10. I use my own software running on a small high efficiency rack mount server, since I had installed a small network rack in the house.
I use a old x10 firecracker to communicate out to the transceivers for the X10 stuff, and also have a receiver on the server that can read the X10 signal on the powerline. I have the same for insteon, a powerlinc. For in-home control, I use the X10 palmpads, since each one has 16 buttons. If controlling something X10, it’s simple and the palmpad hits the transciever and flips the device. Its more complex controlling the wink garage door opener or insteon stuff, but still works fine. the computer sees the X10 signal on the powerline from the transceiver, sees it means ‘open garage door’, and my program calls the wink hub and tells it to open the garage door.
My first stuff was X10 protocol, the protocol is open standard, and it is decently robust. Heck, the X10 radio protocol is formed almost identically to a regular IR remote for TVs or such, so translating from X10 radio to IR to control the TV with an IR transmitter is relatively simple.
My house is basically split this way:
If it’s in the cieling (light, fan), then it is insteon.
If it is in the wall or high powered (light switches, sump pump, backup sump), it is X10
If it is usage specific (garage door, house water & gas shutoffs), it is Wink.
If it interfaces with a person (remote controls) it is X10.
Sensors for automation are generally X10 (water sensors, CO detectors, natural gas detectors, motion)
Automation on schedules, or on triggering events (ex: CO, NG, alarm) is done though the computer.
One of the more fun things I did is if the house alarm trips over the powerflash, there’s a 3 second delay, then the TV’s power on (via turning the outlets off then back on, which triggers the TV’s to turnon like a power outage). 12 seconds later, every light in and outside of the house starts flashing. I keep meaning to wire up a siren, but I haven’t had the time yet.
Troy Templin
I’ve been using Wink for many years too and have nearly every light and plug automated. I switched to the Wink2 hub and it resolved the lag and reliability has been much better. I wish the robots were saved locally so if the internet is down it still worked. The future of Wink is grim but they do seem to be making some effort to recover.
I will say the thing that makes this tough is many of the brands that have been “universal” are now sending out updates that make them less compatible and thus forcing you into only their system.
Bryan
This is a very exciting topic for me. I have done a lot of research on this and have the following.
1) Use Nest Thermostat, Doorbell and IQ outdoor cameras. The connection with a Google Home Hub is awesome.
2) I had several old voltage relays and replaced all those plus most other switches with Lutron Caseta. The simplicity and reliability about a year in has been stellar.
3) Schlage Encode Lock- No hub required and a small footprint. It is awesome.
4) Handful of Hue Bulbs and Light Strips in my girls room and they love to pick their colors.
Albert
I’m happy with Alexa (Amazon Echo). Not great, but works fine most of the time and is cheap. Connected to it I have a Wemo dimmer, a few off-brand switches, a Bond controller for my ceiling fans, two Nest thermostats, a MyQ garage door controller and a OneLink smoke detector. Most of the time, they work great. Most… I’m very happy with the voice commands. I do wish I could use one phone app rather than multiple apps. I’m very glad I don’t have a touchscreen on the wall. This winter I’m going to look into Konnected to retrofit an old alarm system that came with my house. This thread is very interesting!
Al
I install lutron equipment and it matches all your criteria
Mostly wireless (no running low voltage wires everywhere)….
Have integration for lights AND outlets
The hub should not depend on Wifi
Very little lag
Relatively stable company
You have to replace your outlets and switches, which will cost a penny, and find motion sensors, but all in all it’s a system which will not feel outdated. It’s entirely hardware, easy to program. There are also dimming and daylight dimming options s.
Nathan
Something I meant to mention in the previous post. while I’m not an IT security expert nor a programing expert I know enough to be quite dangerous. So without getting into running a server based router with piehole and . . . . . . . stand alone NAS rack with . . . . .
Early in my home setup I did this one simple thing and it’s setup alot of ease of mind on network security. On a previous LInksys router I had a guest network setup for my vera box, and the ecobee and the logitech harmony – thus they lived over in their own quadrant with a low bandwidth cap, on their own network. Not all routers will work for this. Ubiquity is a fantastic system for this. just to pick something easy to use.
The point is. If I need to turn it off – I can with one plug. Not of the controller systems can see my private data – none of them connect direct with my computers or my home theater setup. However they are local – so I can reach over when I need to to change settings and etc. It is a touch more complicated but I don’t worry one tick about someone hacking my house though my Vera hub or Ecobee system and getting into important stuff. OK sure with some real work a person might could hack the system and get the vera to open the garage door. K – but hey kids you’re on video – which is on a different system. (I don’t use the vera camera setup but it does work).
