Most of us have smart devices in our houses and do use compatible applications like Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa to control or monitor those.

Just imagine Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa taking care of a fresh cup of coffee, your TV switching on the favorite morning music or TV News, switching on the water heater to adjust the temperature in the bathroom at a particular time, and all other things smart gadgets do for you, doing it on their own based on the time you set on your alarm clock. Isn't this fantastic!

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The extra effort here is that you would need to have a compatible application to manage the devices. Different brands of smart devices have their own compatible application.

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All these are easy tasks that if looped together and worked collectively will not require different applications and adjust different devices separately or individually. This can be achieved with a universal Automated Hub solution that anyone would dream of in an automated home.

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Automation Hub:

An automation hub is a smart device that connects other smart devices on a home automation network and manages communication between them. Being a central home automation controller, an automation hub can avert traffic off your home Wi-Fi, reducing network crowding. An automated hub is perhaps what you expected from Google Home or Amazon Echo and didn't really get. Home Assistant is that automation hub that facilitates the dream of Home Automation.

 

Home Assistant:

Home Assistant is an open-source and free application used for home

automation and is a completely localized alternative to SmartThings and Google Alexa applications. With Home assistant, you can control smart devices in your home, offering better security, greater reliability, and more flexibility than most of the cloud-connected devices and that too locally within your house/home.

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With Home Assistant, control your home automation without any Cloud connection. What it means for your home automation system - it is independent of remote servers over the Cloud nor need of any internet connection. The outcome is a fast operation, consistency, and flexibility by supporting a majority of smart devices and doesn’t use your network.

 

Allow your Home Assistant to find all the smart devices on your Wi-Fi network, link with the device it can control, and provides a clear interface to let them work together based on how and when you want the single command to be executed. You can set up schedules and individual smart home devices to work together and let the devices be as smart as they need to be. The thing that makes Home Assistant a great solution is that it seamlessly integrates with multiple brands of smart devices.

 

In brief:

Home Assistant acts as a central smart home controller hub by combining different devices and services in a single place and integrating them as entities. The provided rule-based system for automation allows the creation of custom routines based on a trigger event, conditions, and actions including scripts.

 

What devices work with Home Assistant?

Devices from multiple brands like Amazon Alexa, Ecobee, ESPHome, Google Assistant, Google Cast, HomeKit, IKEA TRÅDFRI, Leviton Z-Wave are compatible with Home Assistant. Refer https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/

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Benefits of Home Assistant:

Home Assistant, a localized home automation hub, has multiple benefits as compared to conventional cloud-connected devices like:

 

• Speed: When any activity is triggered, all the processing occurs in your home as Home Assistant is a local mechanism or no communication is sent over the webserver. Since this Home Assistant will be integrated with the smart devices in your home, the bandwidth will only be available for those devices only so no traffic issue that is usually the cause of latency. Smart devices can be kept in subnets and only connect to gadgets that are directly interacting.

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• Compatibility: As the Home Assistant is a localized Hub, you don’t have to fear the company such as Amazon not allowing your Google devices if you don’t use their cloud service to start with.

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• Security: The Home Assistant uses highly secured hardware and firmware. Moreover, it works locally which makes your devices more secure as they are not exposed outside the internet or cloud network.

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• Control: Using local hubs and controllers, you are free to decide what to do with them. You can have full control over devices and automation and involve as deeply as you want.

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• Reliability: With no dependency on internet/cloud service, the risk of their disruption will not have any effect on your Home Automation setup. A local home automation hub enables you to maintain and control your devices, you don’t have to worry about any external disruptions.

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• Open Source: The Home Assistant software is open source and not a licensed one.