Do you have a smart home? Or been in one? I can't say I've ever have knowingly ever been in a "smart home", but this article points out how such homes are reliant on the not only the internet but also the servers of, for example, Amazon for the Alexa's to work and so forth and how common it is outages occurs, and wreaks havock. And offers the solution. It's a real interesting article. Brief excerpt from it below,
My smart home still works without the internet, and it's all thanks to one app
https://www.xda-developers.com/smart-home-still-works-internet-goes-down/
... Home Assistant is an open-source home automation platform that takes a completely different approach. Everything runs locally, on hardware sitting in your house. ... No data gets sent to or stored in some company's cloud unless you want it to. And when your internet goes down, Home Assistant still chugs along happily. ... It only falls back to cloud communication in circumstances where a user has set it up to do exactly that, but the default is a local-first experience. ...
Home Assistant hit two million active installations worldwide as of May 2025, doubling from one million in a single year. ... GitHub called it "one of the most active, culturally important, and technically demanding open source ecosystems on the planet" in a December 2025 feature. It's governed by the Open Home Foundation, a non-profit focused on privacy, user choice, and long-term device sustainability. ...
I read through it and it's outside of my understanding how anything that needs electricity can work without it? How it works is beyond me. Had no clue what it was talking about. Something has to generate the power if the grid goes off. How does an "app" work a light bulb, TV, refrigerator, your radio station, heat,
even your internet needs power to work whether from a DSL box or wi fi, your computer batteries for so long. The only thing that will work in a power outage is a landline phone. That is because the phone company has back up generators that keep low voltage in the phone lines. If power goes out to the cell towers a mobile phone won't work as the tower needs power. You want back up power, get a solar panel on the roof and a huge power station in the basement that stores the power or a smaller one like a Bluetti that will keep essentials working till it comes back on.
Things running on "hardware right in your house". Really? Not unless it generates electricity.
I didn't see it described exactly what that hardware is. I have a piece of hardware....a power station.
And I don't understand how even through the internet how, if power goes off, a light bulb will work, a TV will work, heat will work, a transmitter will work, a processor will work, on and on and on....A fairy tale to me. Plug into the "cloud"? Sorry, but this is to far fetched for my simple brain.
It is interesting, but I've never been interested in a smart home.
A dumb home is perfectly acceptable for me. The simpler, the better. Fewer things to break and maintain.
And a lot cheaper.
I think there's a parallel here with automobiles and the desire to monetize everything.
Smart home? For $2000,00 get one of these for multi-day power outages that will run your whole house.... https://www.bluettipower.ca/products/ac240?variant=43761288478780
@mark It's talking about during internet outages not power outages. That app on your phone that allows you to control and monitor your Bluetti is a "smart home" device, as is your Roku TV or whatever, any remote controls, your electric garage door, video doorbell if you got one, they're all smart devices often all dependent on internet to function.
https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/what-is-a-smart-home-my-straightforward-3-part-explanation/ :
"...Also, I know it seems like the smart home is dominated by Amazon, Google and Apple. But there are hundreds and hundreds of other, smaller brands also creating smart devices, .. common enough that you can pick up a smart product or two in any local department store. .... AI-enabled cameras and video doorbells, in particular, have driven the continued growth and interest in smart security devices, ... apps also let you set smart home routines where multiple devices act simultaneously -- like locking or unlocking doors, disarming security systems and turning on lights all at once. .. voice controls with assistants like Alexa, Gemini or Siri... apps act like complex remote controls. ... you can do things like check on the status of an appliance, turn a device on or off, set a temperature, see a live view through a connected camera, talk through speakers, adjust colors and lock a door or close a garage. Behind these scenes, these apps are often supported by the company's own servers and cloud storage. ... smart smoke detectors .. air quality monitor. .. "
I think there's a parallel here with automobiles and the desire to monetize everything.
Exactly. That's the whole appeal of the open-source Home Assistant project, it bypasses all those services
@richpowers So that's what it's all about?
Well, another plus for having a landline and internet via DSL box that works off the phone line so you get your internet and home phone through the box. The internet never goes off same as the phone and if power goes off the internet and the phone is still operating. But the box needs 12 volts power.
So if a power outage I can power the box with the power station and can have internet and phone in a power outage. That can be on UPS back up also. A big problem if I move somewhere else that has no landline connection!
I have no smartphone but bought the cheapest android tablet I could find just for the bluetti controls, and it needs no internet as it pairs with bluetooth once you download the bluetti app. Then I turn it off and put it away. I have no other use for it. Maybe I would if a automation program was made for android.
But all of this needing internet for things to work is just gotten too crazy. Smart houses? Smart this, smart that? You can't go to the wall and turn on a light switch? Alexa, do this do that, even from another location. Sad world this has become. People will loose the aptitude to operate anything mechanically themselves. God forbid the internet goes out.
I've been frustrated a few times over internet dependent devices, I've mentioned before how majority of the home personal weather stations (I bought one) send the data out on to the net and thru the weather gathering services online before it ever senda the data (from your own property) back to your home location to utilize in what ever way you want (for example to Zara).- Without the internet you can't get the data from your own device that's installed in your own backyard.. There are a few ways around it, but it's not particularly simple to access the data directly and it's discouraged to do so.
Same with my Roku TV, it can be tricky to figure out how watch over the air TV without Internet if you don't know how to do it., Ruko wants you to watch your "local TV channels" through their streaming service,v when you click on "Local TV" it's actually streaming and not the OTA signal your watching, but it's correctable.
If I thought about it awhile I could give more examples I've dealt with... Tablo for example, an OTA tv recorder that is dependant on the Internet - how does that make sense?
I'm just saying, I don't like internet dependent services for local control of my own devices.