How I built my Smart Home in 2023

Home Automation is a complete mess when it comes to which interface you are going to use control everything. Your device has their own app that you use to setup, control, update, and configure the device. This app is typically full featured and let’s you do everything you need to do, but these devices don’t always fully integrate these features into your hub. If you’re not using Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, you may have another hub that lets you control even more things: Smartthings, HomeKit, Hubitat, Home Assistant, etc. Having worked in consumer technology, specifically home automation, in the past 10 years I can confidently say that people are using Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant as their main hub.

I wanted something a bit more customizable for my needs, and specifically I needed access to locally controlled devices – which we will get into in the next section. I also heavily require something that I can (mostly) plug and play. I don't want to write code, i don't want to do x to do x, I just want it to work. I have gone through several hubs and technologies before decided on what I like best. I originally started off with a Smartthings hub, went to a Hubitat hub, then went all in on Google Assistant, then back to Smartthings, before finally settling on Home Assistant. I had tried Home Assistant over the years but the initial requirement to configure a lot of things via YAML was off putting and I stayed away from it. Finally, about three years ago Home Assistant became easy enough that I was able to avoid YAML in 99% of situations.

Home Assistant is great for my use case because it is readily available, people write all kinds of integrations and add-on for it, and the community support online is unmatched in the home automation space. While I think they have a long way to go to make the user interface easier, making the product more stable, and adding various options it is single handedly the best home automation platform out – DIY or professional. Home Assistant can do things and integrate things that professionals would kill for.

What wireless technology am I using?

Zigbee and Z-Wave, Matter..eventually.

Just like picking an automation hub is important, picking the devices is even more important. While I fully believe in Home Assistant and never see it going away, technology typically does go away. We have seen hubs come and go, add features, take away features, and many other things that can give us some idea that it will never be guaranteed. Picking your devices is important because they will, statistically, be around longer than your hub.

For my home, it was an absolute requirement that all smart switches, door sensors, smart outlets, and many other essential aspects only work locally. There is no reason for my light switch to talk to a server in Canada, it should only talk to my hub. While Matter does have a lot of potential, Z-Wave and Zigbee are here already and do exactly what I need. Z-Wave uses a different frequency, so interference is harder, and now with a long range option (1.5 miles!) it is very handy. Zigbee is a safe bet as well because manufacturers could add Matter support in the future, though I would not bet on that and just plan on buying new devices.

So, what devices am I using on a daily basis?

There are devices in my home that use the cloud, it’s not always possible to avoid. For example, I have Sonos all over my house and I LOVE it. I couldn’t build a better and easier to use whole house audio solution so this is perfect for my house and worth compromising. My robot vacuum, a DreameTech vacuum can be flashed with Valetudo if/when I want to, my Emporia Vue 2 can be reflashed with ESPHome if/when I want to, and much more.

Google Assistant. We use voice control every.single.day. At this time I don't really care about my voice assistant being locally based because my setup doesn't rely on it. I may explore adding Home Assistant voice control at some point but only if Google seriously nukes Google Assistant.

Zooz Zen30. These are amazing double switches that use Z-Wave. I have five of these in my house to control a variety of things, mainly fans. The top dimmer controls the fan light itself and the bottom switch turns the fan on. In my bathroom, the top dimmer controls the sink light and the bottom switch control the exhaust fan light.

Inovelli Zigbee 2-in-1 switch. I have these on all my normal lights, inside and outside. You can set them up as a normal switch, dimmer, or even smart bulb mode.

Zooz ZEN32. One of these are by the front door, and one in the kitchen. These are great scene controllers that let you program the button in a ton of different ways. I can press one button to say goodnight and turn the lights off, one to turn on a path to the bedroom, and many other configurations.

Zooz ZEN52. I have one of these in my bathroom exhaust fan. I don’t need manual control of the fan, as it should always be automatically on/off, so I repurposed the bathroom bottom switch to control the light instead of the fan. Luckily this thing is small and fits right into the exhaust fan box.

Zooz ZSE44.These are temperature sensors that I have in each room. The bathroom exhaust fan mentioned earlier is controlled by one of these in the bathroom. Once the humidity goes above x, then turn the fan on. When humidity falls below x, turn off. The temperature part currently is just used to record temperature changes, not really anything automated currently.

Zooz ZSE41. I have these on every door and window in the house, other than interior doors. The response is very quick and I can get notified if I left a window open, a door opens, etc.

Zooz ZEN31. This RGBW dimmer works great, super small, and works over Z-Wave. I currently use these for my kitchen under cabinet lights and they work 100% of the time. I used this RGBW dimmer with these COB LED lights and these diffusers.

