The Controller

The controller is the most important part of home automation system. It’s the brain that will control everything. If you don’t want to read about my progression through controllers, go install Home Assistant and you’ll be happy.

Key factors in choosing your controller

These are the factors I considered when choosing a controller

  • Does it work offline? If my internet goes out, will everything keep working?
  • If there isn’t a plugin to control a piece of hardware yet, can I build one?
  • Ease of setup
  • Does it support my current hardware?
  • Can I export metrics about my system
  • Will still work if the company goes out of business or they stop supporting the hardware Most of the retail names (Google, Amazon, Samsung, etc) in home automation control don’t allow you to do all of that. You need to go looking at where the enthusiasts are at.

My progression through controllers

  1. Started with programming AMX systems as a job
  2. In 2013, created my own controller in Java that used speech to text to control things
  3. In 2015, switched to OpenHAB v1
  4. In 2018, tried out Home Assistant, didn’t like it, went back to openhab
  5. In 2022, tried Home Assistant again. It has leap frogged OpenHAB.

I stayed with OpenHAB for a long time, but recently I got some blinds that it couldn’t support and I didn’t feel like spending the time to create a plugin when Home Assistant already had one. I finally gave in to the Reddit infatuation of HASS and tried it for the second time. I won’t go back now. It does everything OpenHAB does, and mostly better. The only caveat to that I’ve found so far is advanced scripting isn’t quite as straight forward.

My opinion on controllers

Would Recommend

  • Home Assistant (HASS) - The leader for DIY enthusiasts
  • OpenHAB - very strong controller, but I don’t see any reason to pick it over HASS anymore.
  • Hubitat - I’ve heard it’s powerful, and if you don’t want to bother with setting up your own server and installing HASS it’s probably the next best option. I haven’t tried it though. No internet connection required which I like.
  • HomeSeer - Another possibility if HASS feels like too much. I haven’t used it personally.
  • Universal Devices ISY994 - It used to be considered one of the top controllers. Still a good contender if HASS feels like too much. I haven’t used it personally.

Would Not Recommend

  • Google, Amazon, Samsung, etc. - These controllers are limited in functionality, not customizable by you, and require you to be have a very stable internet connection for automation to run properly. You’ll also be getting frustrated if you want instant response to events since you’ll be dealing with latency for their servers to process your events and your connection’s latency.
  • AMX, Crestron, Control4, etc. - Way too expensive and hard to program for DIY enthusiasts. Potentially worth it if you’re having a pro install things and have money to burn
  • CQC - A good but dead project at this point.

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