@xoagray @AmarettoBear Zigbee and ZWave are open standard local device wireless mesh standards. You can create a local smart home with locally controlled and managed devices and you can also easily switch from controller to controller or even use multiple controllers. You can perform operations based on local sensors, time of day/day, etc.

While dependence on a company that may or may not be around long term is iffy, using a hub, like Hubitat or Home Assistant which both use open standards and have their own low cost models, gives you flexibility and a way not just to have secure cloud access to your home devices, but the ability to integrate other cloud services as you choose. Even if those cloud services go away, you will always retain control over devices in your local mesh network.

In other words, not all smart devices are the same. Ones that require cloud functionality to work may not work forever. Local devices, barring something unseen and catastrophic, will.

@xoagray @AmarettoBear Yup. Your home devices can be 100% locally controlled.

I’m even working on using home assistant with a locally hosted, non-Internet connected LLM to handle local voice requests without needing an Internet-based third party like Google or Amazon.

@xoagray @AmarettoBear Yup. The most difficult part is actually installing physical light/fan switches and finding which ones you want, and thinking about sensors, time/days, proximity (your app), etc. as inputs, and switches/smart bulbs, etc. as outputs and how you want the automations to work.

Home Assistant can easily be installed in an older HP Mini system (think Gen 7-8 Intel) with 4-8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD and an Aeotec Z-Stick 7 for ZWave and/or a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus for Zigbee devices.

Though I personally recommend starting out with a hubitat for local devices, and playing with a Home Assistant later. It works with just about everything - Zigbee, ZWave, Matter, etc.

There are communities out there with a wealth of knowledge.

I've done things like integrate with the third party Litter Robot API so that when @hypoidbear 's kitties poop, it reads the status change, and then turns on his laundry room vent for about 5 minutes after the litter robot timer goes off so it's less stinky in there. That's a cloud-enabled smart device's status change enabling the changing of a local device's status for X time.