I have also since this post purchased MMwave sensors. But they’re worse for picking up the cats.

You can fine tune some and the Aqara FP2 seems to do a good job ignoring pets.

I ended up making binary sensors for each room in Node Red. Did I leave the room? Who else is there, nobody? Ok mark it clear…

Why not use mmWave presence sensors?

If it still takes humans doing all this extra work to get the job done, wouldn’t it make more financial and ecological sense to just…

…

…pay artists a living wage to do the same fucking job instead?

Someone should tell them this was an option all along before they waste any more time and resources on this.

That’s why the fediverse and its principles are important. Because that’s how we take back internet from their dirty hands. That’s how we make internet resilient against them. That’s how we build the commons.

👆

Yes, Matter/Thread may change things but, as it stands, Zigbee is the format that seems to be absolutely solid and available in the lower-priced end of the mark (so you can get handfuls of sensors for not much).

If a friend asked for my advice to get a smart home up and running, I’d say grab a ZBDongle-E (discussion here) and whatever Zigbee devices you like. With the latest versions of HA being so much more user-friendly than when I started out, it is about as easy as it gets without buying some fancy bespoke system. I got all my Zigbee devices up and running in about the same time it took to get a single Bluetooth device onboard, so just stick with Zigbee and you can’t go far wrong, at least in my experience.

This is my advice after moving house and setting everything up from scratch again.

Attach the dongle and then go through the smart device’s pairing procedure and it should just pop up on HA.

Xiaomi/Aqara, Tuya, IKEA, etc are all or largely Zigbee (although check as I have some Bluetooth Xiaomi kit and they’ve been a pain in my backside) are all inexpensive but are solid and you don’t need a hub.

HomeKit also seems to work well but I only have 1 HK compatible device and I didn’t realise it was when I bought it. However, you may pay more of a premium for them (although I didn’t).

The problem you’ll encounter is that most consumer electronics are made in China because it keeps the price competitive. So you really just need a reliable brand. The main reason to avoid quite a few Chinese products would be the plug sockets.

So.while I haven’t used it and can’t guarantee it’s not made in China (also assuming you are in the UK), then TP-Link’s Kasa smart power strip looks like a good option as all that range work with HA. I’ve used other TP-Link products and been happy with them so it would definitely be an option I’d look at

He misunderstood when someone told him that the secret of Kirk’s success was getting his leg over a lot.

I thought it was all a bit confusing - it was introduced with no explanation, which felt like it was setting up some big reveal that never came.

I like the, as you say, Giger-esque design but felt it was such a departure that they may as well have introduced a new species.