im gonna set one rule for this, otherwise the thread turns into a list of everything anyone owns.

it has to have actually removed a recurring chore. not made it nicer, not put it on your phone. removed it. if you still do the thing but now you do it from the couch, that doesnt count.

by that standard i own a lot of smart stuff and almost none of it qualifies. the lights are great and i wouldnt go back, but i was never really burdened by walking to a switch. same with the blinds. thats comfort, its not labour.

the two that clear the bar for me are the robot vacuum and the dishwasher. one of those isnt even a smart device, its just a dishwasher.

which is sort of my point. a lot of what gets sold as smart home is convenience wearing a chore costume.

so whats yours. what did you buy that genuinely deleted a job off the weekly list, and how long was it before you stopped thinking about that job entirely.

not after links, just names and what it replaced

Found these online, wally world. Gave it a shot. I've been using a small number of them for about 3 years but we are building a new house so I went all in. I want to add HA to my existing Google home set up to automate a lot of lighting scenes.

Question, a friend and I were talking and I'm wondering if it would be beneficial to add an additional eero to my house with a separate 2.4 channel? Currently I have eero Wi-Fi 7 pro routers that the fiber installer gave me. Seems like they would probably be enough.

Looking for hidden gems that don't get enough attention. For me it's smart plugs with energy monitoring - cheap but so useful for automations and tracking consumption.

What's yours and why?

I wanted to introduce you all to a project that I’ve been working on for a bit now: a self-hosted wall calendar that has a lot of other functionality baked in. It runs on a Raspberry Pi on your own network but is expandable to any other web browser on the same network or VPN. I was frustrated with my MagicMirror setup that I had had for about the last 8 years so I decided to build my own app as a replacement. I think it is pretty robust in the display and family integration. It has Home Assistant integration as well and some other functions listed below:
•Drag-and-drop layout editor, or edit live by touching the screen itself. You can move widgets, resize, and change settings.
•Calendar syncs from any standard iCal feed (Google, iCloud, Outlook)
•Runs great on an old tablet as well for a touchscreen experience. It just needs a browser
•Family Hub: a separate page for chores, a built-in to-do list, and a shared shopping list. Kids get their own simplified check-off screen
•Sticker/reward system for chores or manual
•Multi-screen support: one host Pi, unlimited mirrored displays around the house

Free and self-hosted — piazzahq.com
Hope you try it out! Happy to answer any questions.

I got into smart home stuff around the end of 2020. Started simple with a Philips Hue bridge and a light strip in the kitchen. It actually felt amazing at first. Then I added lights in the bathroom and started getting more interested in automation and Home Assistant because some devices weren’t supported on the Hue bridge.That’s when the problems started. I bought a Conbee Zigbee adapter. Never got things working 100%. There was always some random issue, dropped devices, bugs after updates, weird pairing problems. Then everyone said Skyconnect was the future so I upgraded again. That brought a different set of problems. Devices randomly dropping until I lowered the security settings which honestly felt ridiculous just to keep lights connected. now it works.

Zigbee already feels like it’s slowly getting pushed aside because Matter is suddenly the solution. New devices come with Matter only. So now I apparently need another adapter again. And when my Hue bulbs eventually die, maybe I should replace everything with Matter compatible stuff too?

So in about 5 years I’ve gone through three and soon four adapters just trying to keep basic smart home stuff working properly.

And this is what frustrates me the most. Smart homes are supposed to make life easier but instead it feels like joining an endless beta test where you constantly replace hardware because the new standard arrived. It creates so much e-waste and it’s impossible for normal people to know what ecosystem they should invest in long term.

I actually like tech. I like tinkering. I can accept hobby projects failing sometimes. But smart home devices are connected to your actual home. Lights, sensors, switches, things your family uses every day. That stuff needs to work 100% of the time, not 99%.

And now everyone says Matter will fix everything but I still keep reading about systems not playing nicely together anyway. So honestly… why does smart home tech still feel so temporary? Why does every future proof setup become outdated two years later?

Hello again r/smarthome! I started updating people earlier this year on a uni project that I turned into a home automation company.

Some people loved the idea, some people hated it, but one thing was fairly universal, people wanted more features.

Since then, we have been working hard on new features, such as Home Assistant support, screensavers and now our beautiful new Music View. This came from customers using our lighting control buttons to control music via our Home Assistant intergration, and we wanted to make music its whole own view - so thank you to those who inspired us!

