4 ms·

So what's this beautiful, tested and reliable alternative to Home Assistant? did you ever find it? Guess baking your own like OP did is out of the way as per yo

by aulin 3y ago

So what's this beautiful, tested and reliable alternative to Home Assistant? did you ever find it? Guess baking your own like OP did is out of the way as per your last sentence.

theshrike79 3y ago
If Apple Home, Google Home and Alexa aren't enough for you (or you want a fully self-hosted option) you don't really have many options. Home Assistant is the big one, biggest community, most integrations, you can pay for their cloud stuff to get easy integrations to the big corps above. They also have a dedicated device they sell you can use to run HA. Domoticz is a bit of an odd bird, I never figured out what was their value propositon OpenHAB is the one I'd pick if I had to install a system for someone else than myself. It's not exactly easy to configure (the object/entity structure is a bit weird IMO), but it has a pretty decent amount of integrations and it's rock solid German engineering made with boring old Java. If you want control, my suggestion is to use HA only for the integrations and do all of the brains somewhere else. Either a self-made program that pokes HA using its API or directly via MQTT or Node RED.
- pmlnr 3y ago
  > Domoticz is a bit of an odd bird, I never figured out what was their value propositon Simple, rock solid functionality. If you want more, write scripts. I really like the approach.
  - temporal828 3y ago
    > Simple, rock solid functionality. Don't ever open that C++ code base unless you have a barf bag. I started making contributions and gave up because I have better things to do with my time then ruin my soul. I will also note that they stole the MQTT protocol from Home Assistant - so at least they need ideas from elsewhere. (ie openzwave died so domoticz needs to rely on the same NodeJS subsystem infrastructure of HA) I love the concept of domoticz - lua, but my god the architecture and implementation is a tire fire.
    - midoridensha 3y ago
      >I love the concept of domoticz - lua, but my god the architecture and implementation is a tire fire. Is that better or worse than a dumpster fire?
      - jnsaff2 3y ago
        Tire-fire is spectacular compared to dumpster fire. Highly energetic thick black smoke probably visible from space shuttle with naked eye.
        temporal828 3y ago
        On rock solid functionality: https://github.com/domoticz/domoticz/issues?q=crash https://github.com/domoticz/domoticz/issues?q=crash segfault, leak and hang are also fun ones. Apparently the massive memory leaks in the python integration has never been fixed. Not surprising, one look at hardware/plugins/Python*.cpp is bad for your health.
- moduspol 3y ago
  Does nobody use Hubitat any more? I'm still using it. Upgraded from the C5 to the C7 a few months ago. I use almost entirely Z-wave devices, and the HomeKit integration built into Hubitat makes it easy to manage them all like native HomeKit devices. Managing probably any Z-wave mesh isn't something I'd recommend for a non-techie, but it doesn't generally requires consistent maintenance. And with Hubitat, it's a small standalone box that does OTA updates. For me it fills a pretty big gray area between mass market consumer ecosystems and Home Assistant.
01100011 3y ago
Never found one. It's on my list of things to do someday but that list only grows. I keep telling myself retirement will be a great chance to develop sw like that and give back.
leonsmith 3y ago
OpenHab, I'v gone from home assistant to smart things to openhab and its been stable and simple to set & forget. It's great to setup via the UI, easy to backup and restore as once you actually start to build it into the foundations of your house you start to value the stability of it
- nikita2206 3y ago
  I still never used OpenHab (at the moment running HA but not happy about it). I’ve tried developing custom components for HA and it was so bad, there’s no docs at all and Python being untyped language doesn’t help either. Just out of curiousity I’ve googled OpenHab docs to understand if I could achieve similar there and their docs are awesome, full and well written. (and it’s Java so half of the code IntelliJ will write for you)
mleo 3y ago
Not beautiful, but I use HomeSeer on Ubuntu. It is commercial, but after spending a couple thousand dollars on all the home hardware and server, spending a bit on software makes as much sense. It is reliable with my automations. I have added custom devices and automations through scripts that publish MQTT messages. For simple remote control, I tend to eschew their UI and have HomeBridge publish device access to HomeKit.
naasking 3y ago
I'm looking at Mozilla's WebThings.
perrylaj 3y ago
I work for a company (Inductive Automation), and we build a platform for industrial automation called Ignition. A few years back we created a special free license tier (and some light weight branding) for personal and educational use. It's called "Maker Edition", and there is a growing group of users using it for home automation. Mostly people already in the operational/industrial automation space, but it seems like it's growing more broadly. We package Ignition as a docker image, an installer, or just a simple zip archive you can decompress and launch, so it's easy to self-host or deploy to a cheap cloud tier. The biggest downsides are that there will be a bit of a learning curve to using it (as with any new tool), the documentation being focused on commercial use cases, and similarly, we don't offer first party drivers for common home protocols (zigbee, zwave, etc). But we have pretty good docs, a free online learning platform, and pretty active forums. 3rd parties have written various drivers for home use. I'd love for more in the home automation/maker space to know about and use it. We don't monetize maker edition in any way, and so don't really promote it, but I'd love to see the home userbase grow (and hopefully by extension, the hacker/maker community who might be able to help contribute to drivers and other resources). It's an open platform built on the JRE, with a public sdk and example modules (plugins) and related tools available on github.com/inductiveautomation. The software is in use to automate virtually every industry, so it's fairly well tested (at least to the extent that a toolkit can be). Maker Edition info is available at: https://inductiveautomation.com/ignition/maker-edition https://inductiveautomation.com/ignition/maker-edition Disclosure : work for inductive automation, but otherwise don't have a financial interest in people using Ignition Maker Edition or anything of that (aside from any side effects that come from broader adoption in general). My selfish interest is in a larger home use community so there are more cool projects to check out, resources to share, open source modules published, etc. All statements here are my personal views.

