For the longest time, I have enjoyed the fantastic Samsung SmartThings. Still, with concerns over speed, cloud access, reliability and of course longevity of the service, I have opted to move away.
Today, I received a USB to Zigbee adapter which I inserted into one of the USB ports on my Ubuntu home server. I also got Home Assistant installed (I am already using Homebridge). To my amazement, the USB Zigbee adapter was recognised by Home Assistant immediately (I mean Linux is often a pain with drivers so I was worried about having to spend precisely 9.23 days trying to get this working but not this time). I got started and found that the installation of my Zigbee devices away from SmartThings and into my new Home Assistant was incredibly easy - in fact, better than SmartThings.
I say better because SmartThings requires a cloud connection no matter what, even if the connection is local. This meant that things were slower and with SmartThings unifying my whole home, this meant that simple things weren't quick. I also say better because things like my Xenon power strip can now be recognised as four different plugs - not one. This has allowed me to remove one of my WiFi-powered power strips and replace it with the Xenon one (at last).
Since Home Assistant also works locally, I decided to turn off my internet connection for a short period to test it. And voila, it switches on and off without the need for an internet connection absolutely perfectly - and fast.
As well as Alexa devices, Home Assistant also integrates with Apple devices easily by acting as a bridge. Now I plan, at present, to supplement my Home Assistant with Homebridge since it is also fantastic and it actually runs on the same server. Further to all of this, my Alexa devices now integrate entirely with my Home Assistant, allowing for much quicker control.
My whole stack is much cleaner and much better designed with the performance that makes it so much more reliable and less reliant on third parties. I plan to install more Zigbee control devices around the house in the next few months too and I'm looking into installing touch screens across the house with control for each device to make things even easier than they are now.
