Home Automation

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Home automation is the residential extension of building automation.

It is automation of the home, housework or household activity.

Home automation may include centralized control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), appliances, security locks of gates and doors and other systems, to provide improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and security.

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just getting started - help? (switches vs bulbs) (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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hi,

I recently bought a new house (2 story, ~2600sqft, built in '97). I already installed an EcoBee (ran a new 5-conductor wire from the furnace to the thermostat location so I had a "C" wire), I got a shelly relay working for my garage door opener, have good wifi coverage everywhere via hardwired Unifi APs, got a Kasa light strip for some funky ambient lighting in the living room. I've already installed Home Assistant on a spare RPi I had laying around.

with Black Friday/cyber Monday coming up, it seems like a good time to invest in some other smart-stuff, so I'm looking for some input.

I have three younger kids who hit light switches all the time. I have a couple of rooms in the house where I want to be able to change light color, or at least dim lighting.

from what I've read, you don't want to mix smart switches with smart bulbs. I'm not really seeing a good alternative to this when you have a partner/kids that won't be using an app/tablet for turning the lights on and off when the run into a room.

in my thinking, it seems like being able to re-enable a switch because it's smart would be the right move here - right? or maybe an offering from Shelly?

I got a 3 pack of Kasa switches to mess around with, and just saw that there are "Kasa smart actions", but it looks like those are limited to three per account or something. can I do something similar in Home Assistant? (I wasn't able to find anything after a quick googlin').

thank you.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Our house is exclusively smart dimmers and a few smart switches, no bulbs.

You can do bulbs if you must have colors or lamps but they have the drawbacks that they then require app, voice or remotes and if turned off at the switch they lose their smarts. To workaround that so family members and guests (and yourself) can always interact with them manually or programmatically, you can get smart switches that have a smart bulb mode.

I would always opt for switches/dimmers over bulbs unless you have a specific use case requiring bulbs.

I would avoid any switches/dimmers that require cloud accounts and instead always try for local control. To that end, consider Z-Wave or ZigBee (or Matter), where you can have local control.

As for specific questions about Home Assistant, if ask in their subreddit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I would avoid any switches/dimmers that require cloud accounts and instead always try for local control. To that end, consider Z-Wave or ZigBee (or Matter), where you can have local control.

Any particular brands you would recommend? (I'm in a similar situation as OP)