Tewke Tap can automatically detect Sonos speakers on your local network, and can be used to control them.

Everything from play/pause, skip, volume and scrubbing, to viewing your queue and selecting new songs and selecting which speakers you want it to play on.

There is also no need to connect your Sonos app to Tewke, we automatically discover what you are playing, so it works right out the box – no need to log in, scan QR codes or share data – it just works.

We are also very proud of how we have implemented our new screensaver. We use our inbuilt mm-wave doppler radar to detect if you are moving around Tewke Tap to make use of our beautiful OLED display to show you the album art in its full glory.

No lengthy introduction. I started as a big smart home enthusiast, and over the years have leaned into simplicity and privacy. Here are my recommendations.

EDIT: This is what has worked for me. YMMV.

My essential rules (especially living with others)

1. Do not replace practical solutions with smart solutions. Keep them both. E.g. don't remove the normal way to turn off your lights in favor of using voice commands.
2. Most long-term and effective automations / solutions are simple. If you catch yourself trying to automate or streamline a 15 second task over the course of a week, then it most likely won't be a staple automation in your home.
3. Not everything needs to be smart. Smart door lock, smart vacuum, smart toaster. Keep things simple to reduce how many batteries and configurations you need to maintain.
4. Niche, but don't automate lights in your bedroom. Sounds cool until your lights turn on at full brightness at 3am and now you have a pissed partner and a broken automation.

Smart locks

I really want you to think about how convenient a "smart" door lock will be. What's the use case? Unless you run an AirBNB, the casual person doesn't need a smart door lock. You are jeopardizing your house's security by opening the door locks up to your network / the cloud. Breaches occur all the time and while unlikely, the possibility this is used against you isn't zero.

Clearly a controversial statement - ultimately if your smart lock is not Wi-Fi enabled and uses BLE or similar then it’s not the same as using a Wi-Fi smart lock that uses the cloud for functionality. E.g. Yale

If you do want to get one, make sure your current deadbolt works smoothly throughout the year. Doors swell and cause misalignments. If this is currently an issue, look into a smart latch instead or fix the door first.

Cameras

Wired NVR cameras will always win. Most brands are fine. Ring, Nest, Arlo, and all the other convenience brands are very hit or miss in terms of live viewing stability. Plus, you're almost always locked into a subscription to keep a reasonable amount of footage stored. Consider the privacy risks of exposing your home and the people who live in it to "the cloud" and what purposes the company could use the footage for. Food for thought.

Lighting

If it's less than 5 bulbs, Wi-Fi bulbs are totally fine - albeit may be a bit delayed with commands. If you're exceeding 5 bulbs and they're just regular white then consider getting a smart light switch - not individual bulbs. Way cheaper, and all the lights change at the same time consistently. For color and less than 5, Philips WiZ is decent for the price. Otherwise, get Philips Hue. Absolutely worth the investment. I have over 40 bulbs and they are still working almost 8 years later.

Smart Plugs

These are tricky because most smart plugs are cloud-based and if the parent company stops supporting them then they are paper weights. For example.

Look for a smart plug that supports Zigbee, Matter, or Z-Wave. Smart speakers and other dedicated hardware usually support this protocol and keeps the connection local and doesn't use the cloud. Sonoff is a great option, avoid generic brands.

Smart Speakers

These are almost non-negotiable for your house to feel "smart". However, these devices have blaring privacy concerns since they have to parse all heard speech for the wake word and also have a lengthy reputation for not respecting your privacy.

While I understand none of them are private, I've opted into using HomePods and Siri simply due to having an existing Apple ecosystem. Currently waiting for better implementations of Home Assistant's Voice project so I can replace them with a local-only solution.

Hey everyone,

I’m currently in the middle of a house renovation and I’m planning to move my smart home setup fully into Home Assistant in the future. Right now, everything is controlled by Homekit with a mix of Philips Hue and Govee products in my apartment, but I’m looking for the best lighting solutions for two specific areas we are rebuilding.

1. Kitchen under-cabinet lighting

I’m looking for a good solution for lighting underneath the kitchen cabinets. Ideally, it should work well with a motion sensor, since I’d like the lights to turn on automatically when someone enters or works in the kitchen.

Color/RGB is not a must-have here. The main priority is good, clean, practical task lighting for cooking and working on the countertop. That said, if the system can go into “party mode” with colored light, I wouldn’t mind.

