If there's a way to get a Nest thermostat to my own server instead of Google's, I'd love to hear it. I've had a good experience so far, but it would be nice to have a backup ready in case Google ever pulls the plug on the service.
cloud based thermostat is a wide term. You need to be a little more specific.
Like Zigbee, Z-wave or Wifi? All of those can be cloud. I don't have any thermostats yet, but I am considering getting some Zigbee ones, because those can connect locally to my Home Assistant instance.
Yes, I chose a wide term on purpose. I’m curious to see what all people use.
I’m currently using an ecobee, but want to a selfhosted server rather than third party for HVAC.
You can connect the ecobee to home assistant using HomeKit which runs local. I’ve got a nest and google once got rid of the api over a year before having a replacement ready so anything local is no go with them.
Many thermostats that have Apple HomeKit integration can be entirely locally controlled through Home Assistant. Ecobee's thermostats fall into this category. I use a Sensi ST55 that I got from my utility company for $1 that works the same way.
I just started to build something here! My setup so far: Raspberry Pi 4 running Home Assistant OS.
On the GPIO-Pins I have a Module sitting that goes with the name RPI-RF-MOD. Now the Home Assistant-Pi works as a CCU3 base station for all my homematic IP gadgets.
On Home assistant I use the add on Raspberrymatic to connect to different Gadgets (Power Plugs, Thermostats, Window-Sensors) which then again are introduced to home assistant with the help of HACS Homematic(IP) Local.
Now it's working! I plan to automate my thermostats with the HACS Better Thermostat.
It was a lot of reading for a beginner like me. But with small steps and a lot of time everything is actually quite comfortable to reach. And most important: the devices can't phone home, nothing is able to connect to the internet directly.
I use a Honeywell Z-Wave thermostat with Home Assistant. All local and I not only do I have schedules based on time of day, but it also adjusts the temperature based on if people are home or not.
For baseboard heaters, I have the Sinopé line of ZigBee thermostats, with home-assistant on my home server. Baseboards are kind of particular in that you have one thermostat per room, so at 350+ for a Nest, it'd be cost-prohibitive as I have like 15 thermostats in the house. Also, they're line voltage, meaning that they directly switch the full power of the heaters, so they need to be well made.
I've had my Sinopé thermostats for 2+ years now, and I'm very happy with them. No clouds involved here.
I have the ecobee 3 lite and I try to keep it off the cloud and connect through home kit to home assistant. It is exceptionally unreliable and disconnects all the time. It's the only home kit device I have, everything else is zigbee. I don't know if it's an ecobee issue or a home assistant issue or maybe a router issue. The only thing that's helped some is occasionally letting it have access to the cloud and then it will reconnect to home kit and then I can disconnect it from the cloud and it will be good for any more from a few days to a month. I cannot recommend it because it has been so unreliable, and looking through online forums I've seen a lot of other people have similar issues with HomeKit and the ecobee. Eventually I want to switch to a purely zigbee device, as this is the only thing I have that even has Wi-Fi on my automation network.
I then control temperatures through a combination of home assistant, node red, and sensors through zigbee2mqtt.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| IP | Internet Protocol |
| RPi | Raspberry Pi brand of SBC |
| SBC | Single-Board Computer |
| Zigbee | Wireless mesh network for low-power devices |
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