Home Automation

What It Is

A home automation setup that prioritises local control and privacy over cloud dependency.

Why Self-Hosted

Most “smart home” products want you to:

• Create an account with their cloud service
• Route all your data through their servers
• Trust that they’ll keep operating indefinitely
• Accept that your lights might not work if their servers are down

That’s not smart - that’s just adding failure points and privacy concerns.

Home Assistant runs locally. My automations work even if the internet is down. My data stays in my house.

The Setup

• Home Assistant running on a Raspberry Pi
• Zigbee coordinator for local device communication
• Various sensors - motion, temperature, door/window contacts
• Smart plugs and lights - mostly Zigbee-based
• Automations - lights based on presence, notifications for various events

What I’ve Learned

Home automation is a rabbit hole. You can spend endless hours tweaking automations that save you 30 seconds a day. The key is knowing when good enough is good enough.

The most valuable automations are the boring ones: lights that turn off when you leave, alerts when a door is left open, heating schedules that actually match when you’re home.

The Tinkering

I’ll admit this is partly just enjoying the tinkering. There’s satisfaction in building systems that work the way you want, not the way some product manager decided.