My Smart Home Inventory

Imagine yourself getting a new set of smart light bulbs and perhaps a motion sensor. You dream of unleashing the power of automations to turn on some lights at sundown each day, and others when motion is detected. Another bulb will wake you up as a natural alarm clock on workdays. When it comes time to configure the schedule for these automations, you install a mobile app made by the bulb manufacturer. Maybe you add further elements to your automation logic as you discover new ways to further optimize after launch.

But the unfortunate reality is that your logic and devices live in a vacuum, never to be seen by your other devices, roommates, or technologies. This isn’t a huge problem when you’re starting in home automation. You may stay within one or two manufacturers’ ecosystems which might even play nicely with your chosen voice assistant to help consolidate many devices. But by the time you’ve amassed 20+ devices all competing on your WiFi network, you’ll inevitably face issues with reliability (if you aren’t already driven mad by using 5-7 different apps for controlling your many devices).

Maturity model

My experience growing my smart home ecosystem, I’m betting—is a lot like anyone’s; I add a few devices, automate some simple tasks, and soon realize I need more devices for better automations. This cycle runs the risk of quickly getting out of control, especially when some sensors are only a few dollars apiece.

What I thought would be helpful is to reflect on a few of the most convenient home automations I have developed over the last 4-5 years of tinkering, while also documenting the devices that make them possible.

How many devices are too many?

First, a list of all the devices I’ve acquired over the years. Some of these have been retired or not yet deployed.

I’m probably forgetting some, but 30 devices and several hundred dollars later, I have some good to show for it. An important note on this variety of devices is there are nearly a dozen different manufacturers. Also remember that a bunch of devices I already owned can integrate into Home Assistant, including our smart home speaker, gaming console, robot vacuum, home office printer, air purifier and our phones & tablets.

Some of these integrations are more powerful than others, but almost all of them rely on connectivity to the cloud to access 3rd party APIs¹ As I consider additional devices, I generally check for Z-wave or Zigbee devices since they abstract the control layer to the local hub, rather than a cloud API.

Turn on lights when arriving home after sunset

I purchased some LED light strips with the Gledopto LED controllers intent on some accent lights in various rooms in the house. My biggest pet peeve with LED light strips is when you can see the individual diodes, but when installed properly they can create an elegant and versatile aesthetic.²

One of the nice things about accent lighting from LED strips is they can double as a kind of night light; something that helps you navigate familiar spaces but won’t blind you if you accidentally trigger them in complete darkness.

The missing link for this automation is a location reference for when I or my wife arrive home. Again, many manufacturers provide mobile apps capable of tracking your location, but the goal is to have a location sensor that can transcend different devices and protocols. Thankfully, Home Assistant offers a Companion App for Android and iOS, which not only supports location tracking for users but also can be used for push notifications³.

Easy and straightforward.

Run the HVAC fan at bedtime

Even though our house has air conditioning, we generally don’t need to run it. When the sun goes down, we can open the patio door and some windows and get a pretty good cooling effect overnight. Sometimes, though, this process takes a little longer than we’d like and so I built an automation to speed it up.

Our Honeywell thermostat has a neat feature on the fan, which is an alternate mode (besides on or auto) called circulation. The idea is the fan will kick on and run for a few minutes at a time to circulate air but consume only 30% of the power that it would need to run full-time. To make efficient use of this mode, I programmed an automation in Home Assistant to switch the fan to circulation and start a timer for a duration of my choosing. When the timer ends, the fan switches back to auto.

Simple yet practical.

Garage was left open!

Once properly tested, this was one of the best automations I deployed, primarily because of the practicality and peace of mind since we don’t have a traditional home security system. 🤫

The key ingredients are as follows, first a door sensor that can reliably report the status of the garage door. Aqara fits the bill. Next, a network camera to verify if the door was left open. EZVIZ: check. And finally, a relay switch to operate the garage door remotely. For this, I tried the Zooz Series 700 Relay Switch.

Even though none of the sensors are on the same protocol (Zigbee door sensor, WiFi Camera, Z-wave relay switch), Home Assistant communicates between them and my iPhone seamlessly. One of my favorite pieces of this automation (actually there are 3 that work together) is the actionable iOS notifications that allow me to trigger the garage door right from the notification.

Uncharted territory

There are a few areas that I have yet to explore. For one, I’m very interested in automated blinds, ever since I first discovered the technology during work travel. These could help optimize my sleep schedule on weekdays (and weekends), especially if I could reference more sensors to detect when I go to bed (lights out) and when my first meetings are the next day.

Another area I want to explore is running home network tests when the weather is bad because my ISP, though outstanding when it works, tends to move at a snail’s pace during heavy rain storms. This could be a task automated based on the weather forecast, with a mobile notification when I awake if upload/download speeds are below a certain threshold so I know to drive to the office. And on that note, when we do have degraded internet from our ISP, relying on external cloud services becomes a huge damper, so I’m looking at ways to feature more self-contained, local network technologies. Z-wave and Zigbee are great options to consider.

In the last couple of years, Home Assistant has really taken strides to make energy consumption more of a focus for users. I don’t have solar panels or a smart electrical meter, but you can bet these are exciting topics to think about.

Finally, the biggest area (and probably most daunting) I’ve yet to wrangle is streaming video. There are many cool projects out there for smart-object or motion detection and more, but I’ve been caught up trying to dial in my home network so that cameras aren’t stuck in WiFi dead spots. More to come on this in the future, hopefully!

Key takeaways

Everyone has to start somewhere, but once you get over a certain point, maybe 10 devices, I suggest expanding to non-WiFi devices, either Zigbee or Z-wave, or both. WiFi devices will always be a necessity for your phones, computer(s) and streaming media as well as video cameras.

Some newer technologies like Thread and Matter are emerging with the promise of better interoperability among devices, but until these are more widespread, I would avoid them.

Find inspiration early & often. Part of the allure of home automation is that you can build literally anything! Personally, this was exciting and motivating at times, but also paralyzing sometimes⁴. I suggest checking out the Share Your Projects section of the community forum.

Now get out there and start tinkering!