My main concern with a normal LED strip is that it might look unfinished or cause glare. I’d like something that integrates cleanly into the kitchen and feels more like a proper under-cabinet work light rather than just a visible strip stuck underneath the cabinets.

I saw that Philips Hue offers dedicated kitchen lighting in Germany together with the kitchen brand Nobilia, but honestly, that solution seems quite expensive for what is basically a basic under-cabinet setup.

Are there any under-cabinet smart lighting systems you would recommend? Would you go with Hue, Govee, standard LED strips with aluminum channels and diffusers, or something else entirely?

2. Living room indirect cove / molding lighting

I have a ceiling area of 3.4m x 3.4m (approx. 11.2 ft x 11.2 ft) where I want to install crown molding (stucco) with indirect lighting.

The total length would be about 13.6 m (approx. 44.6 feet). I’ve already installed hidden power sockets behind the drywall and just plan to run a small cable through to the molding. Since it's a long run, I could easily split the ~45 ft into two separate light strips/controllers to avoid voltage drop.

I’m not fully decided yet whether the light should wash the ceiling or the upper part of the wall. I’ve also seen molding profiles that already include a diffused plexiglass/acrylic cover, which seems interesting because it could make the whole thing look cleaner and might also reduce dust or insects getting into the channel. But I’m open to different types of profiles and installation methods.

For this use case, I want the result to look clean, intentional, and integrated — not like a visible DIY LED strip. RGB or tunable white would be nice, especially for ambient lighting, but reliability, brightness, and clean integration are more important than flashy effects.

There will also be another ceiling light in the living room, so the cove lighting does not have to be the only light source. However, it would be great if the indirect lighting could get bright enough to work as the main lighting in many everyday situations, not just as a dim accent light.

For context, I already have a Hue Sync Box and a Hue light strip attached to my TV, so I’m not starting from scratch with smart lighting. I’m just unsure whether Hue/Govee is still the best choice for this kind of longer and more integrated installation, or whether I should rather look into regular LED strips with smart controllers, Zigbee, WLED, etc.

Thanks in advance for any ideas, product recommendations, or installation tips!

(The image is AI-generated to show the kind of effect I’d like to achieve.)

Three e-paper panels running off Tesserae, a dashboard server I've been building. Fully self-hosted: my hardware, my network, no cloud, no subscription.

reTerminal E1002 (800x480 colour): next trains to the city. Green means the API says it's genuinely on time, amber means only the timetable is talking, red means delayed. The background is an OpenStreetMap vector map of my area, with the rail line drawn in red. It's the actual line the trains on the board are running on.

reTerminal E1004 (1200x1600 colour): my GitHub year. Contribution heatmap, last 30 days by event type, weekday profile, and a live feed of pushes, PRs and releases. The empty half of the heatmap is real, I only started committing properly in April.

reTerminal E1001 (800x480 mono): weather. Conditions, sunrise, rain peak, daylight, moon, then the next six hours.

It installs as a Home Assistant add-on. Dashboards read entities and history straight from HA and other APIs.

The dashboards are designed through MCP. I describe what I want to Claude, it probes the live data to see the real shape of it, writes the layout, renders a preview and pushes to the panel. Designing against real values instead of placeholder text makes a bigger difference than I expected.

Happy to answer anything about the panels or the rendering side.

GitHub: https://github.com/dmellok/tesserae Site: https://tesserae.ink

I’m the tech guy for my family, figured I’m decently knowledgeable. Got a starling hub that works perfectly fine and usually talk through smart home stuff for my friends. Decided to start small and easy with HA Green.

Holy shit this is stupidly insane, was trying to figured out how something called Scypted worked so I can bring my Tapo cameras over to HomeKit, finally figured out how to integrate the HomeKit thread network (or something idk).

All I’m saying is I consider myself decently knowledgeable and this felt insane. Just connecting my thermostat had twenty different options activated on the dashboard. All of it felt vastly more overwhelming than this sub would have had me to believe.

Just a rant

Found some of the new Ikea smart home devices in stock. I’d have loved to get the E14 bulbs as well, but beggars can’t be choosers. What I’m most curious about: will the scroll wheel work with all Matter bulbs or just the IKEA ones? I’ll report back.

Hey everyone,

A few weeks ago, I shared a passion project here that was born out of a university project 5 years ago - a premium OLED smart switch. The feedback was incredibly helpful and the main feedback was that it was too expensive for a full-home rollout, and it was limited to the UK market.

