When it comes to Home Automation, many solutions available rely on “The Cloud”. These solutions have issues ranging from cloud services being inaccessible to companies stealing your data to companies ending support for a product you may rely on.

To quote DigiBlur, “Get your shit out of the cloud!”

The Issues

Many Smart Home devices use “The Cloud” and a Smart App on your phone to manage them. However, what happens when the cloud provider decides to shut down their service, breaking all of your devices like Lowes did with its Iris product in 2019.

I started with Home Automation in December, 2017. It started slowly. But as we started to see the benefits to what home automation can do for us, it quickly became almost an obsession.

Now I have a Home Assistant system with a couple hundred devices, almost 100 automations, and some cool technology that has really enhanced our lives.

Background

So, my Home Automation journey starts like may others: I bought one smart plug.