Integrating different smart “solutions” into apple home

I have had quite a bit of Phillips hue stuff for a few years which needs a hue bridge, I have half a dozen ikea smart blinds which need an ikea hub, and I have some eve radiator valves which use my apple tv as a smart hub. They can all be controlled with apple home, but still need their separate hubs

I now have a couple of govee lights, and they are separate again from the rest, philips hue is now quite overpriced compared to the competition so if I buy any more lights I would prefer to go with govee.

I want to try and integrate everything together preferably under apple homekit, and lose the hub clutter, anyone any ideas what I can use to achieve this?

Home Assistant, Raspberry Pi, Zigbee USB dongle?

(I don’t know, I’ve been meaning to go down this route for some time but get told off for “faffing about” when I try to make changes.)

HA for me. We have “smart” lights and plugs that use the Smart Home App natively and TAPO (TP-LINK) Cameras and doorbell that use the TAPO App. All with their own automations etc.  Also Shelly light controllers for our LED strips.

HA has really come on this year. Lots more native integrations (so don’t need to use HACS add ons). Way better interface and new dashboard / sections make it far simpler to create what you want without spending ages down a YT rabbit hole.  Just integrated our Smart Meter (which did need a HACS integration but it’s pretty solid). Key thing other than not having loads of separate apps is the automation- so we’ll turn off the cameras when one of us is at home, we’ll charge the car when the KWH price drops below a certain threshold (Octopus wont talk  natively to our charger), lots of stuff with lights/scenes that while not life changing are helpful.

Also if you like to shout at things to make them work, the voice stuff in latest versions is good. I think all the stuff you list is natively available in HA.

I did look at homekit but it is pretty rubbish outside of the apple ecosystem (or it was when I looked at it)

All this making things easier sounds exhausting.

You’ve bought lots of things that rely on their own communication protocols. They each have a hub that talks to the devices and to wifi. Apple HomeKit will talk to the hubs.  I don’t think your’e going to get rid of any of your hubs without changing some of your devices.

There is a ‘new’ standard called MATTTER  (to add to all the previous ones like Zigbee) – all devices that are Matter compatible will work from a single hub (or each others brands of hub).  The Apple TV is a Matter Hub and EVE stuff works with Matter.  Apple, google, Samsung and others have all signed up to Matter.  (I’ve got some EVE blinds).  But there are still remarkably few Matter devices some years after this was announced and it sounds like it’s still pretty flaky.

The “promise” was that you’d control all your matter devices through a single app and not need an app for each manufactures stuff but that doesn’t seem to be the case – all the automation (timers/automatic shading based on sun direction/intermediate stop positions) for my blinds is in the EVE app – all you can do with Apple Home is open/close.

(I built my house with a Loxone HA system thats largely hardwired with some of their own proprietary wireless stuff added to it.  There are some wireless blinds that will talk to Loxone but they needed their own hubs.  I went with Eve because I already had an Apple TV and Loxone have signed up to Matter. But haven’t done anything yet and it sounds like it might be only that Apple Home can do some basic control of Loxone rather than Loxone can control matter devices)

Matter and Zigbee are your go to on the  automation front. Zigbee because it will work with the later Hue Hubs and Matter because it works with HomeKit hubs (AppleTV or HomeHub speakers).

@Cougar2 Mrs Sandwich is tech averse too and “hates” the voice control lights. It’s the speaking to the house that gets her itchy.

@Cougar2 Mrs Sandwich is tech averse too and “hates” the voice control lights. It’s the speaking to the house that gets her itchy.

You can get smart wall switches which work like regular switches but don’t physically cut the power.

(and many others)

Home assistant is probably the most mature and comprehensive solution if you want to integrate different home devices. I have been using it to control the heating for four years, and it is very reliable and well supported.

I think all the devices you list are integrated with HA so it would potentially allow you to get rid of your multiple hubs and integrate everything under one controller (you need to check the specific models to confirm they are supported) . The other advantage of HA is that you can get devices from different manufacturers working together. It is extremely flexible, so you can set it up as a very simple controller for individual devices, or at the other end of the scale, build a complex automated home with devices working together.

There are now some (almost) prebuilt systems for the hardware, so you don’t have to start from scratch with a raspberry pi or other computer (see https://www.home-assistant.io/ for more info).

However, HA is not an out of the box consumer grade product, so you have to be prepared to tinker a little bit. If you are happy doing that, there is lots of good online documentation to help you get things running. You won’t get the same experience as using a specific manufacturer’s app, so if you would like something that can hook everything together with a few clicks, that you can subsequently forget about, it will not be the best solution.

I want to try and integrate everything together preferably under apple homekit

You can run something called “Homebridge” on a Pi or PC you have always on, this will allow you to use non-Homekit stuff in the Apple Home app. It’s built into Home Assistant, but running it on it’s own is an option if you don’t want to go down the HA rabbit hole (though as mentioned it’s a lot easier/friendlier these days, they’ve made massive improvements in that department over the last couple of years).

I don’t think your’e going to get rid of any of your hubs without changing some of your devices.

You can get rid of some. Hue & IKEA actually use the same protocol – Zigbee – they just won’t talk to each other. So you could run Home Assistant and replace both hubs (and possibly others) with a single USB dongle (as Cougar mentions). Potentially a lot of effort to go to just for a slightly tidier shelf though if you don’t want/need any of HA’s other features!!

The “promise” was that you’d control all your matter devices through a single app and not need an app for each manufactures stuff but that doesn’t seem to be the case – all the automation (timers/automatic shading based on sun direction/intermediate stop positions) for my blinds is in the EVE app – all you can do with Apple Home is open/close.

