I probably would have never started.

Everyone insisted that it was “easy”. I’ve come to realize this community is heavily developer-based and completely unaware of what they average person would consider easy.

My system breaks all the time and I have to spend hours trying to just get it back up and running again.

I was never able to get the app to work.

If I could have all my money and time back I would have just stuck with “dumb” electronics.

Smaller steps. One at a time. Test.

I started off with HA, integrating all my devices i had at once, totally enthusiastic as I was. There were times where I installed several automations and integrations within just a few minutes, not giving them time to work for them selves, especially not in a „productive“ environment with wife, kids, neighbours, etc. all involved in the system.

Lots of automations broke or did not work as expected and I saw my self confronted fixing so many building sites at once.

I am through the roughest part. But should I start from scratch any time I will most surely start I’d small, test, iterate and move on.

I got into “home automation” during the initial rush. Everything was dependent on its own hub or cloud service. After using some of them, especially the voice controlled ones, I got interested in what all they can see/collect. I quickly dropped everything and have been in a dumb house for a few years.

What I’ve realized I need is cameras to watch my pets and a dumb keypad door lock to let people in when I’m not home.

What I want again is a thermostat I can control from my phone. I haven’t found one that doesn’t need cloud services.

If I wanted to get everything “smart” again I would isolate everything to its own VLAN with no internet access for the whole VLAN. I would have an electrician fix my no neutral drop situation and get wifi switches not bulbs. I would add temperature sensors in each room. Custom build a camera system server. Add network access to my Honeywell security system.