Home Assistant is mainly a hobby of mine, which I enjoy spending time on. Quite a bit of home automation has been achieved by now. But for my wife, it’s nothing more than her own dashboard on her smartphone where she can turn things on and off that are important to her. And she’s fine with that.
We are getting on in years and we have discussed “what if I’m no longer here”. For now, I can’t think of much more than that my wife would have to replace all the “smart lights”, and there are quite a few of them by now, with regular lights and that many things would have to be done and checked by hand, eye and ear again. In our case, that is still manageable. But I wonder if hobbyists who go much further than I do ever think about this. And… do the creators of HA have an opinion on this?
Yeah, when we gone so the smart home will. Its probably the fact of life. No one will maintain it as it does require a lot of time and effort and knowledge to do so… But great majority of things can work manually so it is not all for nothing.
Yes, my HA has almost 100 automations and 80 MQTT devices. As described by Bert Arends, what is case of… I’m working on a kind of userguide that explanes every automation. Each automation has a four digit number in their name that links to a description in the userguide. Many automations are based on BluePrints and/or YouTube video’s, the links of these are mentioned in the userguide, whereas the YouTube movie is available on my NAS. For each room there is a description of HA connected devices. For example the livingroom has 11 LED smart lights, an airco and TADO. So if one of the Led lamp doesn’t work there’s a checklist with steps what to do, how to pair etc.
I don’t expect my spouse that she will be able to maintain in full but if there’s a guy around, familiar with HA that can help…. Would it be an idea to have a zip code based group of people that could support each other?
My home is set up so that when you pull the plug on the server that runs HA, the house returns to a fully-functional dumb home.
Primarily this just means that I don’t use any switches in “disconnected” or “smart bulb” mode.
Yes all the automations & extra functionality is lost (goodbye security system, for example) but there are other non-HA ways to get that functionality back in a way that my wife can mange (like paying for someone to install and manage a security system).
Something I probably haven’t invested enough time in. Everything works with a button as well though, however the automations that turn on or off things might break after a while. Food for thought.
Sorry, but if I’m gone, it’s no longer my problem.
My home(s) die with me…
My husband has the skills to maintain it, but not the time. He still works. I’m retired and have the time to indulge in my HA obsession hobby. I’m only 2 years in this month, so mine is still a simple setup …lights, cameras, laundry room sensors, thermostat, & vacuum cleaner.
If I died, he could just pull the HA plug and everything will still work. For lights, he’d probably go back to his first IoT love, Alexa…it was a hard break-up for him when I replaced all the Echoes with Voice PEs! 
I live in an old home. The reality is, if I’m not here to maintain everything, it would be best to sell it to some young buck who can do all the stuff I’m doing now.
But we don’t need to be as grim as that. What if you want to sell your home? What about guests? Things should just work the way people expect them to.
We’re all tinkerers here. Have your fun. But the one overriding rule should be that things should work just fine if HA (or you) dies.
Everything should be manually controllable.
Good documentation.
No one documents their install but you should.
Simplify install.
All the vlans and crazy IT stuff is unnecessary. If your system cannot survive reboot redesign it. If you can give a one page guide for non tech person to install and crazy scripts are required. Redesign. Brittle systems don’t work long term so outbreak thought into what whatnot takes to support and design for a non tech person to install. If your wife can’t use without you then rethink what you have done and make it easier.
My first thought in design is how will it be supported when I am not there to do it. Not just for HA but for all my technical work. I see a lot of complex install but it’s not useful if only you can support it. Take time to think about what is needed and what is unnecessary. Never install a smart only control. That is part of reason behind HA. Allowing local access and local also means physical. Be careful nitbto make your home an enterprise network environment that requires 24/7/365 support staff to tun
Unfortunately this is not possible, at least not in my case. You are right stating that you should have manual controls and this is correct approach, but on the other hand it is not possible to simplify the whole system without sacrificing elementary security.
it is like you don’t lock your front door. In my place of live most of the time nothing will happen but it is better not to push your luck.
The same is with this.
I mean the truth is that after we gone this smart homes that we built will probably gone also. Maybe someone will take care of it, but I doubt.
Why?
Vlan vs firewall rule.
Can you not use firewall rule to isolate devices on network? It is easier to understand and troubleshot with instructions for non tech.
I am planing to move in this Direction by March.
I no longer see the benefit of vlan but I am not deep IT nerd so maybe there are things I overlook.
Im not it pro and have 0 seconds esperience working as it anything.
But as I saw from my experience with ha and my own local network, yes I think there is a difference.
Maybe this depends on firmware you are using for your network equipment, but as I understand, on vlans you have:
different subents
can have different firewall rules between different subnets
custom firewall rules for devices in the same subnet
client isolation per subnet
I don’t think that this can be done on flat network just using firewall rules. After all they are on the same network.
I tested this stuff on my own network and I saw that client isolation is working. I can’t piing or scan ( nmap ) any host in the same subnet.
Firewall rules are working as I can’t access any local service or device from vlan.
And one more thing that is maybe overlooked. I watched youtube video from one famous youtuber breaking into wifi secured with wpa2. And men this guy demstrated that using kali linux you can break into wifi in a few seconds. But with wpa3 it is a different story.
Then I decided to go with vlans, as most of my devices are connected over wifi. Vlans are using wpa2 as those devices can’t use wpa3. If someone using kali linux connect to my vlan it can have free internet but it will be slow as I limit bandwith on opnsense for vlans.
And this is one more reason why not to put stuff on flat network. Because if you do you will have to use wpa2 or wp2/wpa3 mixed.
Rule can be port, IP, MAC or other based.
WPA2 and 3 are not related to vlan really. Thats a WiFi thing
Normally on a home network with a flat structure the traffic does not flow client1 → router – client2 but rather client1 → client2. If you want firewalling between the two clients you would probably need to do it on OS level.
Ok it is and it isn’t. If you have mostly wifi devices in your home like I do then it is related to vlan.
Because you can have vlan ssids, at least you can have that on openwrt, and your devices on different vlans are using ssid for that vlan only.
On the topic: I haven’t done much documentation, but after some incidents with my server being down I have designed much of my HA setup being non-dependent on the server - that means physical smart switches / dimmers instead of smart bulbs and so on. I think my family would manage fine without knowing what the temperature in the garage is 
I’ve also made a break glass setup for my password manager so in the event of going cold my wife has access to all the family photos and important data without knowing all my different passwords.
I was surprised by the many responses to my post. It’s good to read that people are thinking about this. Thank you for that.
For myself, I have come to the following conclusion and will try to adapt my HA implementation accordingly.
I will distinguish between “nice to have” and “must have”. Basic functionality must remain available, even if you pull the plug on the HA server. Each household must decide for itself what is truly basic. I think this is a good starting point.