by aulin 3y ago

So what's this beautiful, tested and reliable alternative to Home Assistant? did you ever find it? Guess baking your own like OP did is out of the way as per your last sentence.

theshrike79 3y ago

If Apple Home, Google Home and Alexa aren't enough for you (or you want a fully self-hosted option) you don't really have many options. Home Assistant is the big one, biggest community, most integrations, you can pay for their cloud stuff to get easy integrations to the big corps above. They also have a dedicated device they sell you can use to run HA. Domoticz is a bit of an odd bird, I never figured out what was their value propositon OpenHAB is the one I'd pick if I had to install a system for someone else than myself. It's not exactly easy to configure (the object/entity structure is a bit weird IMO), but it has a pretty decent amount of integrations and it's rock solid German engineering made with boring old Java. If you want control, my suggestion is to use HA only for the integrations and do all of the brains somewhere else. Either a self-made program that pokes HA using its API or directly via MQTT or Node RED.

pmlnr 3y ago
> Domoticz is a bit of an odd bird, I never figured out what was their value propositon Simple, rock solid functionality. If you want more, write scripts. I really like the approach.
- temporal828 3y ago
  > Simple, rock solid functionality. Don't ever open that C++ code base unless you have a barf bag. I started making contributions and gave up because I have better things to do with my time then ruin my soul. I will also note that they stole the MQTT protocol from Home Assistant - so at least they need ideas from elsewhere. (ie openzwave died so domoticz needs to rely on the same NodeJS subsystem infrastructure of HA) I love the concept of domoticz - lua, but my god the architecture and implementation is a tire fire.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    >I love the concept of domoticz - lua, but my god the architecture and implementation is a tire fire. Is that better or worse than a dumpster fire?
    - jnsaff2 3y ago
      Tire-fire is spectacular compared to dumpster fire. Highly energetic thick black smoke probably visible from space shuttle with naked eye.
      - temporal828 3y ago
        On rock solid functionality: https://github.com/domoticz/domoticz/issues?q=crash https://github.com/domoticz/domoticz/issues?q=crash segfault, leak and hang are also fun ones. Apparently the massive memory leaks in the python integration has never been fixed. Not surprising, one look at hardware/plugins/Python*.cpp is bad for your health.
moduspol 3y ago
Does nobody use Hubitat any more? I'm still using it. Upgraded from the C5 to the C7 a few months ago. I use almost entirely Z-wave devices, and the HomeKit integration built into Hubitat makes it easy to manage them all like native HomeKit devices. Managing probably any Z-wave mesh isn't something I'd recommend for a non-techie, but it doesn't generally requires consistent maintenance. And with Hubitat, it's a small standalone box that does OTA updates. For me it fills a pretty big gray area between mass market consumer ecosystems and Home Assistant.

01100011 3y ago

Never found one. It's on my list of things to do someday but that list only grows. I keep telling myself retirement will be a great chance to develop sw like that and give back.

leonsmith 3y ago

OpenHab, I'v gone from home assistant to smart things to openhab and its been stable and simple to set & forget. It's great to setup via the UI, easy to backup and restore as once you actually start to build it into the foundations of your house you start to value the stability of it

nikita2206 3y ago
I still never used OpenHab (at the moment running HA but not happy about it). I’ve tried developing custom components for HA and it was so bad, there’s no docs at all and Python being untyped language doesn’t help either. Just out of curiousity I’ve googled OpenHab docs to understand if I could achieve similar there and their docs are awesome, full and well written. (and it’s Java so half of the code IntelliJ will write for you)

mleo 3y ago

Not beautiful, but I use HomeSeer on Ubuntu. It is commercial, but after spending a couple thousand dollars on all the home hardware and server, spending a bit on software makes as much sense. It is reliable with my automations. I have added custom devices and automations through scripts that publish MQTT messages. For simple remote control, I tend to eschew their UI and have HomeBridge publish device access to HomeKit.

naasking 3y ago

I'm looking at Mozilla's WebThings.

perrylaj 3y ago

I work for a company (Inductive Automation), and we build a platform for industrial automation called Ignition. A few years back we created a special free license tier (and some light weight branding) for personal and educational use. It's called "Maker Edition", and there is a growing group of users using it for home automation. Mostly people already in the operational/industrial automation space, but it seems like it's growing more broadly. We package Ignition as a docker image, an installer, or just a simple zip archive you can decompress and launch, so it's easy to self-host or deploy to a cheap cloud tier. The biggest downsides are that there will be a bit of a learning curve to using it (as with any new tool), the documentation being focused on commercial use cases, and similarly, we don't offer first party drivers for common home protocols (zigbee, zwave, etc). But we have pretty good docs, a free online learning platform, and pretty active forums. 3rd parties have written various drivers for home use. I'd love for more in the home automation/maker space to know about and use it. We don't monetize maker edition in any way, and so don't really promote it, but I'd love to see the home userbase grow (and hopefully by extension, the hacker/maker community who might be able to help contribute to drivers and other resources). It's an open platform built on the JRE, with a public sdk and example modules (plugins) and related tools available on github.com/inductiveautomation. The software is in use to automate virtually every industry, so it's fairly well tested (at least to the extent that a toolkit can be). Maker Edition info is available at: https://inductiveautomation.com/ignition/maker-edition https://inductiveautomation.com/ignition/maker-edition Disclosure : work for inductive automation, but otherwise don't have a financial interest in people using Ignition Maker Edition or anything of that (aside from any side effects that come from broader adoption in general). My selfish interest is in a larger home use community so there are more cool projects to check out, resources to share, open source modules published, etc. All statements here are my personal views.