Yale Assure 2. I should have really bought a physical button smart lock instead of a touch button one because the touchscreen sucks in colder climates. Ours is mainly automated but when I do need to use it manually, or someone comes over, it can be inconvenient. I required a physical key slot and Z-Wave, so this was a great fit. Unfortunately I had to set it up with the Yale app before I could add it to my Z-Wave hub.

ThirdReality Water Leak Sensor. I bought some of these a few years ago for my apartment and really liked them. They work via Zigbee but the most important feature is the built in siren. So even if my automation doesn’t work (knock on wood) then the built in siren should sound letting me know something is wrong. Genius!

First Alert Z-Wave Smoke/Carbon Detector. These are great and integrate directly into Home Assistant. I have a few automations, mainly notifications, setup if they do go off.

Flume Water. I wanted a way to monitor our water usage since our water bill only comes every four months. This is a cloud-based device but works great. I did have an issue with the meter reading about ½ of the proper water usage but that was remedied by reaching out to support for calibration. Ideally I would install a z-wave shut off valve and some sort of local water monitoring solution, but it would cost me $1,000 labor just to reroute some pipes...so..probably not.

Emporia Vue 2. This thing is extremely affordable and monitors every circuit in your electrical box. We installed a new 20a line to a room for a space heater and I can track how much electricity this actually uses whenever we heat the room up.

Bond Bridge. The Bond Bridge is okay for the price but I really wish they had built-in codes. The ability to control our new (dumb) dc powered fan was a lifesaver because it's much harder to find a DC fan AND light.

Gas Usage. Gas usage is a bit harder but was accomplished with an SDR antenna. I had a lot of hep and troubleshooting from friends and internet sources so I won’t dive too far into this.

DroneMobile. My work van has a cellular remote start that works great. They don’t have an official integration with Home Assistant but someone did find an undocumented API that I can use to lock my van automatically at 9 PM every night.

Ecowitt. I use Ecowitt with their hub for a weather station and soil sensors. They are both amazing devices and work exactly as epected. I use the weather station for automations and plan to incorporate it a bit more as we move into gardening season.

Aqara FP2.These are great mmwave presence sensors that can track multiple people. These were pretty annoying to get into Home Assistant but now they work great. They are slower than traditional motion detectors so if you're looking for instant this is not it. It does excel in actually knowing someone is in the room still, which is handy for avoiding turning lights off when you haven't moved in a bit.

Twinkly LED Lights. These are great Christmas and Halloween lights. The ability to use the app to control and setup patterns works fine, and the ability to integrate it directly into Home Assistant is great as well. I had these on the tree and outside the house this year, and now have a set in our three-seasons room for mood lighting.

Govee Space Heater. This does rely on the cloud and there are ways to get it into Home Assistant, but I haven't felt the need to do that. It's really a holdover until we get our mini-split installed this year.

DreameTech Z10 Pro. This is my first and only robot vacuum and i would say it does a good job. It does have integration with Home Assistant via cloud, but you can root it to run open source software. I may eventually do that but haven't.

Apple TV. These are the best streaming devices out, minus the keyboard. We are an Apple household so these fit naturally and I can control them with Home Assistant.

Litter Robot 4. This has cloud connection and I have it integrated, but mainly bought it for the automated litter box cleaning. I created some rudimentary automations but nothing amazing.

Sonos. The easiest and best sounding audio system out for whole house usage. Definitely not the cheapest option but the most readily available and "it just works" audio system. I can listen to music, radio, or my TV all over my house - even outside.

Aqara C1 Pet Feeder. This works directly with Zigbee and has been in use for about four months now. No real complaints as it works fine.

What about automations?

My automations are pretty basic for now but I am slowly refining them. Safety was my most important requirement so I made automations for the water leak sensors detecting water and the smoke alarms detecting smoke. The water leak sensors basically just notify us via cell phone and announcements over the speakers, but with the built in siren that last part isn’t really critical.

The smoke detectors are a bit more complex. If smoke is detected for 60 seconds then the thermostat turns off, lights turn on, fans turn off, a notification gets sent to our phones, and an announcement comes over the speakers.

We typically use geolocation for automating things. For example, when we both leave the interior cameras will turn on, the thermostat turns off, the robot vacuum starts cleaning, and all of the interior lights/fans turn off. When we come home, the door unlocks, the robot vacuum returns home (if not already) and a few lights turn on.

Any future plans?

We are currently working on a new backyard fence with several raised garden beds, so my goal is to automate my garden. We are going to do a few rain barrels that I’ll need to automate, the hose spigot, etc. For now I have a Zigbee hose spigot that I will probably change out to something else. A combination of my Weather Station and soil sensors will help this journey out and hopefully provide us with a lot of produce.

I also need to drastically update my interface. I am basically using stock Home Assistant which is...ugly. There are infinite ways to improve the user interface, I just don't have a lot of time to spend on it currently. This is one area where I think Home Assistant should improve because using the app is half of the battle.

Here are some photos of my setup currently.