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Comment by thedanbob | Hacker News Reader

I’ve been getting into home automation recently and I’ve given myself a rule: nothing cloud connected. If I can’t run it off my local server, I don’t want it. I have much more motivation to secure my home than any company ever will.

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Yup, totally agree. One thing I have found is that many of these devices use the venerable and cheap ESP8266 chip which is extraordinarily easy to hack. It can't really be factory flashed so the programming pins are almost always padded out on the PCB. So I get WeMo or cheap knock offs for example, and reflash 'em with my own code so it basically is only on my wifi network.

Yup, that’s what’s in my Sonoff switch. I love the ESP8266, it’s the reason I got a serial programming cable in the first place, long before I was interested in home automation.

I pretty much based my home automation on Sonoff devices. I use Espurna and it's fantastic, and I wrote a small server for updates. I compile my custom firmware (so I don't have to set up new devices all the time, I just flash and they're ready), drop it on a directory on my NAS and all the devices in the house automatically update themselves.

After my internet was cut for five days and my smart house became super dumb, I adopted that rule too.

I'd love to know what products you are using.

Hubitat Elevation: https://hubitat.com/

It runs entirely locally.

I don't have a lot hooked up yet, mostly just the software infrastructure. I'm building it all around Home Assistant. That integrates nicely with my Unifi network controller, which gives me presence detection (phones connecting / disconnecting). I have one Sonoff wifi switch which I reflashed to work with MQTT, mostly as a proof of concept, but now that I know it works I'll probably get a pile more. And I have a Honeywell T6 Pro thermostat (z-wave) on the way.

I have lots of Tradfri Ikea products. They are officially designed to work offline.

Otherwise zigbee and z-wave products mostly work completely offline.

Some Xiaomi products (you need to be careful, as not all work offline) work offline and can be connected to local servers.

For shutters I use products by Rademacher. Its yet another base station (by now I have 4...), but they can be connected over http locally.

I can think of obvious reasons you'd want at least some devices cloud connected - for one, if some sort of disaster (fire, tornado, etc) hits your home, you probably want your surveillance getting off-site in realtime.

Fair point. I suppose I should have said "nothing someone-else's-cloud connected". I'm actually considering setting up remote access on my system, but if I do it will be through a server I control.

That's awesome! Are you using any video surveillance? What about alarm system?

Been looking for that for a while but no way I ever trust a cloud connected one anf everything passable connects to cloud.

Ubiquiti Networks have a product which allows you to set up your own controller and storage. Cloud features are optional.

https://www.ui.com/unifi-video/unifi-video-camera-g3/

You know, I already have a bunch of Ubiquiti network gear but it hadn't even occurred to me to look at their security cameras. Not in the budget yet but once it is that's probably what I'll go with!

Exactly. I have hard time finding automated vacuum cleaner that doesnt connect to cloud, do you have some suggestion for vacuum cleaner that doesnt suffer on features?

Afaik, the Roomba can be used totally offline with Home Assistant and the like.

Not sure if all versions can be made to do this or just some.

There are lot of robotic vacuum cleaners that do not need to be connected to the Wi-Fi. Eufy 11S by Anker is one example

Have you found a smart lock that meets your test?

Curious about this too. I want a smart lock, but don't want it on someone else's cloud.

Schlage Connect. I have the same rule in my house. Everything is Z-Wave.

I suppose a z-wave lock could pass muster, but that’s one area that I don’t really want to automate anyway. An unconnected electronic lock meets my needs and is no more vulnerable to hacking than a physical lock.

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