Awesome Tips Choosing the BEST Hardware to Run My Smart Home
I’ve FINALLY found the best hardware to run my smart home. Here’s exactly how I have everything set up!
I’ve FINALLY found the best hardware to run my smart home. Here’s exactly how I have everything set up!
*Links in chronological order*
Beelink Mini S13:
USB Extension Cable:
Zooz 800 series Z-Wave stick:
Home Assistant Connect ZWA-2:
Aeotec Z-Stick 10 Pro:
Server rack keyboard:
Server rack keyboard tray:
Patch Panel:
Patch Cables:
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Second channel video about Mini PC:
My smart home favorites:
My smart home shirts!
USA:
International:
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0:00 Intro
0:17 What I’ve used
1:17 Mini PC
4:18 Z-Wave LR
7:02 Upgrading Z-Wave/Zigbee
8:29 Best wireless signal
12:06 Server rack updates
14:18 I’m getting old
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MUSIC
Ending song is The End by EVA.
Deals for Days. Big home savings are happening now.
It's been a while! I took a little time off to hang with the kids while school was out but I have lots of great content coming up for you guys!
I've done a video that gives the options for Home Assistant in car mode – https://youtu.be/giCcofibYtU
The tablet use looks fast and good , what brand? Do u recommend better one ?
I went for a $70 second hand dell USFF 3080. super over powered for all the integration.
now to just set up home assistant ha.
not over fussed unto the new home battery goes in late September.
I used my old PC, reinstall in into a ITX case, and run HA Proxmox with Ryzen 5800X and RTX2080.
The best hardware to run my smart home is a wired KNX installation.
I've switched to using the SMLight SLZB-06m for my Zigbee and Matter connections. It works great with Home Assistant. HA talks to it over the network, rather than by a local USB connection. If I move HA to a new server, I don't have to do anything with the SMLight. Also, since it's a remote device, I have more flexibility about where it is physically in my house, so getting good coverage is easier.
Be careful of the Beelink. I bought nearly a dozen for my business. I have mostly been happy with them but they are susceptible to premature failure in my experience. Make sure you automate a backup to your NAS.
Try out proxmox. Its pretty cool.
I haven't tested one but I have seen those POE Zigbee coordinators. Why didn't you go with one of those?
5:31 It is on Long range mode.
But the short range one has beaming and that can compensate a lot
It would be interesting to see a comparison between that ZWA-2 with the SMLight SLZB-MWR10 Z Wave LR performance.
I prefer running HP business grade laptops. Built in screen, monitor and UPS, assuming it has a good battery.
I don't understand why all of this isn't just bundled in something. I'm more than willing to just pay for it. Why does a smart home hub have to always cheap out?
I noticed you have a Synology NAS. Have you thought about or even knew you can run home assistant om it via Virtual Machine. I've been using it for over a year, and it's awesome, especially if you want to troubleshoot remotely. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
I have a basic HA setup. I need home monitoring! Any recommends?
The best zigbee coordinator, SMLIGHT SLZB. POE powered, and you can put it where it makes sense, not stuck to your HA system.
Proxmox spotted 👀
13:35 my philosophy on tech is "new lease on life", in other words, once a device can no longer be used for its intended purpose, if it still functions, give it a new purpose. Using that onld camera monitor as a KVM monitor for your network rack is exactly what i wouldve done in your shoes.
They should have done a zigbee thing
I want to add a self-hosted language model that can handle abstract smart home commands without a lot of lag. I'd love to hear your suggestions.
Being pretty new to all of this it seems like a lot of work to have Zigbee and Z-Wave devices so why not just change over to Matter devices?
z-wave > zigbee
The homelab rabbit hole is a deep one. I’m so far down that hole I can’t see light anymore.
This is precisely why Home Assistant is a home automation system created by IT professionals for IT professionals. Unless you’re familiar with networking automation and are willing to perform the weekly care & feeding of the system, it might be better to go with Smarthings or one of its many competitors.
I often wonder about this situation amongst all IoT enthusiasts: In the event that the primary tinkerer died or disabled, what will happen to all the complicated setup? Can the surviving spouse continue to maintain all that gadgets? Write detailed instructions in your will? I don't think the spouse can keep up still, even with instructions. So what to do?
8:48 A note regarding channel optimization: Zigbee channels and WiFi channels aren't the same, meaning that you can't simply go off of channel numbers to know how much separation you have. For example, Zigbee channel 15 is located right between WiFi channels 1 and 6, Zigbee channel 20 is between 6 and 11, and Zigbee channel 25 is at the far end of 11. Those three channels are considered the best for Zigbee since you minimize WiFi crosstalk.
In your case, you don't really have to make any changes, since you're already on a good channel.
I think that is the sound you make when you know its going to be 110 outside…..Going to be in Phoenix in two weeks…..I think I will be making the same sounds around 10 am…….
This is perfect timing! I am just setting up my home assistant as a first time user and was researching on what hardware to get, thank you! As a newbie, I am curious about your thoughts on which protocols are best for what use cases and the future of each (is z-wave being less supported etc)
Why did you choose to buy a mini pc instead of using your existing NAS w/docker?
Hi, I am looking to get into home assistant. My question is I am using CYNC by GE lights and switches in my house. Is there away to get my lights to Apple HomeKit with home assistant?
Cool, thanks for sharing.
I guess the next topic will be how you got your local Ollama LLM connected into your home network to add in some AI smart management.
Do you think that Homey pro might be a great option for a new built home?
Why not use a Pi 5 instead of the Pi 4?
Run home assistant on a humble proxmox server, I've got like three Windows gaming PCs with their own gpus, running the a thunderbolt through different places in my house, I have home assistant, jellyfin, plex, pihole, cosmos os, a TON of virtual servers and services running on a 24 core. With like 96 gigabytes of usable RAM and it's perfect and never fails and reliable. 2U rack.