this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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That's what enthusiasts might mean by "smart home" But businesses are thinking more like "put a wiretap in your living room that we can play ads through"
Yeah; you really have to figure out what products are worth your time.
Look up what’s integrated with HomeAssistant locally and that’s a good start.
“IoT via app linked with the manufacturer cloud” is bullshit bullshit bullshit, and there are fewer and fewer choices, especially in America. Try find ing a ZWave door lock, for example.
For me, if I can't control it with Home Assistant, it does not go in my house. I have smart plugs and I'm getting a smart thermometer and they are all badged for the Works with Home Assistant program so that they can be used even if the company goes out of business. I will buy nothing else.
Be careful with that. Home Assistant also has plenty of integrations that just talk to a company's cloud service.
Yup. All my IoT devices are on a network that doesn't have access to the internet. To control remotely, I use a VPN. Even though I don't think it's technically necessary, I take the precaution of blocking connections to the big company's APIs/websites for all my IoT devices, just in case.
I wish this were easier for the layman to do. Some companies like Unifi make it pretty painless, but they are expensive and it's really hard for the non-networking-savvy folks to know exactly which devices you need from them to have a working setup.
Yeah, if it's not Zigbee or Z-Wave, I'm not touching it. Because I won't use anything that has a cloud account attached to it.
And then you have Lock-picking Lawyer bypassing the smart lock in seconds.