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Agnieszka R. Turczyńska

Let it be a warning story for you, regarding smart home solutions.

Two years ago we have bough a house. Together with the house came a thermostat for controlling the gas boiler. The one from the smart kind.

Since the very beginning it was clear to me, this particular solution is a crap. The only way to control it was by login to the external web page and set the schedule and temperatures there, and the device at home periodically has checked if there is a change to fetch. Also, this particular device has only volatile memory. So, when power is turned off, the device needs to fetch the settings from the server.

I've tried to replace it with another smart solution, but failed at it (and I have wrote a little bit about that as well).

So, I am still using the one which came with the house.

And the servers went down somewhen during last two weeks. So far the device is still working, with recent settings. So, I am not in dire needs. However, the first power failure means I am being left without heating.

And what is the lesson for you? If you want to buy any kind of smart home solution, please make sure it will work decently without internet connection.

The very basic check you can do is to open home-assistant.io/integrations, find if there is available support for the device you want to buy, and check its IoT class. If this is local push or local polling, it would rather be OK. If this is a cloud push/cloud pulling, then further research is needed, as without the internet (or servers) available, the device's functionality will be degraded. Sometimes slightly, sometimes severely. And it is up to you to decide, if it is OK to be stuck with device having degraded functionality.

PS. To make this clear - I have a backup plan, so no advice is needed. Unless you have a recommendation of a smart thermostat with temperature zone control, which works fully locally. Then I'd be glad to hear.

Home AssistantIntegrationsList of the built-in integrations of Home Assistant.
Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
Public

Haha. End of story: "I switched to another device (Honeywell) already, but got a email from Plugwise that then gonna stop with Themosmart support." (from domoticz.com/forum/viewtopic.p)

And no, I have not received any email apart from the one I've already mentioned.

www.domoticz.comThermosmart bankrupt - Domoticz
JA Westenberg
Public

@agturcz this is absolutely infuriating. And it sucks that you’re going through this. I often think about going all in on a smart home set up for us but then I read things like this and...absolutely not.

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@Daojoan Thank you. I had two years to mentally prepare for such outcome. I am annoyed, but not surprised.

I am also slightly irritated, but by myself only, because of not dealing with the crappy solution for two years. Well.

And with the smart home solutions - the truth is, when done even in a substandard way, they can improve the quality of life. However, the proper ones are costly. Either directly in money, or in time you are investing to make a DIY solution from whatever more or less crap is available on the market.

If you consider making a smart home as a project, there is a chance for you to enjoy it, as overcoming difficulties might be rewarding. But if you just want to have something working without putting to much effort into that, then, well...

Chris Gerhard :bt:
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@agturcz I look forward to hearing what you do. I'm descending the home assistant rabbit hole and the next stop is our heating but I need devices that work with home assistant without any third party involvement.

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@chrisgerhard Right now I am going to buy something dumb, which would allow me to set a weekly schedule of heating. Something like thermostaat.eu/product/2074597 - absolutely off-line, programmed by buttons, no API at all. And then calmly look for more smart replacement fulfilling my needs. Which I perhaps buy during the next 5 years :]

Thermostaat.euVesta 500 de slimme thermostaat Vesta 500 design thermostaat De slimme thermostaat met adaptieve functie, LCD verlichting en pincode beveiliging De Vesta 500 thermostaat behoort tot de nieuwste generatie slimme klokthermostaten en heeft een extra groot LCD-scherm en pincode be...
Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@chrisgerhard Finally, I'm ordering Emos P5606OT.

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
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@agturcz oh dang that's really crap...

Do you know why the servers went down? Did the company go bust? Is it a "temporary" (two-week-long already...) issue?

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
Quiet public

@rysiek Bear with me, please. I'm writing the kind of post-mortem just now :)

Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
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@agturcz 🐻ing as instructed!

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@rysiek Done, as a reply to the OT.

Gary Parker
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@agturcz I always recommend people look at Honeywell's #Evohome heating system. It will operate perfectly entirely offline, but if it has an internet connection has a good mobile app and open API that integrates with Home Assistant, etc. nicely.

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@witewulf Evohome was the very first solution I've been considering. However, as you wrote, it requires internet connection for the API. And I've changed for Plugwise, which become a failure as well.

Steven Reed
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@agturcz
Drayton Wiser can communicate between app and hub locally (mdns for discovery), and the rest API has also been reverse engineered, which has been useful for a few things. Only annoyances are the ZigBee network for sensors is closed, and the WiFi antenna in the hub isn't brilliant.
@witewulf

Steven Reed
Quiet public

@agturcz
(It also in theory supports Opentherm, but I've not been able to test that yet.)
@witewulf

Steven Reed
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@agturcz
Oh, I should probably have said it does use their cloud stuff for auth, but will run locally once that's set up. Can't remember whether the local API needs a session token refreshing, I can check. But either way sounds like it would be an improvement over your current situation.
@witewulf

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@srtcd424 @witewulf Well, pretty everything is going to be an improvement over my current situation :D

piofthings
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@agturcz @srtcd424 @witewulf I back Wiser! They are nice to the HA developer who provides local HA support! But in general Wise eco system is decent. Slightly pricey if you need to get one of their plugs to use as an extension of “their” zigbee network! Someday I’ll bend them to my will and move them all to my zigbee network managed by zigbee2mqtt!

