Is this the BEST Way to Automate Your Home?
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- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
- Unlocking the Power of Home Automation with Home Assistant
with Smith House
Join us as we explore the world of home automation through the lens of Home Assistant, a versatile and open-source software solution that revolutionizes how we interact with our homes. Jordan Smith, a self-professed advocate for simplicity and functionality in home design, delves into the intricacies of modernizing homes without compromising on elegance or efficiency.
🔍 Key Highlights:
Embracing Change: Jordan discusses his evolving perspective on home automation, emphasizing the need for adaptability in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
The Power of Home Assistant: Discover how Home Assistant, powered by a Raspberry Pi and third-party software, transforms homes into intelligent, responsive environments.
Energy Monitoring: Explore real-time energy usage monitoring, including solar power generation, grid consumption, and battery storage utilization, all accessible through intuitive dashboards.
Seamless Integration: Learn about the seamless integration of smart devices, from lighting and shades to thermostats and dehumidifiers, allowing for effortless control and optimization.
Automated Efficiency: Dive into the realm of automation, where Home Assistant orchestrates smart scenes and routines based on user-defined triggers and conditions, enhancing comfort and conserving energy.
💡 Expert Insights:
Inspiring Solutions: Jordan showcases practical applications of home automation, from grid outage responses to climate control optimization, illustrating the transformative potential of technology in modern living.
Interactive Engagement: Engage with the Smith House community by sharing your favorite home automation software and experiences in the comments section.
🌐 Connect with Us:
Website: [Insert Website URL]
Consulting Services: Schedule a consultation with our team to explore personalized solutions for your home automation needs.
Thank you for joining us on this journey of discovery and innovation. Like, subscribe, and stay tuned for more insightful content from Smith House!
Networking cables throughout the home should remain relatively future proof. Beyond the growing need for work from home connectivity, more smart home devices are able to run on home networks (wireless and wired). Getting WiFi to stretch from one end of the home to another is tough enough but the added congestion of devices and neighbors can cripple wireless connectivity.
I think u raise a really interesting point about tech obsolescence. Home assistant is quite powerful and allows you a large degree of freedom of how you would like your home automated
We just had a backup battery installed and what I really love is that it enables us to keep generating power from our solar panels during a daylight power outage. If our battery is fully charged, then we need to use or loose whatever the solar can produce during that time because normally the excess power would go back into the utilities and “spin” our electric meter in reverse.
The home automation landscaped has changed dramatically in the last 3-4 years, with new interoperability standards that have been set in place. Home Assistant is one of the most flexible solutions for control, but with flexibility comes complexity. If you want to just automate home lighting, then putting smart switches in place that are compatible with something like Amazon Echo (Alexa) products may be all that you need. When you try to put in home automation that controls both environment and A/V, then you will start to have issues with very short lifespans of products that are changing quickly (like video distribution). The biggest thing to help 'future proof' a home, with regard to automation will be to have network wiring in place, and run in raceways that remain accessible, so that they can be changed out in 10-20 years time. Network standards have evolved over the last 30-40 years, from 1Mb 'Ethernet' that was run through coaxial cables, to 10Mb in Cat3 twisted pair cable, to 100Mb running on Cat5 cable, to 1Gb Ethernet that runs on Cat5E or Cat6 cable. We are now seeing 10Gb that will run over Cat 6a and Cat 7 cable. These last 2 steps have occurred in the last 5 years or less. To get beyond that will likely require fiberoptic runs. That was already being considered over 20 years ago, but even the fiber optic cables have evolved to handle the higher bandwidth. So my point is that just installing ethernet in walls and then foaming the walls with insulation (if exterior walls) will lock you into something that may not be usable in 10 years. Give consideration to putting the low voltage wiring in plastic conduit in the walls, and running them in raceways back to a central 'data closet'. Nothing new if you are thinking like a computer data center, but I've yet to see a residential build-out with that sort of forethought. And please don't think that WiFi will solve all of the connectivity issues. You will be quickly mislead by that approach, because of devices that are not sharing the 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz spectrum properly (think wireless speaker systems). Hardwiring as much as you can will almost always lead to better reliability.
Wiring your home with CAT6e will practically never be obsolete and that's not hyperbole. CAT6e provides far more bandwidth and functionality than 99% of even power users could use right now and it's going to be decades before it starts being fully utilized, much less be unable to handle whatever task is necessary.
WiFi (and wireless protocols like Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, etc) can be made relatively robust with mesh and roaming standards, but to make then truly reliable, you will need to run the core routers, gateways, and APs over a hard-line ethernet backhaul over that CAT6e. That's because the wireless protocols will only ever be "mostly" reliable while network wiring is every bit as reliable as your electrical wiring.
Ethernet is also much more secure than WiFi. I hook all of my security cameras up using Power over Ethernet (PoE) so that it gets its network data and it's power through the same cable. Now my cameras can't be "sniffed" or "jammed" or hijacked in any way, like happens so often with WiFi security cameras. PoE can power lots of other remote devices, too, like mesh APs.
Finally, having the wiring there has no downsides if you don't use it, so it makes little sense to exclude it.
If I'm remembering correctly Home Assistant just turned 10. It's really only been in the last couple of years though that it's gotten close to being "user-friendly for normies". You still need to know some YAML (and some other stuff too) to really get the most out of it. Day-to-day usage can be very "normie-friendly", but the initial setup, configuration changes, and when things break still require some know-how.
Regarding structured cabling, I still think CAT5/6 is useful for home automation. IP networks and PoE aren't going away anytime soon. Wireless is convenient, but there are very few situations were a wired connection wouldn't be better in the long run, both for reliability and providing consistent power (and not having to replace batteries is a big bonus). It's not exactly home automation related, but you wouldn't believe how many people's smart TVs I've "fixed" by simply plugging in an ethernet cable and not relying on wifi. If you are worried about futureproofing, you can run it in conduit to be able to change it out later. It's definitely more expensive to do upfront, but it makes it almost trivial for changes down the road. I know someone that did that when building their home 40 years ago. His son bought the house from him almost 20 years ago now. He redid a lot of the cabling himself because it was in conduit and easy to do.
Burglars have been using signal jammers to disable wireless security camera's. If you don't run wires you're opening yourself up to an easy attack.
I like a dumb home as well. It's still easiest to flip on a light switch when i want to turn on the lights. I can have smart bulbs if i want dimming, scheduling, etc. But heck, for scheduling, give me a timer switch. I just installed one for a lamppost that has an astronomical timer.
This is nice, but he's not really doing anything outside of the basic core functionality within HA. You definitely don't need to be a programmer to achieve this, just be curious.
LOL--Not putting in structured wiring in a home? Wow. So I guess you don't put Romex in a home for lighting since it will be obsolete in 20 years? Just wow.
Not home assist. Home assistant.