Just to add that the low power consumption is not to be underestimated when it comes to battery powered sensors. It's not uncommon to get 1-2 years of life out of a single battery in Zigbee devices, even the ones that report their status regularly like temperature and luminance sensors.
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You've already been swayed, but keeping these devices off the Internet was my main reasoning too. Sometimes WiFi is your only option, of course, but when the choice is there I go Zigbee every time. Other factors to consider include:
- Zigbee was designed specifically for IoT stuff. WiFi was not.
- lower power consumption
- self healing mesh
- much easier/cheaper to extend the range by strategically placing bulbs or smart sockets compared to extending WiFi range
- avoids clogging up WiFi bandwidth with IoT noise
- there's a limit to the number of devices most WiFi routers can handle
I assume Z-wave is similar but Zigbee devices are much easier to find, at least in the UK, and - someone correct me if I'm wrong - but I believe Thread is essentially Zigbee 2.0.
I have something like this setup for my porch lights. Light goes on when it detects motion, then it uses wait_for_trigger to wait until the motion stops before starting a 20 second and turning off the lights.
All simple enough so far but, crucially, the "mode" for the automation is set to restart. That way if the sensor detects motion during the 20 second countdown it cancels the whole run and starts again from the top.
I do something very similar with my connected dishwasher and Home Assistant. It's way over-engineered due various limitations/odd design choices with the API and the machine itself), but I've got it setup to store the selected program when I press a button on a Hue Tap switch, and then it turns on and runs that program when our off-peak energy rate kicks in - which is better than working out how much to set on the delay timer each evening to start it in the right ballpark.
Of course I've also got it setup to announce the selected program, and that the machine is "armed" via Google Home when the button is pressed, and again each time the door is opened/closed to add new dishes. And it sends notifications to my phone when the program starts (mostly for debugging purposes) and ends.
Like I said, massively over-engineered but it was a fun little project.
I don't have a smart washing machine (yet) but I do have it plugged into a smart plug with an energy monitor. When the power usage drops to near zero for more than 2 minutes it sends a notification to tell me that the cycle is done.
Haha I literally setup this exact thing yesterday, and then spent ages making Telegram notifications that delete themselves after a set time, so as not to clog up the feed. Because what's the point of knowing that someone was at the door after they've left?
Those Aqara buttons are so tiny and cute!
Are you my brain? This exactly the sort of thing I think about when I say I'm paranoid about self-hosting! Alas, as much as I'd like to be able to add an extra box just for that level of isolation it'd probably take more of a time commitment than I have available to get it properly setup.
The attraction of docker containers, of course, is that they're largely ready to go with sensible default settings out of the box, and maintenance is taken care of by somebody else.
A VPS makes sense insofar as keeping things thoroughly isolated from my own systems, but the overhead of maintaining a box that's directly connected to the Internet like that isn't something I'm keen on and I'm not convinced I'd have the expertise to do it right from the outset.
OK that's genius, I will definitely look into that!
I'm not saying Telegram is perfect by a long shot, and they've made some questionable decisions around crypto and paid-for services, but it grinds my gears when people suggest that it's "unencrypted".
E2E encryption means that yours and the other person's device are the only ones that have the keys for decryption and are typically the only places where chats are stored.* The conversation is secured end-to-end.
Telegram has the master copies of your chats on their servers to enable certain extra functionality that you can't get with E2E messengers, but it does not mean that the data is stored or transmitted unencrypted. The data at rest is encrypted and it's encrypted when it travels to and from your device.
Sure, there's the argument that governments could compel Telegram to hand over the keys to your chats, but considering that the platform is outright banned in more than one country with questionable regimes, it's reasonable to conclude that they don't give in to such demands. Honestly, if your government wanted copies of your chats so badly it'd be far easier for them to go through you and your device directly, and then no amount of E2E encryption is going to help you.
All that said, Telegram does actually have E2E encryption in the form of Secret Chats which, while having no method of backup, allows you to have two very different conversations with the same person and provides a level of plausible deniability that E2E only platforms cannot.
*Until you or the other party chooses to export a plain-text backup and store it on Google Drive where it's far easier for governments to subpoena. I'm looking at you, WhatsApp.
I really liked Synology Photos except for the fact that the mobile app would log itself out, presumably after a fixed time, and neglect to tell me that my photos were no longer being backed up as a result. It was infuriating and I couldn't find a fix so I had to ditch it.
Presumably you don't have that issue?