Mastodawn

Dipping my toes into #HomeAutomation starting with a couple of #Sonoff temp/humidity sensors + Dongle Lite to use with my laptop and #HomeAssistant before having a dedicated hub.

That's £51 so ok to play and get the basics.

Got any thoughts or suggestions?

Home Assistant Green looks good for a dedicated hub but at £150 a bit much until I've tested the basics out. This is for a house I'm not living in yet so monitoring is all I need.

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happyborg 4d ago

If the above goes well and I add a dedicated hub I'll probably use an old mobile with cheap broadband plan as a hotspot to allow remote access as I don't have broadband.

Does #HomeAssistant help handle IP address changes by the mobile ISP?

I have in the past hacked my own and could do that again, but wonder if this supported as it must be a common requirement for this kind of setup.

Or wait, do folk use a mobile app over the internet when not at home (with privacy)?
#HomeAutomation

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Tim M 4d ago

@happyborg I just use an old R Pi (booting off a decent quality USB stick as ever so slightly less prone to corruption than SD cards) and run Tailscale for remote access - easier now there's an integration to install/manage it within HA

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happyborg 4d ago

@schmerg thanks. What kind of things do you use HA for?

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Tim M

@happyborg A few things on smart plugs with schedules and manual override (coffee machine, heaters in the studio), pulls in weather forecast, tube status, live departures, family calendar & bin schedules, home/out status (by phone presence)
ie mostly a "by the front door status dashboard for when I'm about to head out or just getting home"