I’m planning to build several WiFi connected devices for home automation: an AC remote control and air quality sensors. These devices would send data and be controlled through a local server. I’m considering two approaches: running custom software on a server PC (hardware to be determined) or integrating with Home Assistant’s protocols and purchasing their hardware. Would using Home Assistant be excessive for this use case?
Both! Connecting Iot devices to your LAN is a security risk, since they sometimes carry malware. Many DDOS these days are performed by smart bulbs or the like. May even sniff in your network. Of course you can firewall them, but why bother with wifi at all then? Zigbee is pretty reliable and works even if your router goes down (you probably can’t access Home Assistant Web interface anymore, but zigbee light switches etc will still trigger zigbee bulbs, zigbee thermeters will still report their sensor values etc).
I’m a Zigbee user so I use that in the examples but I’m sure the other options are fine as well.
Thank you for the info! I’m guessing that I could use a mini PC with a zigbee adapter to create my own dashboards or bridge to home assistant, unless zigbee hubs offer similar capabilities
Home Assistant has a great integration, ZHA, which “drives” the Zigbee device. So having the Zigbee dongle on the machine HA runs on is very common. In my case it’s a raspberry with a RaspBee dongle but every MINI PC will do. Recommended devices: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#recommended-zigbee-radio-adapters-and-modules
The other common setup is using Zigbee2MQTT which allows different devices that communicate over LAN. it’s been the go to recommendation as it has some compatibility improvements for devices that don’t properly follow the Zigbee standard. ZHA is keeping up though and is natively supported by home assistant. I’m using ZHA and check for compatibility before buying devices.
You can theoretically switch later, but you’ll have to reconnect all devices which can be a hassle.