this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server. Available for free at home-assistant.io

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New apartment help needed (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Hello there!

I just bought my first apartment and I would like to make as much as possible smart and connectable to Home Assistant. I have to redo the whole apartment (electricity, walls, etc) so drilling some extra holes is not a problem ;)

I just have a few questions where I can't really find a good answer to it. I hope you guys can help me :)

First of all, I have a few criteria:

  • Everything should be local only (so no 3rd party cloud or accounts)
  • Selfhosting is possible (I have a Proxmox server running Home Assistant in a VM)
  • It doesn't have to be of the shelf hardware (DIY is fine, if it works as expected).
  • I prefer FOSS over proprietary software/hardware (I know that FOSS hardware is difficult to find). If proprietary see point 1 & 2.
  • Zigbee/Zwave > ethernet > wifi
  • Available in Europe

What I'm struggling with:

  1. Lighting: What is the best solution for smart lighting? I already have a few Philips Hue bulbs and switches, now with the account restrictions they have I was thinking of buying a Sonoff Zigbee USB dongle off AliExpress instead of using the Hue Hub. Are there any better solutions like Shelly maybe or something else? For LED Strips I was thinking of using WLED on an ESP32
  2. Smart blinds, I already found some smart blinds (Like the one from Ikea) but they all work on batteries. As I have to redo the whole apartment I would like to have something that I don't have to charge every few months.
  3. Smart plugs: Maybe any in-wall/out-wall outlet that has the capability to see electricity usage that you recommend?
  4. Audio: I would like to have some multi-room audio as I really like to listen to music. I have 4 rooms that I want to control the music in. I was thinking to buy 4 old Sonos Connect AMPs Gen 1 from eBay, than I saw that they are not compatible with streaming music from my Navidrome (subsonic server) using HA. Is this true? Also I found a promising project called Snapcast, is it good?

Sorry for the long post, thank you so much for your time! If you have some tips and tricks you want to share that will be kind of you :)

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  1. Use IKEA Tradfri bulbs and get a Zigbee coordinator stick that’ll work with HA (Sonoff Dongle-E ZigBee 3.0). Some of their bulbs are CRI 90+ which is great. They’ll also act as Zigbee bridges.
    If you can, add Shelly 1’s to all light switches so you have manual control over them (via HA).
    You can also just put shellies only and use normal light bulbs.
  2. If you’re redoing the whole place (including windows), add standard electric covers and then use Shelly Plus 2PM which will allow you to set the precise position as well. It’ll be hidden in the wall behind the switch and allow manual control as you would if there wasn’t anything smart behind it.
  3. Shelly 1PM if you need power measurement, but if you don’t want to fiddle with power sockets and mounting stuff behind them, you can also use any Zigbee/Z-Wave plugs.
  4. HomePods could do the job if you’re in that ecosystem. Snapcast has matured so it might be a viable option as well, albeit less clean. If you wish to go the Sonos route, check IKEA’s sonos speakers as they’re cheaper and perform excellent.

Bonus: Spin up OpenWRT + managed switch + a dedicated AP if you want to have a killer network that can handle insane amount of devices and throughput. Also make sure to route Ethernet cables to every room (use CAT6A for future proofing) and add an additional one in the room you wish to put your WiFi AP in so you don’t have to use a switch there if you wish to have a Ethernet connected device in there as well. Depending on the apartment size, you can get 2 U6 Lite APs, flash them with OpenWRT and enable fast roaming or just get a U6 LR, but make sure you test the coverage thoroughly before drilling and installing. Either way, go with OpenWRT wherever you can, it’s an amazing piece of software.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Hi, thanks for your comment :) I just looked at the Ikea bulbs and they seem to be cheaper than Philips Hue. I'll look into it more later today. As for the blinds, that Shelly Plus 2PM looks interesting I have to look into it how it exactly works (I'm not an electrician, it's all new for me ;) ) I'm not into the Apple ecosystem (for privacy reasons) You know any way to connect my Navidrome server to HA so I can stream to those Ikea Sonos speakers?

I already have a router flashed with OpenWRT and I really like it. I just bought Unifi Enterprise 24 PoE switch and a barebone router of AliExpress (4x 2.5G ports, intel celeron cpu) so I can experiment with OPNSense. For APs I already have some U6 LR, didn't knew you can flash those with OpenWRT, will look into that :)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Ikea bulbs are better in every way. Open APIs, local control, no account needed, don't even need to use their hub. It's probably the best mainstream example of smart home tech

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

If you have a network mount for your music, you can mount your share within HA and use HA as the media player if I'm not mistaken.

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

That would be a solution, only problem is that I don't have my playlists. But that's not that big if a deal.

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

Sonoff over Skyconnect?