Smart Home stuff is complex. This is some things I learned the hard way.

Grouping devices and group names

There are two types of smart devices, like Alexa, Siri, Google Home that talk to humans. And there are things/apps/services that controls devices, like Hue, Netatmo and Roborock. Almost all of them can manage groups of devices. You want to the human facing devices to own groups with simple easy names.

Philips Hue can for example defin a group “living room” for the lights in the living room. But this is not a good idea if you connect Hue to Alexa and have other things in your living room. Alexa can not create or manage the “living room” group it it is created in Hue. My policy is that the human facing devices (Alexa, Google Home, Home Assistant) can use generic terms like “living room”. If Hue need a group for the lights in the living room, then that group can be called “Hue - Living Room”. The Alexa group “living room” can include the group “hue - living room” and potentially other things.

Communication between devices is difficult - Just a fact of life

Many new devices require internet services to work. Some devices don’t integrate, like my tube leds and Home Assistant. They both talk to SmartThings so I use that as a middleman. But this is a complex solution.

Accept that running a Smart Home will not always work, and it will require time.

Hubs are not equal

In most cases you need a Hub to manage your stuff. A Hub works best (more features/easier setup) within it’s own ecosystem. The new standards thread/matter aims to improve this, but the world is not there yet. An example of this is that Home Assistant can only turn on or off my bathroom light, but the dedicated app can adjust the dimming as well.

Home Assistant

I am running Home Assistant as it is open source and hackable. I don’t know how well other newer Hub’s work. I also have Alexa and Google Home and Siri for voice commands.

In Short:

  • For learning and customization: Go for it (expect to dedicate time).
  • For maximum reliability/simplicity: Try to stay within one ecosystem.
  • Or wait for future improvements