Slash909uk
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@piofthings @agturcz @srtcd424 @witewulf I went and home -brewed my setup precisely to avoid this scenario back in around 2017.
HA or Domoticz can handle the simple logic for zoned heating; I have some scripts for Domo if you're interested.
Sonoff relays w/Tasmota firmware for control. Cheap mains voltage heating valve drivers for radiator on/off. A mix of Sonoff and Oregon Scientific RF temperature sensors. WiFi, but no internet required. So far very few faults 😁

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@srtcd424 Thanks, I'll check it. @witewulf

towo
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@agturcz The "hacky" solution for completely offline would be using adapter.ebusd.eu/v5/index.en.h if your heater speaks ebus, then you can just set up your own sensors willy nilly and just trigger the heating on/off via Home Assistant, all locally.

(Didn't manage to install mine before this heating phase, so no experience yet.)

{“de”=>”eBUS Adapter Shield v5”, “en”=>”eBUS adapter Shield v5”}Welcome to eBUS Adapter Shield v5!{“de”=>”Hardware-Adapter zur Kommunikation mit eBUS Heizsystemen”, “en”=>”Hardware interface for communicating with eBUS heating system”}
Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@towo My one is OpenTherm capable. And, indeed, the solution based on zigbee valves and sensors, and OpenTherm Gateway has crossed my mind, but that would become a "project". Which I would prefer to avoid at the very moment :D

Andrzej Lichnerowicz
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@agturcz Oh, while it's completely unhelpful, others might find it interesting.. I just finished to read stuff I bookmarked over the weekend, when your post popped up... strugglers.net/~andy/blog/2018 by @grifferz, and laplab.me/posts/whats-that-tou by @laplab ... very interesting read on both occasions. And good luck to you :)

strugglers.netThe Internet of Unprofitable Things – The ongoing struggle
Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@unjello Oh, that's quite a stories. @pluralistic, you may want to check them.

@grifferz @laplab

Witold Kowalik
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@agturcz

He [ @pluralistic ] could also maybe want to write a script for a "not" comic book about a supervillain called The Enshittyfiacator [ Lucha Libre style ]

@unjello @grifferz @laplab

also if anyone wants to use that idea - feel free to do so, just please use the money to better our future for all

Rue Mohr
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@agturcz Lets all spread the word to buy "cloud-free" products!

Bad News Nobody
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@agturcz Back in 2018 I fully renovated my house and had kind of a discussion with the architect that was following the project if I wanted a smart house. I initially thought that would have been nice, but then realized this kind of problems and the associated headaches. So I thought about doing something DIY, but didn't really had the time and energy to study, implement, and maintain such a thing. Ended up living in a dumb house like I did for the prior 40 years. At least it's dependable.

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@dukeboitans Right now if I do the fully renovation, I will probably place wires for KNX. This solution is rather on the expensive side, but at least this is an industrial standard (used from offices, through hotels, to airports), and there are plenty of components made by different producers. However, that is not going to happen in the next two years. Or even more.

Shigella
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@agturcz FL is asking if you could publish it on the LinkedIn as well
Btw it seems that solution with koza or tile stove is what I will aim if I would ever move to detached

Agnieszka R. Turczyńska
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@shigella I would rather not. But feel free to copy paste it there in verbatim, or just the link, or both.

Keenan Tims
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@agturcz It's so unfortunate that the best 'standard' API for home automation is HomeKit. Home Assistant has decent support for 'works with HomeKit' stuff, so unless/until Apple decides to lock it down like everything else they do, it's a reasonable way out in a lot of cases. Matter is promising as a future vendor-neutral solution, but doesn't have the penetration yet.

Personally I am avoiding any automation stuff that uses WiFi because who knows the dragons that live in their IP and cloud stack. Zigbee/ ZWave stuff is more or less guaranteed to live 'forever' and won't leak access to my private network.

Vijay Prema
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@agturcz
What a bad experience for an important system in your home! Glad you found a solution in the end.

When I lived in a big house I tinkered with home automation using Home Assistant. It was useful but occasionally challenging.

Now I live in a well designed much smaller and more convenient place and I found I don't really need automation. I came to the conclusion that automation is only good if my life or home is inherently complex and hard to manage, or maybe accessibility issues.

raboof@FOSDEM
Quiet public

@agturcz maybe not a 'recommendation' per se but wanted to share: I set up zoned heating with a number of Shelly TRV knobs talking directly to Home Assistant. HA drives my heater (with an on/off relais, no OpenTherm (yet?)).

Fairly happy with it, though I do see the occasional glitch when a knob is briefly off wifi. In retrospect I think it might have been better to use MQTT to talk to he knobs instead of CoIoT, might change that at some point.

Peggy-Ann
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@agturcz also being able to ”go dumb” is always a preffered backup solution when it comes to homeautomation. I hope you find a good solution.