z-wave may be easier than expected, as I think the devices stay linked to the hardware dongle used. (This is just from memory, mind!). But if you need to change the dongle, perhaps less fun.

imo, it will be a bit of pain to get everything inside HA, but once it’s done, you’ll be inside a platform that is pretty open, and commonly used, with lots of other people (hopefully) posting up solutions to problems before you encounter them!
And because it’s software that will run on pretty much anything, you have the reassurance that even if something crazy happened, you could just reinstall an old version.

If it were me, I’d clear an entire weekend day, power off the old kit, and work away at getting HA controlling everything.

Nice to see NC becoming involved with the board.

I don’t run that much z-wave due to cost, but I’m all for improvements and tighter integration.
Especially since when I do want to spend money, ZW works very well.

Or maybe something like this:

https://www.securemeters.com/uk/product/room-thermostats/hrt4-zw-asr/

The unit with the buttons on is a simple relay, which hass can control to turn things on and off, and use a heating control with a temperature sensor.
But if you hit the button on the front, it also gives 30 minutes of on, which can be handy if the system had issues.

Or you could have a hass controlled relay, but also leave the old controller wired in on a manual switch.
So if there was a failure, you could go back to the old control by manually flipping it over.

It’s only Virgin Media to my knowledge who does this.
Most of the other providers are happy for you to use anything that works properly for VDSL or FTTP.

Most FTTP providers fit an ONT that puts the connection back into an RJ45 ethernet connector.
Then you connect to the provider using PPPOE. Anything past the ONT, you can do whatever you like.

You can block or disrupt communications with LEO.
But you’d need the blessing of the country’s government to pump out that much interference continuously.

A low-wiring way to do it would be to replace the bulbs with hue/similar bulbs, then just put a battery powered button in the location you want to have the controls. £10-ish for each button, plus however much the bulbs are.

Then just have the button set to toggle the lights on/off (you can also call different presets like dim etc by pressing and holding).
Then hass just directly sends the on/off commands to the bulbs.

I unblock ads on AVForums. And honestly, the ads are either really well targeted (because I’m probably going to buy that amplifier eventually), or random ebay stuff.

If they started serving up the generic “reduce belly fat in 2 seconds with this simple trick” with some AI generated picture, I’d re-evaluate very quicly.

My first integration is going to be putting my standard “going out” dashboard by the front door.
Being able to glance and see UV index, temperature, rain probability is dead useful.

At least on some smaller subs, there seems to be a suspicious amount of brand new accounts asking one question to get human answers.
It would not surprise me if reddit, or some other service, are seeding to get more LLM-able content. Of course, this might backfire if people start giving stupid answers to eff up the data.

Turns out, a lot of the problems in nixland were solved 3 decades ago with a single flag of built-in utilities.

The workload that’s starting now, is spotting bad code written by colleagues using AI, and persuading them to re-write it.

“But it works!”

‘It pulls in 15 libraries, 2 of which you need to manually install beforehand, to achieve something you can do in 5 lines using this default library’

I’m down to two 2.4GHz devices over the whole network now.

The day I can disable it entirely will be a happy one!

It’s pulled from my main router using it’s metric for it. It only updates once a minute or so, but it’s a nice metric.
Once I switch over to more powerful gear, I’ll probably have to start using SNMP, which I don’t look forward to!

I’m currently using the PoE doorbell from Reolink, and regularly use it for intercom, because I don’t like wasting delivery drivers time while I run to the door. I can definitely recommend it. It’s worth the effort running the cable to have something that just works.

The default Reolink integration can raise events on:

• Button press
• Person detection (adjustable sensitivity)
• Motion detection (same)

Recording can be on-device with a micro SD, on network (recording the incoming stream), or by FTP.
Recording can be set like a dashcam too (only save when needed, and overwrite after a certain time)

By default it lights up around the button when it detects movement, I do not like this, so I turned it off.

If the area outside your house isn’t busy, you can do cool things like getting the person detection to alert you as someone approaches, rather than waiting for them to press the bell. Can make the postman jump the first few times.

There are also some features like doing TTS replies if you don’t acknowledge the doorbell inside a certain time.
I haven’t gone through the effort of setting up return audio from Homeassistant, and just use the RL app.

One of my key buying points for hardware is “will this run without any internet, and could I set it all up again without internet?”.

This is why I’m so happy to finally have Hue on my zigbee controller. And it’s why I’m always on the lookout for a second hand Valetudo compatible robovac.

You could also set up a local NTP server, and block them entirely.
Currently, I have mine set with an invalid gateway, and blocked from the internet to be sure.

All pale to the satisfaction of inserting a digibeta tape.

This is actually something I’m paying attention to: Which EVs get hacked and fossed.
I’m hoping the 40KWH zoes get done soon.

I’m a bit late, but if it helps, I’ve had good results with the Sonoff and Tuya zigbee sensors. I prefer the Tuyas, just because they use AA instead of CR2032 batteries.
$50 will easily get you everything you need to start.

You might also want to think about getting a 433MHz radio for the system.
If you live in a built up area, you’d be surprised how many people have equipment transmitting on 433MHz already (free data!).
And a lot of generic wireless temperature sensor kits use it as a standard, making it a good value way to get weatherproof gear.
I got a generic fridge/freezer kit for about £10 that works perfectly with this. Again, $50 or so for a DVB-T2 receiver. Just be aware that it’s a little more technically involved than pairing zigbee devices.

Bother me with DMs if you like, I’ve been fiddling with just about every protocol I can get my hands on for under £100!

Someone else already raised the mains wired safety/budget issue, but I may have a side suggestion for you: Bulbs as repeaters.

I’ve added hue bulbs directly to my zigbee network, where they also act as repeaters.

The problem then was people switching off at the switch. This has been resolved by adding a little zigbee button by the switch (as people can achieve the function without the mains switch).
Which gives the bonus of being able to do different taps.

(So for example, I have one click as toggle on/off, two clicks is daytime+bright, press+hold is evening+dim)