Lets begin with working out what the best underlying engine to build our cloud free automation on. This decision (at time of writing) won’t be too difficult as there are not that many cloud free options.
The main contenders are:
- openHAB – free & open source
- Home Assistant – free & open source
- Homeseer – from $99
All the above options allow you to integrate with cloud services, if you wish, depending on how cloud free you would like to be.
They all have tons of integrations and huge communities with loads of resources and example setups.
Decided upon Home Assistant as the underlying system for home automation. However, will look into openHAB in the near future.
Opted against Homeseer due to the upfront cost of the software and against openHAB mainly due to its interface.
One big draw to Home Assistant was the flexibility of the front end user interface to operate the home automation.
Next: Step 2: Setup