there is a home automation magazine already, maybe you should post there too

• this is the kbin one: /m/homeautomation
• there is a bigger lemmy one for home assistant: /m/homeassistant@lemmy.world

I cannot recommend setting up a pi-hole or something similar more before getting started on anything else.

My friend set up a whole bunch of really nice smart features in his apartment, and separately set up a pi-hole as he was beginning to build out his NAS/plex server to be remotely accessible. One of the many things he found out was that his lightbulbs were pinging back and forth 100s of times an hour with a server in China that his pi-hole was able to start filtering/blocking. I don't know if he ever set up any packet sniffing to see what exactly was being communicated with all those pings, but you can never be too safe with this stuff.

youre getting in at a good time. make sure everything you get is matter capable and it should all just work, in theory anyway. https://www.theverge.com/22832127/matter-smart-home-products-thread-wifi-explainer

IMO the way to go is to slowly transition, and avoid systems, hardware and softwares that depends on the cloud as much as possible. If you can, try to stick to one open standard and don't deviate unless you have absolutely no choice.

You should be able to disconnect the Internet and control everything locally on your home wireless network. If you can't, then you don't own it.

Sure, you can make some automation rely on some weather services (OpenWeatherMap), but you could go one step further and deploy your own weather station on your property (ie: attached to the shed, etc). That way even if the Internet goes out, you can still automate based on local data.

I know you've written off home assistant, but I'd strongly recommend reconsidering it. You can get something like Home Assistant yellow, which will serve as a hub for just about everything you could ever make smart. Home assistant is good for just giving you a dashboard of all your smart home stuff, you don't have to lean into the heavy automations or anything like that.

When we first bought our house, my wife and I decked out the whole thing in "smart" features: home assistant, switches, routines, etc. Over time, we found ourselves using those features less and less often. The Google Home was listening and responding to my wife only about half the time, so most of the features were completely useless to her. Then it started triggering when it heard vaguely "google-like" words on the TV, much to my wife's chagrin.

We're currently in the process of selling our house, so we have spent the last several months getting packed up. One of the things we packed away a few weeks ago was the Google Homes. I honestly haven't missed them at all; if anything, it has been soothing not to hear them constantly triggered by someone on the TV saying phrases like "well good," followed by us trying to get the assistant to shut up.

The only things I've truly enjoyed in the long run are these: a smart switch on our gas fireplace (with a routine to shut off at bedtime), our array of cameras, and the smart lock on our front door. Those are the three things I will 100% be carrying on to our future home. As for the rest, I'm happy walking into a room and flipping the switch for myself.