Home Assistant

Why r/BuyItForLife recommends Home Assistant

4 mentions from real owners

• #1Sep 6, 2025

  Why did we accept that security cameras need monthly fees to work properly?

  I have abandoned the Google Home ecosystem in favor of Home Assistant 6 months ago, due in part to this reason. Your post is actually reminding me I need to install my new Reolink doorbell camera today so I can toss my awful Nest doorbell cam. No subscription needed with Reolink and Home Assistant provides lots of secure, non-cloud ways to store your data beyond the SD card storage in the cam itself. Reolink also offers cloud options for convenience, but they don't force you.

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• #2Sep 5, 2025

  Why did we accept that security cameras need monthly fees to work properly?

  This is why I like Nabu Casa and Frigate in Home Assistant. $65/year and you can access your camera feeds without having to mess with Wireguard or proxies. Plus, it helps pay for Home Assistant development.

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• #3Sep 5, 2025

  Why did we accept that security cameras need monthly fees to work properly?

  I think there's a barrier to entry that's a learning curve (as you've said) but there is also a financial barrier to entry. I began purchasing a few smart home products, and I fully intend to move towards a local Home Assistant set up with NAS storage rather than anything in the cloud. But smart home devices are all so expensive that you feel like you have to piecemeal it out over a period of time.

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• #4Apr 11, 2025

  Do smart home items really work in long term?

  Most people don't have smart homes, they have homes with a bunch of remote control devices. If you aren't running something like Home Assistant to tie all your devices together and then automating things, you gave a remote controllable home, not a smart home. The magic isn't thst I can change the lights on my phone from the couch, it's that they automatically turn on when someone enters, change to theater mode when the TV is playing(unless it's one of our sports teams, then we get team colors!), go back up to normal when I pause or finish watching, and turn off after I leave the room. We are about to enter our third summer since I started, and already the smart window fans and temp sensors have paid for themselves in energy savings vs AC. Again, I'm not remotely turning them on and off, it's all automatic based on temp inside, temp outside, time of day, and solar position to determine which fans are on, and if they are blowing cooler air in, hotter air out, or circulating it. Even all the fans that o ly blow on people are automated, it is really nice.

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