If a light switch needs someone else's server, it doesn't go in my house
Smart home devices should work without the internet
Spencer Kittleson has run home automation for a decade on one rule: anything core to the house must work with the internet unplugged. After Google broke his Nest API and a Samsung fridge threw a TLS certificate error on its own screen, he built the logic on hardware he owns — Tasmota firmware on ESP boards, an MQTT broker, and Node-RED on a Raspberry Pi. Here are the eleven rules he follows, plus both talks he's given on the setup.
A dead battery on a door sensor at 2am is how you end up outside in the cold.
- mountain_peak
Bought our home almost 20 years ago, and the former owner (apparently) owned a now-defunct home automation business. The upside was 100% X10/Insteon power and light controls, top alarm panel, environmental controls and so on running off of a wall-mounted "SmartLinc" touch panel. I expanded the system with Axis cameras and a Mac Server running Indigo and SecuritySpy (non-subscription), which enabled remote monitoring and control, but it all operates locally.
In a moment of weakness, I bought a D-Link wireless (wifi) water detector for the sump pit (it was on clearance for $30); it relied on a D-Link Home cloud service (free) that was closed down a few years ago.
Not wanting to toss it, I repurposed a spare Chromebook 14 that I was going to recycle and turned it into a Alpine monitor for the water detector, which I'm powering from the Chromebook's USB port (if power is lost in a rainstorm, I need to know about it before the sump pit fills up).
An immediate issue was that the D-Link firmware tried to "phone home" every 24 hours and would drop from the local network, since the server was kaput, and I had no clue what response it was expecting from the server to keep it alive. Solution; "reboot" the unit by interrupting USB power (with a Pico and MOSFET) every 23 hours. There's no question that home automation should work without the internet.
- scosman
HomeAssistant publishes "IoT Class" for all of it's integrations ranging from "Local Push" to "Cloud Polling": https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-th...
I only use "Local Polling" or better, and highly prefer "Local Push".
- reasonabl_human
The new rules I have come to use are:
- buy the cheapest hardware that gets the job done
- ignore negative reviews that are software related
- upon receipt of devices, ask claude for local-first cfw
- have fun for a few hours acting as a meat proxy
- boom, cheap local-only smart home is done
Use a SBC or nas for home assistant. This process worked for me for switches, a thermostat, an air quality monitor, a thermometer, and a window fan.
Would’ve paid ~2.5x for hardware that had the appropriate local-first capability out of the box. Instead this all fit within an existing $20 subscription to an inference provider. DS 4.1 running locally was on track too just more slowly.
- bluegatty
There is hope: customers want this, and if they do, PM's will consider that even if it conflicts with some of the internal strategy of services etc. especially if the services revenues are meagre.
There is intense competition in all these spaces.
What is necessary is a 'name' to the movement. Just like IoT engendered an entire wave - a concept that dissolved into analysts, CEOs, PM, strategy, industry etc. to create it, the 'No Connection Required' could easily do the same if there is a core concept and language to define it.
Analysts will write papers, CEOs will read them, conference panels will be had, Twitter discussions will erupt, PMs want to justify their roadmaps, CEOs want to please the board, new products will launch into the category - and it can happen.
Often these things need an impetus to help spark the change, like security breaches etc. which is 'du jour' right now. A handful of articles about security problems, some big media coverage, and a few breakthrough products at the margins could create the wave. I think there is a lot of legitimacy behind this.
- driverdan
I have some simple but strict rules:
1. Commercial devices must use offline only protocols, Zigbee or Zwave. If it's WiFi only I will not buy it unless the firmware is open source or easily replaced with an open source, local only alternative.
2. Non-sensor devices must fully function without their IoT features. I must be able to control my thermostat, fridge, stove, etc without any external interface.
Never use a WiFi IoT device that isn't open source. Even if you can control it locally it could be a spy device that's exfiltrating your data. Yes, you could setup VLANs or a separate network but it's not worth it. Vote with your wallet.
- augment_me
Please please please use your first draft or refine it yourself without LLMs.
I managed to get to:
The cloud is the weak link
- No internet, no problem. ...
---
If you are writing for other machines to ingest it, whatever. But if you are writing for people it for me at least signals that you don't really care about the message that you want to get across, and are fine with a watered down LLM average.
- sholladay
Thread devices have been great for me. It’s a self-healing mesh that survives the internet going down, the hub going down, circuit breakers being tripped, and even a full power outage so long as you can keep one device powered that is capable of being a Thread router (pretty much all devices that don’t rely on their own battery).
Last winter we had a long power outage. So I used a Jackery to power a smart plug as a temporary router and the mesh reconfigured itself and everything just worked. Battery powered door & window sensors, flood sensors, some lights like Eve Flare, and even the Eve Aqua water valve, which meant I could literally water the garden straight from the phone during a power outage (the iPhone has a built-in Thread radio).
Obviously it would be better to have a whole house battery, but that was so cool and took almost zero effort.
- thatonehack
KNX is the solution. Look it up. Local first and by default. You own the equipment. It isn’t subject to any one company or manufacturer. You own it and control it!
- tehlike
1. Buy zigbee/zwave
2. Prefer things you can flash tasmota if zigbee/zwave is not possible.
2. Maybe use eMudhra for mitm and flash the unsupported devices.
- anotherevan
The local only requirement has always been a very strong reason I've never gotten around to dabbling in home automation in any serious way. All the stuff at most department stores phone home as far as I can tell. The research investment or other frigging about (e.g.: some fiddly method to flash Tasmota) has left me reluctant.
But I was looking at a couple of spare RPis I had laying around and decided to whack Home Assistant on one, just to take a look. I've now decided to dip my toe a bit further and ordered a Zigbee USB adapter, some Zigbee based buttons and reed switches, plus a couple of Matter based power switches which I hope will all work happily.
I'll also need to setup an IOT VLAN in my Openwrt router. (Not a networking guy, so also fiddly!)
Until now, my home automation endeavours have consisted of:
- A red, flashing LED glued into the ceiling near the front door that is connected to a reed switch to tell when the garage door is open.
- A light switch¹ which I managed to flash Tasmota onto so I can switch the lounge room lights on or off from the TV remote.
- An ultrasonic distance sensor that sits on top of my monitor that can tell when I'm sitting in front of my computer². It pauses the music and resumes when I leave and come back. It also nags me if I've been in front of the computer too long.
¹ I see no value in automated light bulbs. I want automated light switches. Unfortunately Australian electrical certification standards are something of a bear that make thi […]