New home build and longer term compatibilities

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Hello Home Assistant community! My name is Myles and I’m a long time Linux DevOp (since the early 1990s) but only now am embarking on a Home Assistant adventure. I’m building a very large home in central Mexico, and while the foundations are being poured, I’m trying to finalize some design elements for smart home automation.

This has included the following items:

  • Lumencache LED lighting system throughout
  • Two external automated gates to access the property (it is a 1 acre property that used to be a Bull fighting ring - yeh, for real, but we have demolished everything and returned it to virgin land, but kept the 30 ft high walls around the property. It is more like a “compound” but has two external gates for access
  • 15 CCTV cameras throughout for exterior monitoring
  • Temps are typically not requiring AC or heating, but we’re building that in with smart thermostats
  • Everything is solar powered, and I only want to keep the network to be internal - I do have 1gb/s fiber to the property, but not interested in using products that require some external cloud connection to operate
  • I’m a software engineer by trade, but also savvy with soldering and electronic design/building

I’ve been playing with home automation for about a decade, but it seems that standards are less (even worse) than they were back in the days of Insteon or Z-Wave. That said, I’d like to move towards tech that is more future proofed.

At this point, we anticipate the biggest challenge is video/audio intercom with the gates. I’d like to use Ubiquiti video door bells at the gates, and using RF with a gate opener, to integrate to an Android device the answering of anyone at the gate, view who they are and talk to them, and then either approve or deny entry by the person in the house opening the gate. Much like an audio intercom/door opener you’d get in some New York City apartment.

I don’t anticipate being unable to do this with a combination of 4" wall mounted Android devices that support Home Assistant or that I can code up a kiosk app in them for it. But given the nature of all of this, am I way to “bleeding edge” with my goals here, or does this all sound like a reasonable use case for Home Assistant?

Appreciate in advance any thoughts, suggestions, etc.

Myles

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Welcome Myles!

I will probably be one of many with ideas and suggestions. I too am/was a long time developer (1985) so I smiled when I read your following statement:

Having gone through Insteon and earlier stuff myself, I can confidently say that it is very rare to find “consumer” grade devices that I consider “future proof.”

Having worked in industrial automation, I know what is used there will last decades. Think wired, no batteries, industrial relays, etc. And, believe it or not, Wi-Fi has withstood the test of time (if absolutely necessary).

I don’t think you are “bleeding edge” with your goals. Search through these forums because others have also asked this type of question and received good advice. For example:

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Thanks Mark, very encouraging. For the past 10 years, I regularly turn up at CES in Las Vegas and visit their home automation displays. They were initially pretty slim pickings, but over the years entire areas of the show floor in some of the halls opened up for HA products. Everytime I wander in and the sales person approaches, the first thing I say is, “Thanks for your interest in my needs, but before you (and I) waste time here, if you have a product that requires me to connect to your cloud service, I’m not interested.”. That has dismissed about 85% of all the vendors.

I want to be 100% self-contained with the property. I am installing a lab experiment with HA for our home in Arizona, and although I won’t be doing the adventurous stuff that we will be doing in Mexico, I believe there are either native or add-on solutions that will let me do what I need.

I thank you for your encouraging words, and that I’m not bleeding edge with this. That means a lot.

Myles