Who have more than 150-200 devices and what it's like?

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Evening ladies (if we have any) and gents.

I have just seen a post on random facebook page from a guy who has over 200 devices connected to home assistant.

How in name of god can you have so many devices? Do we have anyone here with more than 100 of them? If we do then what size house do you have to have so many of them and why?

What is it like to manage so many? Delays, CPU load, response time?

Please please if you are one of them please share how it’s like to live with so many devices around your house.

Thank you.

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I don’t have more than 100 but I have somewhere around 85 devices in a 700 sqft flat so… I see people in bigger houses having that amount.

It runs smoothly in a Rpi 4, no problems, no delays.

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Might I ask what are they mainly?

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LOL I have well over 200 devices. If it could be made smart in my house, chances are it’s smart. The short list of what I have is:

  • 50+ smart bulbs
  • 20+ contact sensors
  • 15+ motion sensors
  • 15 PoE IP cameras (plus 1 NVR)
  • 5 smart tvs
  • 3 Apple TVs
  • 3 Harmony Hubs
  • 25+ smart switches (both in-wall and wall warts)
  • 1 smart vacuum (because who sweeps and mops manually anymore? lol)
  • 10+ WLED devices (along with Pixels)
  • 2 Smart dog feeders

I could go on, but that’s off the top of my head and not including my network devices and servers.

For me, it’s fun (and oddly relaxing) but I also have weekly and monthly maintenance tasks that I have to do (battery replacements mostly).

None, low, fast. BUT… this largely relies on making sure that one has the proper hardware to run such and environment. I don’t run anything critical to my home automation on any machine that has less than 8GB RAM. Minimum.

1250 sq ft, single story house.

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I think we have the winner here!

Might I ask you a bit personal question? Are you living with a partner/kids?

If so then how they take all this automation assuming you have more complex scripts other than “turn lights on after 7pm and off after 8am”?

And how much time it took to accumulate so many devices?

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I’m having around 80 zigbee devices (bulbs, remotes, sensors) connected to 2 bridges, wifi -relays, sensors, HVAC, solar inverter, cameras speakers, media players etc. Total number around 140-160 devices (can’t count right now).

It was overwhelming to maintain everything as I didn’t plan it this big at first, so now I’m rebuilding with new design and it feels quite smooth to build things to work together.

So, the bigger the environment grows, the more planning and structure it requires to keep everything solid.

Things to focus: naming conventions, ip-addressing and network segmentation, grouping etc. and of course a lot of time

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Just my wife and I.

LOL… my wife likes to brag to her friends that she hasn’t touched a light switch in years. Some of my scripts are fairly complex, but typically, each and every room operates based upon one of 2 or 3 principles; Presence, contact or motion, and time of day. So, for instance, the kitchen lights come on to different scenes depending on the time of day, but only if one of us are at home. Another one is that when I enter my home office between 7:00 am and 10:00 pm, my office computer turns on, the lights turn on and a random music playlist starts playing. When I leave the room for 7 minutes, everything turns off again. My wife, her typical usage is walking into the living room and telling Alexa to turn on her “mode” which turns on the living room TV, sets the lights to various scenes, and turns off the living room motion sensor.

YEARS. Literally. I started in home automation about 7 or 8 years ago and I’ve been fortunate to have a good paying job and a good nose for deals.

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And was your wife ok with it when you just started?

My wife just can’t get used to it. She keeps switching lights on or off using a switch and I have zigbee bulbs with non smart light switches. The solution for that would be getting a smart switch (and cheapest as well) but I’m scared to burn the house down as my skillset in electrical department is really bad =D

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well i am already counting almost 100, and this is only 2 apartments. not counting 3 apartments that have KNX system. i still have 10 more apartments to go. so ill keep this post alive :slight_smile:

im running a RPI4 without any lag. HA takes about 1 min to turn on.

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The ultimate solution for me was shelly (https://shelly.cloud) relays (need some basic knowledge of electricity). Those are cheap and configuration options are limited to imagination.

