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My Smart Home

Introduction

My smart home journey began with an experiment using OpenHAB on a Raspberry Pi 3B+, paired with a Philips Hue starter kit that included the Hue bridge and two lights. While OpenHAB gave me a good start, I quickly realized it didn’t meet all my needs in terms of ease of use and flexibility. That’s when I made the switch to Home Assistant, and I haven’t looked back since.

Over time, I reworked my Home Assistant configuration a few times, eventually settling on the packages approach to organize everything in a scalable and maintainable way. This allowed me to simplify the management of my growing smart home system.

My main focus initially was on automating lighting with motion sensors. I used presence detection to turn my motion sensors into a security system, giving my home an added layer of protection. The system evolved, and I added Shelly devices to monitor power consumption and track the performance of my solar panels, which has been both enlightening and rewarding.

Looking ahead, my smart home continues to expand. I plan to monitor water consumption, integrate more security devices like door and window sensors, and dive deeper into automation to make the entire system smarter and more intuitive.

It’s been an exciting journey, and there’s still so much more to explore.

Hardware

I'm running now running Home Assistant OS on a Raspberry Pi 4 (4GB) with a MariaDB database powering the system, hosted on my Synology NAS (DS224+). I use an external SSD for faster performance and increased realiability.

Protocols & hubs

Future
  • RFXtrx433E (433 mhz): to control our Somfy window covers

Lights

Plugs

Media

Security

Future
  • Ubiquiti cameras
  • Door & window sensors

Remotes

Climate

Future
  • Smart thermostat

Voice assistants

  • Siri