I’ve been running a Home Automation system here at the Witte Wand for the past 8 years. I started out using Domoticz software, but three years ago I switched to Home Assistant, which I felt was a much superior open source system. I’ve not regretted that decision, HA continues to develop and improve – it’s a very well-managed project.
One of the reasons I chose HA is that all my data is held locally, it does not depend on cloud services for its operation.
Most of my devices use the ZWave standard, but a few years ago I added some Hue devices, together with a Philips Hue Bridge that was easily integrated into HA.
Then, a few weeks ago I started getting messages in the Hue app on my smartphone that I would need to create an online account with Hue in order to continue using the system. It turns out that Signify (the company behind the Philips Hue products) have started forcing accounts on all users and upload user data to their cloud. For now, Signify says I’m still able to control my Hue devices locally as I’m currently used to, but I don’t know if this may change in the future. The fact remains that their privacy policy allows them to store my data and share it with partners.
Needless to say, this blows a hole in my desire to have all my data locally stored and not be dependent on cloud services.
It turns out that Hue devices use the Zigbee standard, and Home Assistant supports it. So I’ve purchased a Home Assistant Sky Connect to interface with my existing Hue devices and to replace the Philips Hue Bridge.
Migration of the devices was easy – simply a matter of removing them from the Philips Hue Bridge network and adding them to the Home Assistant Zigbee network. HA automates the addition process, so I just sat back and watched as the devices were discovered and added to the network. It was also an easy matter to edit my existing automations replacing the old Hue names with the new Zigbee names of the devices. Everything was done in an hour and all seems to be running smoothly.
The last step was to uninstall the Hue app from my smartphone and delete my Hue account.
Bye, bye Signify and Hue; hello to Home Assistant and Zigbee.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 