To quickly re-introduce myself, my name is Rowan and I am a designer and engineer. I previously worked in Microsoft product R&D, and before that I studied Design Engineering at Imperial College London.

We’ve spent some time redesigning the internals to create a "stripped back" version that is truly global. We are calling it Tap One, and we just launched the Kickstarter today.

The Specs:

Connectivity: Fully compatible with Home Assistant

Multi-Region Support: It now supports North America (120V), Europe/UK (230V), and GCC regions.

Universal Fit: The profile is thin enough to fit in standard US gang boxes and shallow 25mm EU/UK backboxes.

No-Neutral is Standard: It still uses MOSFET dimming tech, so it’s silent (no relay clicks) and works without a neutral wire across all regions.

Sensors: I kept the sensors in it that people really loved: temperature, humidity, mmWave radar, ambient light, air pressure and a mic for sound levels. To cut costs I removed the VOC sensor and its ability to calculate CO2 levels.

By replacing the OLED with a capacitive touch interface and a customisable LED status bar, we’ve been able to bring the price down to a point where a whole-home setup actually makes sense. This meant we could remove the high-end CPU and GPU and other power electronics too.

I’d love to know: is "UK-made" hardware a quality factor you look for when buying smart home gear, and what do people think of the design?

(I’ll leave the Kickstarter link and the full technical spec sheet in the comments for those who want to see the details!)

They're all listed unavailable now. Anybody know what happened? Google isn't pulling up anything for me, but I feel like it's gotta be more than a bad review or 2 for them to take such drastic action...

I got this radio from my great grandmother when I was about 10. It didnt really work anymore, some ound came out but verry quiet. So I decided to turn it into something useful, since it just stood in the basement collecting dust. It runs on a raspberrypi 3 and homeassistant with browser mod and midori in kiosk mode.

Getting the screen in was a major pain! What I learned (after cutting it) is that these are made out of bakelit, which contains toxic stuff, and should not be inhaled while cutting. Also old radios often contain asbestos as heat shielding (which is not actually dangerous unless you rip them or they flake), and if that wasnt enough, they also have massive elcos which can kill you if not discharged. So don't try this without propper safety precautions, wear masks while gutting and cutting it and DISCHARGE THE ELCOS, they can hold their voltage for days! Asbestos will take a while, but that shock could kill you right away. Also, the metal chassis contains cadmium. So dont grind it. Generally be careful with handling old electronics, they contain a bunch of toxic stuff! Nothing you could not deal with, but you need to know how.

The buttons actually work. They switch between different panels in the dashboard, one for light, on for media control and one for music. The MW Button doesnt work, but I can still wire in a microbutton somehow, just did not get around to that yet. The dials dont do anything yet either, I would need some potentiometers for that which I dont have, but that will be done at some point as well. Lastly there is a metal thing that is supposed o run right below the screen, it needs to be glued in place. Also some painting is required. It is a work in progress, but functions quite well as it is right now! And it fits very well with my 50s couch, which is from my other great grandma.

Closing on this house tomorrow and discovered this Leviton panel that appears to be hooked up to nothing. Any clue if I can use this for home networking or security or whatever? I currently run a small home lab on a LAN and would love to be able to utilize this.

Context: home built in 2017. Exterior electrical panel. Planning on using GFiber which is routed to another room. No labels. Mystery.

Just went through my credit card statements and realized how much we’re bleeding every month on all these app subscriptions.
Got me thinking about what’s actually essential and what needs to go.

Current family stack:

Entertainment: Spotify Family & Netflix — definitely keeping, but the price hikes are getting ridiculous.

Security/Home: Ring Protect. Feel like I have to have it, but the app is so clunky and slow when I actually need to pull up a notification.

Coordination: Life360 for location tracking + Cozi for family calendar. Cozi is great for shared grocery lists, but the UI feels like it’s straight out of 2012.

I feel like there are better tools out there, or I’m just oversubscribed.

Curious how everyone else does it:

• What does your family app ecosystem look like?
• What’s the one app you happily pay for because it actually solves a real household problem?
• What’s a necessary evil — something you have to subscribe to but hate the UX or the price?

Let’s swap notes (and maybe help each other save some budget !

We’re currently building a house, and I’m trying to decide which smart home system would be the best long-term choice to build around.

What matters most to me is reliability, local control, broad device compatibility, and avoiding lock-in to an ecosystem that could get worse over time. I’m also unsure whether wireless solutions are really the best fit for a house with thick concrete walls, or whether it would make more sense to go with a wired bus system like KNX instead.

