How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb voice assistant

Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by wil421 on Thursday February 02, 2023 @07:57AM (#34625890)

Homebridge plus Apple Home in my opinion is much better than home assistant. If you’re android based or have really complicated automations I could see why home assistant would be better. Home assistant’s lack of compatibility with quite a few brands made me run Homebridge and home assistant together which defeats the purpose of HA.

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Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by noodlesUK on Thursday February 02, 2023 @08:02AM (#34625939)

I'm curious which devices you have that are supported by home bridge but not home assistant. I've had nothing but success using home assistant.

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Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by wil421 on Thursday February 02, 2023 @09:28AM (#34626909)

This was over a year ago. Wyze and HA were having spats over API access. Unifi did not have a plug-in and I ended up having to install Homebridge.

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Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by bmurphy1976 on Thursday February 02, 2023 @12:52PM (#34630387)

Can't speak for Unifi but the Wyze support is pretty dreadful. That's entirely on Wyze though and the price you pay for buying the cheapest option. Personally I'm going to replace all my Wyze hardware over time and kick them to the curb.

I'm starting with my Garage Door opener: I built one myself and connected it to Home Assistant which is connected to Google. Now I can open the door using Google Assistant, something I can't do with Wyze. I also don't have to open up their stupid app and wait for it to establish a video connection before I can tell it to open up the door.

Wyze is cheap and easy, but it's also hot garbage.

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Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by wil421 on Thursday February 02, 2023 @07:20PM (#34635356)

Wyze refused to reconnect to my new WiFi access points with the same SSID but a different password. All kinds of resets did nothing and I ate the costs and switched my smart plugs to Kasa from TP Link. It’s been better but not without faults.

Philips hue has very rarely caused me troubles except the adhesive on their cabinet lights was garbage.

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Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by kragen on Thursday February 02, 2023 @08:12AM (#34626041)

100% local control rules out any android or especially apple devices

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Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by count on Thursday February 02, 2023 @09:10AM (#34626670)

One of the requirements for HomeKit branding is that you work without internet connectivity.

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Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by kragen on Thursday February 02, 2023 @09:42AM (#34627125)

that's a good start, but if you have 100% local control over a device that is refusing to work (because it doesn't have internet connectivity or for any other reason), you can fix the bug (or apply someone else's fix you downloaded from gitlab)

that doesn't work if you've ceded that control to apple, because they are not local

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Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by wil421 on Thursday February 02, 2023 @07:15PM (#34635297)

I can put HomeKit devices on a VLAN and not have them phone home. My Apple TV or HomePod will act as a bridge and will carry out my automations while I’m gone. Apple devices don’t bother me they aren’t an Ad company and have products I’ll buy into.

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Re:How to control your smart home without yelling at a dumb ... by count on Friday February 03, 2023 @11:36AM (#34643465)

You..you do have control over the devices without internet access. That's the point.

You don't have '100% control' over things like code because they're embedded, certified devices, generally.

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