Hello there!

I just bought my first apartment and I would like to make as much as possible smart and connectable to Home Assistant. I have to redo the whole apartment (electricity, walls, etc) so drilling some extra holes is not a problem ;)

I just have a few questions where I can’t really find a good answer to it. I hope you guys can help me :)

First of all, I have a few criteria:

  • Everything should be local only (so no 3rd party cloud or accounts)
  • Selfhosting is possible (I have a Proxmox server running Home Assistant in a VM)
  • It doesn’t have to be of the shelf hardware (DIY is fine, if it works as expected).
  • I prefer FOSS over proprietary software/hardware (I know that FOSS hardware is difficult to find). If proprietary see point 1 & 2.
  • Zigbee/Zwave > ethernet > wifi
  • Available in Europe

What I’m struggling with:

  1. Lighting: What is the best solution for smart lighting? I already have a few Philips Hue bulbs and switches, now with the account restrictions they have I was thinking of buying a Sonoff Zigbee USB dongle off AliExpress instead of using the Hue Hub. Are there any better solutions like Shelly maybe or something else? For LED Strips I was thinking of using WLED on an ESP32
  2. Smart blinds, I already found some smart blinds (Like the one from Ikea) but they all work on batteries. As I have to redo the whole apartment I would like to have something that I don’t have to charge every few months.
  3. Smart plugs: Maybe any in-wall/out-wall outlet that has the capability to see electricity usage that you recommend?
  4. Audio: I would like to have some multi-room audio as I really like to listen to music. I have 4 rooms that I want to control the music in. I was thinking to buy 4 old Sonos Connect AMPs Gen 1 from eBay, than I saw that they are not compatible with streaming music from my Navidrome (subsonic server) using HA. Is this true? Also I found a promising project called Snapcast, is it good?

Sorry for the long post, thank you so much for your time! If you have some tips and tricks you want to share that will be kind of you :)

  • @[email protected]OPEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    Hey, thanks for your detailed comment :) That Z-Wave thermostat looks really clean. I’ll try to order those. I agree with you, you should always have a simple physical button to control something instead of only relying on an app on your smartphone.

    I didn’t knew about the Z-Wave store, looks that they have good prices. I see you can only buy as B2B? Not that this is an issue for me.

    MySensors looks really fun, I might order some parts to tinker with :)

    • @[email protected]English
      1•1 year ago

      I see you can only buy as B2B?

      Hm… I’ve also purchased everything from them as B2B, but I’m pretty sure you can checkout without retail login, just add stuff to the cart and checkout with paypal.