I have had around a dozen smart bulbs/switches/plugs from three companies for 5-10 years now. Globe Suite, Meross, and ‘C by GE’ (General Electric). All three are dependent on their respective cloud services, and are integrated with Google Home. (I know, I know… It’s time to dump this crap, it’s why I’m here) Globe Suite has been great tbh, but ‘C by GE’ is absolute trash, and one of the two Meross devices have now died, prompting a long awaited change.

My big sticking point is knowing where to start with hardware. I don’t know much about the different communication protocols/methods or what to choose (zigbee? Z-wave? Do I need some sort of Hub? Can/should I just use a wifi connection like the current setup? 🤷), and I don’t really know where to look to purchase smart devices that aren’t cloud dependent. (buying from Canada)

Funds are tight so this’ll be an over time project. For now I’m looking to replace three switches. One single pole. One 3-way. Ane one dimmer. Neutral wires are available at all three locations.

Later I’ll be looking to replace 3 smart plugs. Adding current/power monitoring would be neat, but definitely not a priority as I have an Iotawatt at the pannel. After that 4 dimmable white light smart bulbs. Finally there’s an RGBW LED controller that’ll need replacing. The plugs, bulbs, and leds are all Globe Suite; I’m not in a major hurry to replace them as they’ve given me next to no trouble compared to the other two companies garbage.

Where do I start? Where do you guys buy hardware, and what manufacturers?

What should I be looking for in hardware I can integrate with HA and essentially firewall off from the internet?

Finally, how about things like sensors? (weather, motion, moisture, sound)

The next week or so I’ll fire up an HA container just to poke around a bit more. That part I’m pretty confident in, it’s just figuring out some hardware to go with it. Thanks for any advice :)

  • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    24 hours ago

    Any tiny mini PC or RPi will work for the most part unless you plan on hosting media or doing LLM integration. Just make sure it has all the comms and ports you want before ordering one. Minisforum Refurb store has great prices on small devices that beat the price of an RPi kit in most cases and come with a warranty as if new.

    I used to run everything on Zigbee because ZWave had one too many vulnerability issues at the time. I think both are being overtaken by Matter devices, so I’ve been adopting those more and more. Set up a dedicated WiFi network for those that doesn’t have direct route to the internet, and you’re all set.

    As for sensors, just stick to known brands that don’t require a cloud account or gateway. Moe’s, Aqara, and Sonoff are all fairly well known to “just work” in this regard.