My smart home has been a large number for a while. Before I wrote this, it was a mix of a Hue and HomeKit hub, the primary of which I didn’t wish to have and the second I tolerate. But for several years I desired to convert my entire house to Home Assistant: self-service home automation software. And now, with SkyConnect Connect, a mix of Zigbee and Matter/Thread dongles from Home Assistant, that shift is complete. However, in the method, I broke half the things in my house. Nothing works and I could not be happier.
Home Assistant, for those of you who don’t follow the Smart Home nerd beat, is an almost universally accepted alternative totally free and open source home automation. Unlike Apple’s HomeKit (which requires Apple devices), it will possibly run on single board computers equivalent to a Raspberry Pi, a Docker container, or principally any small computer you may install it on. It also means that you can go very deep into the weeds, similar to you would like to automate your own home. It’s not probably the most intuitive alternative, but it surely’s not that onerous, and even for those who’re paranoid about who has the keys to your smart home (which I’m), Home Assistant is one in every of your higher bets.
Now, along with home security issues, one in every of the larger concerns with home automation is interoperability. Out of the box, a slew of smart home gadgets have historically not played well together (I’m you, Philips Hue). It’s gotten loads higher through the years, especially with HomeKit and Google Home, but Home Assistant has all the time excelled at this since it has a really energetic community of nerds who want all their weird toys to have a good time in a really specific way. If you will have a switch you would like to work with one other device, someone probably spent numerous time configuring it and put that information online as a blueprint.
You may additionally be accustomed to Matter, the brand new home automation standard that goals to make lots of these problems easier. If you might be unfamiliar with matter and thread, I highly recommend it Edgeown explainer. Rollout continues to be in progress and there aren’t that many devices within the wild yet, but when all goes to plan (big If), then there needs to be much less headaches in the long run.
I desired to eliminate this hub and have the whole lot running in a single small ecosystem
Just a few years ago, I briefly experimented with running Home Assistant as a Docker container on my NAS (my little network device that I take advantage of to store movies). I used to be very impressed with how well it will possibly communicate not only with my existing smart home devices, but additionally with how detailed it allowed me to program my existing devices. But what held me back was my Philips Hue system, which for years made using anything outside of its ecosystem a chore. Until recently, Hue relied on Zigbee, a low-power mesh networking standard, for bulbs to check with one another.
As an early adopter of the Hue system, Hue didn’t make things easy. Despite sharing the Zigbee protocol with other bulbs and switches, encouraging them to have a good time with them has historically been like pulling teeth. For example, Ikea has its own smart home system, complete with its own hub and app and all (hey look, it has one now with Matter!), but a number of years ago, playing nice required numerous weird workarounds. Of course, there are great workarounds and integrations I could use, for instance Zigbee2MQTT, Philips Hue integrationand now, Material. But that was the principle: I desired to eliminate that hub and have the whole lot that worked in a single little ecosystem. I wanted a latest starting. This is where SkyConnect is available in.
Adding Zigbee (and even Z-Wave) to Home Assistant is nothing latest. Plenty of USB dongles equivalent to ConBee II, already exists. SkyConnect is latest in that it adds support for each Zigbee and Thread/Matter, and while I do not have Matter devices in my home, knowing it’s partially future-proofed and manufactured to work directly with Home Assistant was incentive enough for me to order upfront. It’s an incredible excuse to dare and begin over. Another option so as to add matter and Zigbee is Yellow home assistanta solid little board that uses a Raspberry Pi Computing module 4but I do not have access to CM4 so I went with a dongle.
Now, I might normally run this as a Docker container on my NAS, but I had no idea if the dongle was compatible in any respect, and thought it could be best to dedicate the whole device to running my home. Fortunately, I recently replaced the Raspberry Pis network with WiiM stream pucks, so I had a few Raspberry Pi 4Bs lying around (for those who still cannot find it, rpilocator is an incredible tool). Time was serious. Installing Hass.io (the Home Assistant operating system) is a breeze for those who’ve ever done anything remotely complicated with a Raspberry Pi; just download the .img file or copy the url, use software like Etcher put it aside to the microSD card i follow the instructions from there. When it involves open source projects, getting began could be very easy.
The SkyConnect looks like a small blue USB drive and comes with a small extension cord, especially because USB 3.0 ports are known to cause interference with wireless devices. The device itself is plug-and-play, meaning you need not configure anything; Home Assistant will simply recognize it and make it work.
Here comes the fun part: the slow, painful technique of disassembling the whole lot connected to the Philips Hue hub. I used to be going to make use of Zigbee Home Automation for this process. The process is easy, but less intuitive than software made specifically for the hardware. Since you will have to unpair the bulbs and remotes from the hub to get them to work, it meant that each switch in my house was temporarily out of order. Nothing worked, but I used to be excited because I could do the whole lot on my terms, using the software I hosted and and not using a quirky little uncooperative center holding my hand.
I began by pairing the bulbs ZHA (Zigbee home automation), an integration that may check with my Zigbee bulbs and remotes. From there, the plans got here in very handy. plans are ready-made automation settings that simplify the programming process in Home Assistant. The Hue wall switches I had needed reprogramming. Amazing HA plans is a superb source and had compatible plan availablealthough I did stumble a bit over the supporting text file I needed to establish for the plan to truly work. From that moment on, I began configuring all of the lighting scenes I had.
Things turned back to the start line of the fun once I began integrating other non-Hue switches into my Home Assistant ecosystem. I even have an Elgato key lights arrange on my desk for streaming and Zoom calls, and now with Home Assistant, I used to be capable of skip the app and treat the lights like every other bulb or switch, add them to scenes, and even automate them. Then I began adding other devices to my home, equivalent to Xiaomi sensors, which I could use to activate the lights within the office once they detect movement. I even have a number of other bulbs and custom light strips that I made by hand that work on something called WLED, a Wi-Fi based system that permits for very detailed control of the sunshine strips. The topic of WLED is an article in itself, however the temporary is that integration because it exists in Home Assistant. Someone is working too integration with my WiiM discs, although I have never delved into this one yet.
From there things get really kinky. I installed HACS, or Home Assistant Community Store, an add-on that requires a little bit of complicated setup but means that you can download custom GitHub repositories to do some really quirky stuff. My colleague Chris Grant, a real Home Assistant expert, also really helpful Node-RED, an add-on for establishing complex home automation using flowchart nodes. I used to be in pig heaven. I could do really silly things without delay.
Do I would like to purchase Home Assistant SkyConnect to begin using Home Assistant? Or higher yet, did I would like a Home Assistant in any respect? truthfully not. I could live my life using HomeKit and the Hue app and be perfectly completely happy and content. Everything was arrange and countless workarounds were developed to get my interconnected device system to speak with one another. But as I become old, I’ve develop into more argumentative about who and what has access to my stuff, and I get increasingly more impatient when I’m not allowed to do something with equipment in probably the most depraved way. While I’ll never have a use case for a light-weight switch that also sends an email, I do know that if I ever wanted to do this, I could now do it with an easy Node-RED flowchart.
What does control mean. And while SkyConnect is just an easy radio dongle, it also provided an excuse to take back control, do something I’ve been pushing aside for years, and eventually make a sensible home my home.
