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tech never works for long (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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[–] 4 points 6 months ago (7 children)

I've been looking for some smart outlets, and it seems impossible to discover which ones can be used with normal well-known protocols and which can only be used through a phone app locked into a cloud service.

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  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago (3 children)

    Z-Wave & Zigbee devices.

    My favorites are made by Aeotec & Zooz.

    Local control, most use very little power and can either be plugged in or use a 1-3yr battery you swap out sparingly, and they communicate on a separate set of channels from your internet at low-latency so they don’t eat up internet bandwidth.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    So, if I'm reading things right, anything that runs on Z-Wave or Zigbee will necessarily run locally, because those are mesh protocols?

    Anyway, thanks a lot. Those are really simple keywords to check.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago*

    Yep.

    My favorite smart outlet switch though was recently sold out and it’s an Aeotec smart switch 7. Zooz makes something similar though I think.

    I’ve got it set up on Home Assistant so that whenever certain devices in my home are detected on or off via watt usage minimum changes I monitor on those smart switches, it toggles the Lutron Caseta (best smart light control there is) lights via commands for different rooms in my house.

    I also have things like waterproof outdoor gate sensors made by Zooz that are smaller than a single stick of gum where the small flat watch battery in it lasts for almost a year and it will alert me when the gate opens or closes, but only when I’m a certain distance away from the house’s geofence I’ve set up.

    You will also need an overall little USB stick to connect to your Home Assistant server device (like a NAS or Raspberry Pi) to control everything, but there’s one that’s made by Aeotec that does both Zigbee and Z-wave long range protocols. Z-Wave LR (long range) works really far too… like I think around a mile potentially, if you have a nice clear line of sight signal.

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  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago

    Check out the new IKEA Matter over Thread stuff. They have two smart plugs (an indoor single plug and an outdoor double plug). You can flash one of the esp-idf example images to an ESP32-C6 and plug it into your HA server to turn it into a Thread Border Router for under $10. Everything on Thread uses a fully local encrypted mesh network that by default has no Internet access (leave NAT64 turned off in the HA border router add-on).

    P.S.: Make sure to update the firmware on the devices (which HA can do), as several don't act as routing end devices until after the first upgrade.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    Zigbee.

    You will need an antenna /hub though. I use a sky connect antennae, it's all locked into my house.

    If you have to go wifi, tplink /tapo literally have a "local only" mode when you firewall them out. The only issue is they warn you you can't operate them unless you're connected to your home wifi. Which is rather the point.

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