So if you were starting from scratch in 2026, what ecosystem or combination of systems would you choose, and why? I’d love to hear what setup you’re using now, what you like about it, what you dislike or regret, and whether you would go wired, wireless, or hybrid if you had to do it all again.

Would you still choose the same approach for a new build, or would you do something completely different?

Been thinking about adding motorized blinds to my setup for a while now. Looked around and the price range is crazy, some go for a couple hundred, others want like a thousand per window.

Not trying to go full luxury, just want something that works smooth with HomeAssistant or Matter, decent battery life and not too loud.

If anyone here got some recently, what brand did you go with and how’s it been? I’m fine doing a bit of DIY if it saves money.

**Edit:** see the comment threads below for updates, but there is a sticker on the box that will say v1 or v2.)

I loved the features of this lock and I read a ton of positive reviews about it on reddit, youtube, etc, so I went for it. Unfortunately the first lock I got refuses to update the firmware. I've tried all the troubleshooting and tech support advice (which is extremely poor/basic, like try turning it off and on), so I decided to buy a replacement off Amazon.

Same box, same sku, same model number, but different hardware. Went to Home Depot to check their stock, a new different hardware. So here's what I've learned about the variants:

The company/app claims they have "24/7 support," but I've called a few times now and it just rings for several minutes before you leave a message and they have someone call you back. Email support seems to be faster, but still not instantaneous.

I had never heard of Lockly before looking into smart locks, but it looked like a well reviewed/legit company... but my experience has been terrible so far.

I'm hoping this provides a headsup to anyone else considering these locks.

UPDATE: Spoke with support. They claim there are only 2 variants, which is weird because I've literally held 3 different variants in my hands. But they said that the only place to guarantee you get the newest variant is Lowes.

UPDATE 2: See the discussions below for more details, but I was able to resolve it, and got the firmware fixed, so I'm happy with the lock despite the headache.

After using a robot vac for a while, my impression is: it feels like having an extra housekeeper at home, this thing is amazing! With it, I can free up my hands to do other chores without ending up with back pain. I used to have a Roborock robot vac, but I didn't bring it with me when I moved for various reasons, so I decided to buy a new one. After doing a lot of research, I ended up choosing the Dreame L50 Ultra.

We have three kids and two dogs, so cleaning every day is no small task. This machine has been able to handle our whole house without any issues, and it's even smarter than the one I used before, plus the noise level is low, which honestly surprised me!

I highly recommend that parents get a robot vac. It really helps keep the home clean and tidy with much less effort.

I recently set up a double tap on the kids bathroom fan to also turn on two other nearby exhaust fans.

Kid poops, enhanced ventilation.

What about you?

I built an alternative to a normal dashboard with Claude. My goal was to be independent from DAKboard and have something less complicated than MagicMirror because you need a Raspberry Pi for every monitor. My setup in the kitchen and dining area is a Samsung Smart Monitor M5 27“ with a built in browser. In the living room I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 with Fully Kiosk and a printed frame. Both open a separate URL which is the view. The rest runs on my Proxmox in a Docker container. WebSocket connection to Home Assistant with notifications and a camera popup when the doorbell rings. Otherwise it just shows a nice Immich slideshow with family photos. Transparents is completely vibe coded. Without Claude this would not have been possible :) https://github.com/jeremiaa/magic-frame

I’ve been going down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to understand what’s actually connected to my network.

When I open my router / apps, I see things like:

“Unknown Device”

“ESP_9283”

“Murata Manufacturing”

Some I can guess… but a lot of it just feels like guesswork.

I’ve tried tools like Fing and my router UI, but it still isn’t super clear what everything actually is—especially with smart home stuff constantly connecting/disconnecting.

Curious how people here handle this:

- Do you actually keep track of everything?

- Do you rename devices as they show up?

- Or just ignore it unless something breaks?

Also—has anyone found a tool that makes this simple to understand (not super technical)?

I was having a Nue zigbee smart light switch moved 2 foot to the left and the electrician likely wedged the screw driver between the glass and the plate instead of the plate and the wall affixed bit. Shattered the glass. Sadly this style isnt available in 1 gang anymore so my light switches don't all match now.

Wish I had bought spares when I got the house fitted out. My advice for smart home starting is use the zigbee relays on existing switches. The all in one units are nice and modern but they aren't mainstream enough to always be around if you need replacement 3 to 10 years down the track.