I actually really like the Apple Home app (and use it in conjunction with Home Assistant) as the UI is decent & it requires almost no setup. It’s lacking in a few areas (doesn’t provide granular control, as you mention) and I don’t think it has support for robot vacuums at all yet, which is odd as they are extremely common now!

Not too fussed about Matter personally as HA fulfils that promise. Some of the big players don’t even seem that interested so I suspect it’ll turn out to be yet another standard rather than the standard.

There are now some (almost) prebuilt systems for the hardware, so you don’t have to start from scratch with a raspberry pi or other computer

I wouldn’t recommend any of those that HA sell, they were hugely delayed and IMO old hat/poor value by the time they were actually available. I actually wouldn’t recommend using a Pi at all for this, that’s really not where their strengths lie. I bought fairly inexpensive & (relative to a Pi!) powerful NUC-style PC (Lenovo Thinkcentre) off eBay which is much more suitable IMO (also runs my Plex server & Frigate NVR with object/face recognition amongst other tasks!)

All this making things easier sounds exhausting.

it’s not for everyone!! Best to think of it as a hobby with minor life-enhancing benefits 🙂

I will give home assistant a try, and if it does what I want then look at a permanent on system, I was thinking about some sort of microserver anyway that could also be a NAS and maybe run a VPN on as well. Are the HP microservers still the ones top go for?

All this making things easier sounds exhausting.

The upside of it is worthwhile IMO. For example I have trouble sleeping, so in the evening my blinds come down at 8pm (in the summer or dusk in the winter) and I have a simulated sunset at 9 to 9:30, after that I just have a fairly low brightness orange light and that prepares me for sleep, and in the morning I wake up to a simulated sunrise, and that wakes me up much more pleasantly and reliably than an alarm clock.

I was thinking about some sort of microserver anyway that could also be a NAS and maybe run a VPN on as well.

it’s quite popular to run Proxmox as the OS and then virtualise HA/NAS software etc and/or run a bunch of Docker containers. I did this for 6 months or so then decided that being a sysadmin wasn’t the “fun” part of the hobby for me so went back to bare metal HA which is way easier to maintain (effortless, really). Plus, pretty much everything else I wanted to run, was available as an HA add-on anyway which makes it really easy (Plex server, torrents, etc). You can even run containers within it if you want. I only have a separate Pi to act as a NAS now (although will replace that with the new Unifi hardware one at some point now that’s available!)

Are the HP microservers still the ones top go for?

if you want to spend loads of money unnecessarily, yeah 🙂

The upside of it is worthwhile IMO.

I wouldn’t bother trying to explain/justify it to the luddites on here lol

I’m quite new to home assistant so no expert but I went with one of these recently. Currently managing a mixture of Shelly relays behind various light switches, ikea lights, smart sockets and switches (zigbee) and various TV’s, Sonos speakers and Hive heating. Basic setup was a bit of a steep learning curve but now it’s up and running, adding devices has been really very straight forward.
all my smart devices seem to show up in Apple home but I do t really use it – my preference is to use ikea sensors and switches to make things happen – I’m quite sure of if I wanted to speak to Siri to switch the lights off it would work fine tho.

https://shop.linknlink.com/products/linknlink-isg-display-max https://shop.linknlink.com/products/linknlink-isg-display-max

I went with one of these recently

that did pop up on one of the FB groups a while back, interesting device although I did dismiss it as it looked a bit inflexible long term (especially if you already have an established HA setup)! Glad it’s working for you though, does look pretty cool! Shame it’s not POE.

Yeah PoE would be helpful, however the main gripe is no battery. I bought it as a single device test run to see if home assistant was going to be fun or frustrating and that if I ended up really into it and hit its limits, I could punt it on and build something bespoke. So far tho, it does everything I want so  really quite happy with it.

All this making things easier sounds exhausting.

Some of it probably has its benefits and would be handy.

I stayed with my mate a couple of years ago and he had a smart front door lock, he gave me a PIN number so I could let myself in. The pin expired automatically the day after I left which I thought was quite cool.

He also has Alexa controlling his heating, lights and other stuff – saying Goodnight or something switched all the lights off apart from his bedroom and turned heating down, TV off etc. It is a bit of a hobby for him and I think took a fair while to get it all set up.

My garage door has an opener that connects to Apple Home and I’d like a smart thermostat but my boiler can’t use one, it would stop us leaving the heating on when we go out and save getting up in the middle of the night when we wake up cooking ourselves.

I stayed with my mate a couple of years ago and he had a smart front door lock

Door locks are one of the simplest & best “quality of life” bang-for-your-buck smart devices IMO. No, it’s not going to save you any money (unlike smart heating, maybe), but being able to return home with armfuls of shopping and just being able to boot the door to open it is awesome 🙂 Especially if it’s pissing down! Plus like you say, the ability to generate one-time entry passcodes for a friend or in an emergency is genuinely useful.

I also have facial & object recognition on all my cameras via Home Assistant & Frigate, so if the doorbell camera picks me up returning home and I have a bike with me, it’ll automatically unlock the side gate (which has a solenoid lock) so I can wheel it straight through, which is very handy 🙂

I’d like a smart thermostat but my boiler can’t use one

you must have an odd or non-standard boiler then, as the thermostat is really just a simple switch on a normal boiler?

you must have an odd or non-standard boiler then,

I do! There’s a list of 2 different boiler ranges that don’t work and I have one of them! It’s 20+ years old so I’m sure it’ll pack in at some point & will be replaced with something that will be able to use one.

In most cases, our Hive thermostats will work just fine with your boiler. However, there are a few small exceptions.

Worcester Bosch *C* Greenstar R 35HE Plus (GC number: 4731180)

Door locks are one of the simplest & best “quality of life” bang-for-your-buck smart devices IMO.

I’ll probably get around to it at some point, but it’s a long way down the to-do list!