I use mine so I own my own data. Almost nothing I use talks to the internet but I still have a smart house (that runs just fine when my internet is out).
And while it took some tinkering to setup (back in the "edit all the yaml" days), I barely touch it anymore, I have it set how I like it and that's that.
You must have some funky electricity at your place, I have two smart bulbs (a TP-Link wifi and a generic Zwave) that get daily use and have been running fine for 7 years now.
Same, 5800X in my X470 AORUS mobo and it's been fantastic, no desire to upgrade (already had the 64gb ram, so the CPU swap was simple, I think I got $50 from my old 2700 cpu)
There's loads of things at Microcenter you CAN hold in your hand though, plenty of keyboards, mice, game controllers out on display you can handle and see what you think. Their 3d printer section usually has all the printers running and printing something so you can see the speed and judge how noisy it is. Same with their computer cases, out on display so you get a feel for how big it is or how easy it is to get to the drive cages for example.
There's a lot of products there you can inspect in a way that online just doesn't do.
I have an N100 miniPC that I'm using as an OPNSense firewall, claims to be fanless but it killed an NVME drive.
Now I just have a small usb-powered fan aimed at it and it runs fine. Fortunately for me it's in the basement so I don't have to see or hear it, but the fanless versions run super hot in my experience.
Agree completely. I got ownership of my domain before he started charging, but looking now there's only a summary and it lists 45 email addresses in breaches, which means I need to pay a substantial amount to get a report, and I'm the only user of the domain for email.
I wish there was a "I'm just one person, or a small family" tier for this.
The "Hub" device can be as simple as a USB stick that's attached to the machine running Home Assistant. That's what I have been running for years, a Z-Wave USB stick that passes through to a ZwaveJS docker container (which also communicates with HA).
So it's not like you need a big stand alone device that has to have it's own Wifi or ethernet or anything like that, it's just a USB stick.
Thanks! This is what I eventually got to. That said, I'm leaning towards putting the USB stick in a Pi or something like that, which is attached to and powered by the router!
Just want to have the one device and I think that's maybe the simplest way to get it without trying to run stuff on the router.
Basically, it is a hub, but it's more of an attachment to the router than anything else.
Your house is wired with an alternative and you can't imagine people who DON'T have that infrastructure are looking for a way of doing smart automations?
I have been using HA for years and I love it, it does what I need it to do while operating quietly in the background. I don't have any devices that are "cloud based" so I don't care if the vendor goes out of business or not.
My stuff is a mix of wifi, z-wave, and my cameras are ethernet cabled but can be integrated with onvif.
My house was also built in 1958, there's no chance I'm running KNX cabling anywhere, much less all the places I have devices.
I have one of the Brake Free lights and it uses an accelerometer, it's NOT just a basic tilt switch. Nor does it rattle when riding, it's a very solid unit.
I've had friends following me (both in cars and motorcycles) who comment later they can't believe how much more visible it makes me.
It does attach to a helmet and require that you periodically recharge the battery but I'm very happy with the purchase (as opposed to just flashing the brake lights on the bike when slowing)
And while it took some tinkering to setup (back in the "edit all the yaml" days), I barely touch it anymore, I have it set how I like it and that's that.