I’m never putting one of these in my home.

  • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I will be the last person to not have a smart home. There will be a banner over the doorway: “Welcome to Stupid House”.

    There will be a small cover charge.

    • Maestro@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      You can have a privacy-first smart home. I have. I run Home Assistant in a docker container. No external services/plugins. My smart doorbell streams to my local nvr. If my internet is down, everything keeps working. And it’s not even that hard anymore. It’s become a lot easier over the last 2-3 years. Still not for non-techie users, but a lot better.

      • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That sounds pretty reasonable.

        Edit: Still kind of want to call my place “Stupid House” for myriad other reasons

      • Wogi@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m not tech illiterate by any means, and everything after “home assistant” in that post is Greek to me

        • Maestro@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          Docker is a way to run containers. Basically lightweight virtual servers. That makes it easy to run multiple servers on one machine. An NVR is a network video recorder. It’s like a video security system like they use in stores where all cameras are viewed and recorded in a single place. I assume you know what a doorbell is 😄

      • BigFig@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Have any resources to get started with that? Been looking into security systems but don’t fully trust nest/ring/simplisafe etc

      • LoafyLemon@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Teach me your ways please! Setting up a Home Assistant seems like such a daunting task. I’m stalling converting my devices into it. Any tips for a (home assistant) beginner?

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I just followed the steps on their site. Containers give me cancer, so I did a real install on my home server.

          Caveat: I am a professional software engineer (but I didn’t really have to hack anything)

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I’m with you. I hate how they expect me to control everything from my phone or with voice commands. I’m fine walking to a light switch or walking to the thermostat.

      • orclev@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There’s a middle ground as well. I refuse to put Alexa or OK Google or whatever on any of my stuff, but I run home-assistant with zigbee smart devices. My entire setup runs completely cut off from the internet. I could in theory even air gap it, although that’s a little overkill. It’s a “smart” house, but one I’m 100% in control of.

        • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Is that self hosted? I’d just about fuck with a FOSS self hosted smart home setup, but even then I could barely be arsed

              • orclev@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Be careful running it in a Pi because it’s a little heavy for that depending on how you configure it. A Pi model 4 is probably OK, but you wouldn’t want to run it on a model 3 or something even older, and you’re going to want to use one with at least 4GB of RAM.

                  • orclev@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    It will probably run even in a Pi Model 1, it’s just going to be a bit slow to interact with, and you’re not going to be able to do anything more complicated like enable the voice support (which you probably don’t want anyway, because I think it’s dependent on internet access for that, and then we’re back to the same problem as Alexa, although I don’t use it myself so I can’t say for sure).

            • Cihta@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I’ll get a lot of hate for this but when you say pi you mean pi4. I kept seeing this HA on lemmy and tried it on a pi2. I don’t know if it worked or not, it’s a very bloated piece of software. After an hour of waiting I installed docker and the HA instance on my main server (which is ancient) in under a minute.

              It’s cool and all but my feit dimmers require some pcb work and flashing to be compatible so verify what devices you have before you hop in.

              I used to have an automated building running on a bare 386 and a floppy drive. Hate on me all you want but sending simple commands like turn device on shouldn’t require a giant software package but otherwise HA is neat, just a lot of overhead i can’t exactly justify.

              Worth trying out though.

              I think reflow stole a lot of their code.

              • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                No hate from me.

                Just about every project I’ve started with a pi has ended up working out a lot better as a vm on an x86 host. But lots of people seem to love them.

                • Cihta@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  To be fair It has its uses i suppose. I’ve had one running pihole since the original pi came out. Used PI2s in the past for OSMC and, even better, ambilight.

                  I think now a cheap android TV box you can flash is probably better for a simple less than 5watt device.

                  Besides the HA test I’ve been trying to use one to be an openvpn TAP interface but it’s been a fight and i think you just convinced me to do it in another docker instance on the server and save myself some headaches.

                  • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    PiVPN was actually one of the things I thought the HW handled pretty well. Other than how much it ends up getting throttled by the 100Mbps link.

          • orclev@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yep, I run mine on an ODroid XU4, but you can run it on just about anything including a docker container on a generic Linux install.

        • 0110010001100010@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m using z-wave stuff but similar setup. Home Assistant does reach out to the cloud for some things like weather forecast and Google calendar but otherwise it will operate 100% without internet if needed. I also have cameras that while they aren’t air-gappend they are blocked from Internet access and can only talk to the NVR.

      • squiblet@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The last thing I want is to talk to a computer. Buttons are fine. The roboto phone customer service is bad enough.

      • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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        1 year ago

        I’m fine walking to a light switch or walking to the thermostat.

        When the hallway light was left on again it’s really damn nice to simply say “Turn Off Hallway Light” while staying under my nice warm covers. It’s also pretty swank to have the garage lights turn on when the garage door opens then turn themselves back off 5 minutes after the garage door closes. Someone left their closet light on? No problemo, my automation catches that and shuts it off.

        Window coverings like blinds and drapes? Yeah, those are opening and closing automatically based on the position of the sun, even when I’m not home to do it. Did it rain while I was at work? Automation keeps my sprinklers from running tonight.

        All of that is being done by Home Assistant and absolutely no Internet is required to make it work.

        • d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz
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          1 year ago

          it’s really damn nice to simply say “Turn Off Hallway Light”

          Can you use a custom wake word? The only reason why I’m still using Alexa is for the “computer” wake word.

          • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
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            1 year ago

            HA doesn’t have “Wake Word” yet. It supposed to be coming before the end of the year. Right now you have to PTT (Push To Talk) to make it listen and for the privacy minded this is actually better than an always listening device.

            Still, a lot of people want WW support and it is on the road map.

    • Patius@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      When skynet comes online, I’ll die quickly, being mopped to death. You’ll have to struggle in the post apocalyptic hellscape where humans fight robots with A-10s for some reason.