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I have an awesome wife. I REALLY won the lottery with her if I’m being honest. She doesn’t understand how 90% of it works, but she has adapted to it well.

My advice is that if you can’t replace your toggles with smart switches, get some of these: https://www.amazon.com/GoControl-WA00Z-1-Z-Wave-Scene-Controller-Switch/dp/B01BKWG9XS/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Osram+switch&qid=1616028730&sr=8-5 (or something similar). You can just attach them right on top of the toggle and boom, no more smart bulbs losing power. OSRAM used to make some Zigbee ones as well that work, but they are hard to find lately (maybe eBay?).

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I’ve been tempted to try KNX. How do you find the experience with them?

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you hvae the shell button. they sell it now, that you can substitute for your regulars lamps. what i did was cut the button from the lamps and put a z-wave wireless buttonl. but gonna try the shelly buttons soon

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super solid. but if you cant program it, then you have the issue of depending on someone.

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Ive got a 170 devices 3 bedroom house 4 car shop garage and a shed shed. (to make all this ok with my wife lol)
Most of my stuff is
sonoff-tasmotized t3,t2,t1, 4ch pros,th,mini,usb, and some originals.
zooz motion, temp sensors,
esp8266 curtains, blinds
cheap door window sensors(every door)
smart locks, diy electromagnetic for shop and garage door
raspi-open sprinkler, and weather station.
also my favorite thing right now, HASP in every room.
also running smarthings for easy access for my wife
octoprint for 3d printer to print all the stuff for the stuff.
When my pc takes a dive im in the den for the day to get it backup.
YES I HAVE A PROBLEM. HELP .
love this stuff.

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Surely I’ll be missing some but:

  • 21 lights
  • Vacuum
  • Smart TV
  • 6 echo devices
  • Broadlink
  • 14 flic buttons + 2 flic hubs
  • Smart thermostat
  • 25 zigbee sensors and some devices (motion,light,door,temp,etc)
  • 2 aroma diffusers
  • Air purifier
  • Dehumidifier
  • 5 smart plugs
  • waterproof shower speaker
  • tablet for lovelace
  • Mesh wifi router

There are some other devices than came alongside the smart home project but they don’t connect to HA so they don’t affect performance, for example:

  • Touchless soap dispensers
  • Tooth paste dispensers
  • Automatic touchless trash can
  • Ozone generator for odors (with a smartplug it interacts with the aroma diffuser)

as some have said, I didn’t expect to grow that big when I began and I encountered various problems throughout the process but after getting good hardware and good suggestions from people around here it finally runs smoothly.

Why so many?

partially because it’s addictive. Partially because the more tools you have to build automations, the smarter the house becomes, specially regarding sensors. I never have to manipulate my thermostat, dehumidifier, air purifier nor the aroma diffuser, etc. Lights behave as expected 90% of the times while me doing nothing to turn them on or off. The other 10% of the times I push a button or use a voice command… I get alerts when rooms are ventilated, washing machine is done, etc… Long story short, the more you build the lazier you become and you keep going on and on :slight_smile:

I need to do some maintenance maybe once or twice a month at most.

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119 devices, 519 entities, 144 automations, 148 scripts.

Debian on Lenovo M93p 8G 120G SSD never breaks a sweat. Restarts fully in less than one minute. Bought used for $60.

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  • Automatic touchless trash can OH i want one. details please
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Personally, they are still WAY overpriced for my tastes, but I’ve also seen some projects of people DIYing them as well.

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There are a number of those in amazon, I ordered this one. You don’t need to use a pedal, just raise the hand at 20 cm from the sensor and it opens automatically. I didn’t expect it to be as useful as it is tbh, it is really convenient.

It has two open and close buttons to leave it open, which again is really convenient when cooking for example.

https://www.amazon.es/gp/product/B07K428VVJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There’s even one that works with voice from Simplehuman, problem is I’ve only heard bad things about the product and company.

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