I once owned a bunch of WiFi connected devices. One day I inspected my router logs and found out that they were all making calls to a bunch of services that werenβt the vendor - things like Google, and Facebook.
WiFi connected devices require connecting to a router; in most homes, this is going to be one thatβs also connected to the internet - most people arenβt going to buy a second router just for their smart home, or set up a disconnected second LAN on their one router. And nearly all of these devices come with an app, which talks to the device through an external service (Iβm looking at you, Honeywell, and you, Rainbird). This is a privacy shit-show. WiFi is a terrible option for smart home devices.
ZigBee, well, I havenβt had any luck with it - pairing problems which are certainly just a learning curve in my part and not an issue with the protocol. I chose ZWave myself because I read about the size and range limitations of ZigBee technology, versus ZWave, but honestly I could have gone either way. Back then, there was no appreciable price difference in devices. Most hubs support both, though, and I canβt see why I wouldnβt mix them (other than I need to figure out how to get ZigBee to work).
In any case, low-power BT, ZigBee, or Zwave are all options, whereas I will not allow more WiFi smart devices in my house. Iβm stuck with Honeywell and Rainbird, forβ¦ reasonsβ¦ but thatβs it. I donβt need to be poking more holes in my LAN security.
I had some difficulties too with Zigbee pairing, thatβs one of the shortcomings that Matter fixes with their QR Code pairing. On my case it was just about understanding that you have to put both the device and the coordinator in pairing mode for the βinterviewβ to happen. And that is has to be close to any device of the target network that isnβt battery powered (they can do the interview on the coordinator behalf).
I stopped using WiFi devices for the same reason, but found out about Tasmota, an open-source firmware for ESP devices. It requires a local coordinator, but never send anything to Google and the likes. It can be hard to flash, but some vendor, like Nous, offers pre-flashed devices. Some of them are also Matter compatible (if it has recent hardware as old ESP device has too little rom to handle the Matter code).
This is good information. I had a complete failure with flashing Tasmota once, and bricked a $100 device.
I like the project, though. My biggest complaint is that - at least for what I was trying to flash, the Linux support was iffy. I was trying to flash something for HA, and the instructions assumed I had access to the computer running HA (which is a headless device in a closet in the basement - entirely unpractical for doing fiddly pinning while trying to flash) or using a web browser with webUSB - which Firefox on Linux doesnβt. So eventually I found a completely unrelated set of instructions I could run from the CLI from my desktop over a cable connected to said desktop, and while it appeared successful, the device is bricked. I canβt even get it into flash mode anymore.
I donβt think any of this has to do with Tasmota, except that the Linux tooling seems either weak, or make assumes people are running Chrome; and if youβre security conscious enough to be flashing a device to run Tasmota, youβre not running Chrome.
So Iβm not doing that again. Itβs a hundred bucks and two days of digging around for tooling and instructions Iβd like back.
Again, not Tasmotaβs fault, but itβs not super accessible.
I feel your point regarding the WiFi devices and that they shouldnβt be recommended to casual users. But if you just set up an isolated VLAN with its own SSID and use e.g. homeassistant running locally to orchestrate them, then whatβs the harm? If your goal is privacy, you need some kind of local βhubβ anyway, and to me it makes way more sense to be able to place that machine anywhere, regardless of e.g. bluetooth reception to your smart home devices (since that is taken care of via the additional SSID on your WAPs).
Sure, I could do that, but not everyone can. But you still have the problem that many of these devices donβt function well unless they can phone home; they donβt very firmware upgrades, and they expect to be controlled by a bespoke app. If you filter out all the devices that are HA compatible without running through an external service, you shear the product choices in half.
