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Honestly this most infuriating thing about this entire situation is that the devices we have the most issues with are actually the ones provided by big name com

Honestly this most infuriating thing about this entire situation is that the devices we have the most issues with are actually the ones provided by big name companies (specifically issues with Google and TP-Link in our setup). I try my hardest to stick to Zigbee and Z-Wave devices wherever possible which has lead me to purchase devices like Samsung's SmartThings plug, or Sonoff Minis etc that I can connect straight to a Zigbee/Z-Wave dongle to expose them to HomeAssistant. This setup is actually very reliable and the only downtime we've had over nearly three years is when I've pulled the HA virtual machine down to do updates - I think we're up to about 40 or 50 zigbee devices in our network now that all work flawlessly and locally. So what about Google and TP-Link? Google Home is becoming chatty and has started to regularly mishear commands, or it will say a device is unavailable but still perform the action successfully. TP-Link pushed a silent update out to the couple of smart plugs we had from them that disabled functionality that exposed them to Home Assistant - rendering them a complete waste of time and money. It's mind boggling to me that the (m/b/tr)illion dollar companies of the world are the ones fucking up my smart home. It annoys me enough that I would no longer purchase hardware from any company that uses WiFi or relies on the cloud for "smart" home stuff.

pornel 5y ago
I’ve bought into the Apple HomeKit ecosystem, paying premium for all the devices involved, hoping that Apples costly certification process filters out the junk, but no: it’s the same crap. Devices are “Updating…” for minutes when I want to switch them on. Once a month something gets stuck as “Not responding” and I have to delete it, re-add it, and redo from scratch all it’s configuration and automations. I’ve tried Thread that was meant to fix the issues of Wi-Fi devices, but the Thread bulbs are the least reliable ones I have. It’s all awful, and I’m an idiot sitting in the dark listening to Siri making excuses.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  HomeKit is terrible when it comes to handling your device’s network disconnecting/reconnecting. When I arrive home it sometimes takes a few tries before HomeKit realises that I’m back on the network and starts working. I’m frankly not sure WTF is going on, the bridge is on a static IP so it doesn’t even have to do the whole Bonjour/ZeroConf discovery and can just hit the latest IP it saw the bridge at. Fortunately my main automation is via Home Assistant and HomeKit is only used as a UI, so if HomeKit craps out I just fire up the Home Assistant web interface or toggle the WiFi a couple times. But if you were looking at HomeKit for a sign of quality I’m not sure it’s a good idea. The protocol is unnecessarily complex - it’s good in that it’s somewhat documented and open-source gateways such as Home Assistant can talk to it as a client (so instead of reverse-engineering a proprietary API they can just pretend to be a HomeKit client) but using it to connect directly to your control devices (phone, Mac, etc) is a recipe for disaster. So if you have HomeKit devices, maybe look into using Home Assistant as a gateway. That way HA is talking to all your devices (so its network situation never changes and hopefully there won’t be problems) and then control your devices from HA or have it present itself as a HomeKit bridge as well - at least your client device will only have to figure out the whole network situation with one bridge instead of all of your devices separately.

pornel 5y ago

I’ve bought into the Apple HomeKit ecosystem, paying premium for all the devices involved, hoping that Apples costly certification process filters out the junk, but no: it’s the same crap. Devices are “Updating…” for minutes when I want to switch them on. Once a month something gets stuck as “Not responding” and I have to delete it, re-add it, and redo from scratch all it’s configuration and automations. I’ve tried Thread that was meant to fix the issues of Wi-Fi devices, but the Thread bulbs are the least reliable ones I have. It’s all awful, and I’m an idiot sitting in the dark listening to Siri making excuses.

Nextgrid 5y ago
HomeKit is terrible when it comes to handling your device’s network disconnecting/reconnecting. When I arrive home it sometimes takes a few tries before HomeKit realises that I’m back on the network and starts working. I’m frankly not sure WTF is going on, the bridge is on a static IP so it doesn’t even have to do the whole Bonjour/ZeroConf discovery and can just hit the latest IP it saw the bridge at. Fortunately my main automation is via Home Assistant and HomeKit is only used as a UI, so if HomeKit craps out I just fire up the Home Assistant web interface or toggle the WiFi a couple times. But if you were looking at HomeKit for a sign of quality I’m not sure it’s a good idea. The protocol is unnecessarily complex - it’s good in that it’s somewhat documented and open-source gateways such as Home Assistant can talk to it as a client (so instead of reverse-engineering a proprietary API they can just pretend to be a HomeKit client) but using it to connect directly to your control devices (phone, Mac, etc) is a recipe for disaster. So if you have HomeKit devices, maybe look into using Home Assistant as a gateway. That way HA is talking to all your devices (so its network situation never changes and hopefully there won’t be problems) and then control your devices from HA or have it present itself as a HomeKit bridge as well - at least your client device will only have to figure out the whole network situation with one bridge instead of all of your devices separately.