How can I help build this community - Lemmy.World
lemmy.world
Hi, I recently made the switch to Lemmy from Reddit. But r/homekit is one of the communities I miss the most. What can I do to help build this community up? I’m happy to make posts, comment, and upvote. Is trying to poach people from r/homekit a bad idea? I would love to get to know everyone better. Here’s some info about my smart home. - I’m using Apple Home, and my primary hub is a 4K Apple TV 4K Ethernet, which I chose for the Thread radio. - I’m almost exclusively using Thread devices, and most of those are Matter over Thread. - Most of my lights are Nanoleaf Essentials (Matter over Thread), and despite people hating Nanoleaf, they have been much better lately. - For more advanced lighting, I’m using WLED, which is a DIY project for controlling addressable light strips. - My WLED lights are bridged into HomeKit via Homebridge, though I’ve considered switching to Home Assistant. - I’m using a Deco mesh router with two nodes, and it’s been amazing for the relatively low cost. - Outside of Apple Home, I use Ring, which I’ve bridged into Apple via Homebridge. I hate the Ring subscription, but their hardware is solid. Excited to get to know everyone!

I love Apple Home. It has its flaws, but— just like Lemmy— I love trying out bleeding-edge tech like Thread, Matter, mesh based routers and sick lighting. I also mess around with Homebridge, and I’ve considered trying Home Assistant. I’ve learned a lot, and I want to collaborate with other home automation enthusiasts. I’m going to try to post more to that community, but I wanted to put this out there if anyone is interested in collaborating with me to build up that community.

  • zelifcamEnglish
    27•6 hours ago

    I think what you’ll find is HomeKit’s best feature is being a front end for home assistant. Which is where most people end up on their journey.

    • @fulgEnglish
      2•6 minutes ago

      It is exactly my case, as HomeKit by itself is way too limited for automations.

      All of my HomeKit devices are actually exposed through HomeBridge, so I can still use HomeKit stuff if needed, and devices that do not support HomeKit can still be added to HomeKit.

      My current challenge is on the Smart Dashboard side, I don’t really want to buy a Google Pixel Tablet for this, and the Nest Hubs I have don’t really integrate with HomeAssistant except through Google cloud services.

      HomeKit dashboard is fine but too basic.

    • @moseschruteOPEnglish
      5•5 hours ago

      Yeah, that is what I’ve heard! I’m actually a software developer by day, and I’ve even written a Homebridge plugin for IR control— though I didn’t publish it. Idk, maybe I’m just burnt out coding after my day job, and I’m happy to keep things simple. I also like that my partner can do everything I can without diving into another app.

      If I did Home Assistant, I would want direct thread control from both Apple Home and Home Assistant. I want to minimize hops that any request has to take within the network. For example, I’m testing out a Nanoleaf Sense+ switch which has direct control of their lights over Thread without needing to touch a border router.

      I also mess around with WLED, which is way more DIY and satisfies the side of me that wants to do more DIY.