I used to have a Ring and became concerned about privacy once Amazon took over. Worse, all it used to capture was delivery people’s backs - by the time it would see motion the action was almost over. That’s when it captured anything at all - it used to miss a lot.
Reolink doesn’t require any Internet access - even for initial setup. People detection works great with Frigate and you can tell it to start recording before motion is detected so you don’t miss anything.
Full disclosure, it does take some fiddling to get it working reliably. I still don’t have 2 way audio working.
I run HA as a container in a vm. I back HA data up nightly and the compose script for running HA is archived on github. If the vm dies there is another vm that can bring it back up. If the host dies (I have a pool of xenserver (xcp-ng) hosts, so it would be a major domestic disaster if they all croaked) I have a fallback to run HA on docker on wsl. If the house burns down all the scripts are on GitHub and the backups get sent to Azure monthly. I think I’m covered.
I have been a few times. I connected a screen and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. One error message popped up though, about not starting overlayfs. It might be that my SD card has corrupted all of the sudden. Trying a restore onto a new SD card now.
Take a look at zigbee2mqtt this is what I use to add any of my ZigBee devices to home assistant. You may find there is more frequent reporting/polling with this so you have more updated information in your home assistant instance.
ZigBee is the way to go IMO for the most “local control”. Your thermostat is probably pretty good and would not need replacing for a long time.
For automation of your thermostat and other items in the house you will need to setup your own automations that work for you. Home assistant won’t do this for you automatically like other 3rd party thermostats that “learn” your patterns.
Home assistant is pretty powerful in what you can do with automation as it’s allows you to use other sensors around the house, even poll outside stats like weather. So in theory you can set automations that turn off your heathing if your phone or all phones have left the house. You can set automations that turn on the heathing when the outside temperature reaches a certain temperature and the house temperature drops to a certain point.
I definitely recommend zigbee2mqtt over ZHA. I originally went with ZHA and just recently went through the hassle of converting over. It was worth it. IMO, it’s best to just start with zigbee2mqtt, and to convert before you have a lot of devices and automations.
Edit: before I posted this comment, I couldn’t see any comments other than the one I was responding to.
I should add you need to install Mqtt broker from the addin store as well.
Once you get this installed under integrations you should see Mqtt and this is where your new ZigBee devices will be listed. (As opposed to the ZigBee integration)
No need to hard reset the thermostat as once you add it through zigbee2mqtt and get mqtt integration added the device will be new to your HA installation.
Odd I have done the full setup several times As I run pure dockers / separate HA, Mosquito MQTT and Zigbee2mqtt and the devices all just auto discover and appear in HA has devices with entities with full control.
I haven’t had this issue specifically but I’ve noticed when adding color changing bulbs, the color changing ability doesn’t show up in Home Assistant until I change the color in the dashboard of zigbee2mqtt. After that, home assistant recognizes the bulb’s capabilities. What hub do you have?
The problem with a good running automation is you end up used to them, I forget they’re even there most if the time.
I end up appreciating my once-in-awhile automations more. A couple times a month I need to get up extra early, skip my normal routine and go straight to work. But I’m American, this can’t be done without coffee. The night before I prepare the coffee maker and scan an NFC on the top that turns off the plug and waits for my next alarm, then turns it back on. Once it runs it disables the automation, so I dont accidently burn the house down. Worth a million bucks
In the summer in the northeast US most evenings are cool enough to sleep with just a fan in the window. For the nights that stay too warm past bedtime I scan an NFC on my AC that triggers an automation to shutoff the AC and turn on the window fan at a specified outdoor temp. Saves on electricity and who doesn’t love fresh air??
The hot water pipe to the kitchen is quite long. We have a pipe loop there with a pump. Back in the days we had an ordinary timer that let the pump run at the usual times when there is hot water demand to be expected.
I now use a Zigbee plug for the pump and added a button in the kitchen to start it manually. In addidion HA starts it in the morning and every time when somebody comes home. Another HA automation turns off the pump after 3 minutes and ensures that it does not start again for 30 minutes.
I have all the TV inputs automated via voice commands. Eg. If you say “let’s watch plex”, tv turns on if off, input switches, HDMI switch changes, and Plex launches on the shield.
I have a motion sensor in the bedroom that turns the light on when you enter it (or leave it) and turns it off after some time once there is no motion detected anymore. But there is also a button right next to the door which disables the automation for 10 minutes for entering the bedroom at night when our youngest is already sleeping in the room.
Simple but very useful and even my wife likes it alot.
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