New to the "smart home"

Hardware
1

Hey everyone!

Sorry if this doesn’t go well on here :smile:

I recently got my first Philips Hue starter kit and I’m loving it!!

I want to dive deeper into the smart home, so I bought some Xiaomi door sensors, lightbulbs and motion detectors.

I have a Philips Hue hub and an Apple TV 4K. I know that Xiaomi devices aren’t HomeKit supported without the Aqara/Miija hub. Is there a way to connect all my smart home devices to homekit without buying a hub for every piece of smart tech?

Based on what I’ve read, HassIO seems very popular, but I’m not that tech savvy :smiley:

Thanks for all the help, and sorry once again if this post is too noobish.

2

Hey,

Welcome to the community,

I’m not familiar with homekit, but you got me at “…without buying a hub for every piece of smart tech…” that was my main issue when I started making my home smart; now I have everything automated or linked to Home Assistant without using any hub, so it is possible (and surprisingly easy).

Xiaomi sensors are Zigbee, not wifi, so you will need a method to use that communication protocol, for that you can use Zigbee2MQTT: https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt but you will need some hardware to get it running: https://koenkk.github.io/zigbee2mqtt/getting_started/what_do_i_need.html.
It is an easy process, and once you do that you won’t need any other hub for zigbee devices (including Philips HUE platform)

If the light bulbs are Yeelight, those can run on local network and can be integrated with Home Assistant very easy (they get picked up by the discovery component)

If you want to dive even deeper and go for smart switches and smart plugs I recommend reading about Tasmota (an alternative firmware that will make compatible devices run only on local WiFi network with complete control from HomeAssistant)

If you have any old, non smart devices in your home (like an old AC), you can take a look at BroadLink RM PRO+ (or other any other broadlink version) and that will give you controll over IR and RF communication protocol.

With this combination of zigbee2mqtt + CC2531, Tasmota (if necessary), maybe a broadlink (to get rid of remotes for old devices) and Home Assistant, you can use any devices you want, without buying their hubs and have complete control of your devices and also have everything run on your private network.

If you have any questions feel free to ask or PM