Home automation with multiple devices - one app to rule them all....

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timmmay

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#2687860 7-Apr-2021 13:09

rscole86: Nabu Casa, Home Assistant cloud, allows simple remote access and includes Alexa integration. It's $5/month, but it's a lot simpler than the alternative configuration.

My HA and Alexa with well together, I'm running HA exclusively on a pi atm, but beginning to play with an unraid docker.

That's interesting. I can simply VPN into my home network from my phone so might not need it. I'll look into this once I get the devices / integrations set up, which right now is looking much more challenging than doing it with Alexa.

eluSiveNZ

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#2687868 7-Apr-2021 13:33

As mentioned earlier, TP Link decided to block local control in the latest firmware. There is an active alert for this integration.

Assuming your TPLink devices have the latest firmware, they won't work.

Alerts – Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)

davidcole

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#2687884 7-Apr-2021 14:18

eluSiveNZ:

As mentioned earlier, TP Link decided to block local control in the latest firmware. There is an active alert for this integration.

Assuming your TPLink devices have the latest firmware, they won't work.

Alerts – Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)

yeah so that's less a home assistant issue, than TP Link being openly hostile to the home tinkerer....

Previously known as psycik

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timmmay

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#2687892 7-Apr-2021 14:51

I'll have a look at that thanks, but integration via the Kasa cloud service would seem to the more supported method going forward. I don't really want some semi-supported firmware on the Kasa switches, network devices could compromise a network if they're not patched / updated. Plus cloud control is still important.

HA is looking like a much higher effort way of doing home automation if you don't have devices that explicitly support it.

timmmay

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#2688025 7-Apr-2021 20:30

Having played with Home Assistant some more this evening I think I'm going to give up on it for now. It looks like a good thing for tinkerers to play with, the the complexity of even getting my devices connected is just awful. If I was starting fresh with new devices that were known to work with HA it might be different, but as the Kasa change that disabled the local API shows the HA market is probably too small for vendors to bother with and other products could become incompatible over time.

The "everything is local" approach has advantages but going via cloud services would really make more sense. I just don't have time to spend the days on this it might take to get it all working. I'll probably just keep using the app that comes with each device, or Alexa sometimes if it has a good integration.

A key problem seems to be lack of a standardised interface to the types of devices we want to control - switches, lights, air conditioners, etc. Amazon Alexa / Google and such are big enough that device makes want to have "works with Alexa" or similar on the side of the box. That makes integration the vendors problem, and it works well. Alexa makes things really simple to set up and use, though the integrations provided are not always as fully featured as I would like to the point some like Panasonic Comfort Cloud are barely worth using.

I think in the next few years standards such as Connected Home IP might make it easier for Home Assistant type products to connect to devices. That's the point smart homes might start to become more practical for the average person.

Thanks all who have posted for your help. I appreciate the help given and the time you spend offering it.

morrisk

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#2697560 24-Apr-2021 15:23

I hope that posting here will mean I get the attention of those who have already spent time trying to manage home automation.

I am about to retire and hope therefore to find the time to do some work with my home automation - I have a similar aim - getting all the devices on one place to control rather than multiple apps. My choice has been to try and get everything to HomeKit and to date have managed this through getting devices that are compatible with HomeKit.

Recently I have used a Shelly device and successfully have this showing in HomeKit app Home by using a plugin that runs on a Hoobs in the box raspberry pi. The Hoobs site has a certified plugin for Shelly devices so that was relatively easy.

The devices that I have not integrated have been the blind controllers - these are Teptron Move - the original ones that I bought some years back. They have been great although the reputation on the Web is not good with lots of complaints. The app that runs in iOs is OK just.

I have found that someone has developed a package to run them - they are low power bluetooth devices that are using some sort of mesh arrangement. This is found here https://gitlab.com/andrasj/movectl

At this point being new to this level of automation I have no idea whether it is at all possible to use the package provided - movectl - and manually install it as a plugin using the Hoobs raspberry pi to get the outcome of being able to control the blinds from my Home app along with everything else.

I have the time to spend doing this and understand the certain frustrations that I am likely to meet but question is whether anyone can advise as to whether this is possible or am I barking up the wrong tree?

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