I am weird – and I know this. regardless I wish you luck.
scott
I often learn a lot more from reading the comments on these articles than the article itself. A lot a great nfo here. I have several Wemo devices and can say that they do work great with Alexa. One app that I really like that I haven’t seen mentioned in the comments that I thought I would pass along is the IFTTT app. It’s free and very useful for extending the functionality of your smart devices. IFTTT stands for If This Then That and allows you to share data between apps or between apps and smart devices. With it you can turn things on based on weather data from Weather Underground or based on your location (GPS) from your phone or basically any information available online. It’s worth checking out.
JR3 Home Performance
Second that on Ifttt. An example is using an air quality monitor to trigger a smart thermostat to run the fan on a central heating system (assuming high quality centeral air filter Merv 11+)
JR3 Home Performance
I used to use the Vera controller but it took a lot of semi-expert programming, and slowly failed. I ended up transitioning to not really needing much automation but more security. All the Nest products work well for me on what matters most. Indoor/outdoor cameras, wifi thermostat, video doorbell, Co/smoke alarm. I also have a moen flo because that was one missing gap in the Nest ecosystem of being able to monitor your home when away. I just use PIR sensors to make lighting automatic where needed like outside or in hallways. I have to say the Philips hue bulbs are nice based on installing them for a client but my current lighting is much better than the average home so for me the cost differential doesn’t warrant it yet. On a whole my house is much less likely to get broken into, have pipes freeze up, be on fire, have a CO incident, or have a giant flood when I’m away from it without it being noticed fairly quickly. Next I might try the hub for camera viewing/control convenience, locks for access ease (currently I just have mechanical code locks), and actual security system in case someone was brave enough to break into a home with several security cameras
Herb
I’m a Wink 2 user. I’m going to migrate to Hubitat. It’s local and seemingly extensible to just about anything you might want to do. It also appears to have the most momentum.
https://youtu.be/bbbs9B0l79c https://youtu.be/q0J_HxaKjTk
I tried Hass.io. It was a pain for me and I never warmed to it.
Mosh
Control 4
Matthew Mooney
Hi Stuart, long time first time here…. had to mention OpenHab (openhab.org) since hasn’t been yet. Very similar to Home Assistant, that was the alternative I was deciding between, both are great choices, but OpenHab is the clear winner for me. However, for the sake of brevity, here are some reasons to give serious consideration….
– Completely Open Source (OSS), non-commercial and independently developed from all manufacturers, can be found on GitHub at https://github.com/openhab
– 100% vendor agnostic, has support for literally hundreds of different devices, probably EVERY popular device and dozens of obscure ones you’ve never heard of. Very active community that is constantly adding more “bindings,” as each module is called.
To expand a little, because this is critical to its value ….forr example, in my home are Hue lights, switches, sensors, WeMo plugs, Sonoff esp8266 based plugs and custom lights (reprogrammed to use MQTT via OpenHab), UniFi wireless gear, Android and Iphone both for access AND location/status, Sharp and Samsung TV’s, infrared blasters, Amazon Alexa voice interfacing AND output, Sonos speakers, etc. This is all under a single, unified interface, and you’d have a hard time finding unsupported gear at this point in development.
– Very active, dedicated development team, which in the few years I’ve been running this system, I’ve seen OpenHab grow and mature tremendously, especially the UI / interface.
– UI options include Android/Iphone apps, web/remote access, tablet-specific (ie: slick) views, etc.
– Easily installed via a variety of methods, including a all-in-one Raspberry Pi distribution (what I use).
– My favorite.. Absolutely NO need to interface with any vendor b******. Completely private, offline, if desired. Web remote access IF desired, can be enabled via your own server, or through a provided service from the OpenHab foundation, which is again, non-profit and user-centric.
At the very least, I would recommend SERIOUSLY considering purchasing a Raspberry Pi, and spending a weekend integrating any devices you currently have or at the very least, looking very hard at OpenHab or Home Assistant, for a private, secure and non-locked in option. We shouldn’t be so quick to let any for-profit company into our private spaces, just so we can yell at our lights and stay on the couch.. I want to yell at my own computers 🙂
Matthew Mooney
OpenHAB – Some links
Home automation overview and guide to using OpenHAB, Docker, HassIO and NextCloud as a stacked solution – from one of my favorite YouTuber’s.
If you had time for nothing else, you would be good to go and be asking the right questions/looking in the right places. Watch this, absolutely recommended!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJRMjUzlHI8
(Really a fantastic end-to-end solution covered and all presented in a very easy-to-digest overview/guide, covering everything from requirements to various other options, to planning and execution, I love this guy, he somehow packs all this in ~20 min, hits the key points, and wraps, so I can pass it on instead of having to spend hours explaining it to others 😉
tour of the UI, from OpenHAB Virtual Meetup 2020, starts at ~26:00
https://youtu.be/pwZ8AOwRDEk?t=1586
Official YouTube channel installation quick-setup guide