AEOTEC Z-Stick Gen5 Z-Wave Hub Z-Wave Plus USB to Create Gateway (Ordinary White)

I am in the very early stages of home automation. I've had a Nest for years, but only last week I installed a Z Wave dimmer (one of the Cooper Aspire series) and set up Home Assistant with with Aeon Labs Gen5 Z Wave dongle[1].

I've been very impressed with Home Assistant. The developer is very active, and happy to discuss development proposals in the project gitter.im chat room.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Aeon-Labs-Aeotec-Z-Wave-Z-Stick/dp/B00...

I kinda do this with a Raspberry Pi currently using OpenHAB on OpenHabianPi[0]. I was going to link it all up with Mycroft[1] but I havent setup my own version of Mycroft just yet. I might just buy one to support the project.

Up next is security cameras using MotionEyeOS[2] and Raspberry Pi Zero W's.

You really don't have to pay millions of dollars to automate your home. My thermostats use technology called Z-Wave for which there is a USB[3] adapter available on Amazon, for about $45 I turned 2 different Thermostats into Nest-like thermostats that I fully control myself, if my pi dies, the usb device still has them synched.

All in my house, all in my control and managed by yours truly.

[0]: https://www.openhab.org/docs/installation/openhabian.html#ra...

[1]: https://mycroft.ai/

[2]: https://github.com/ccrisan/motioneyeos

[3]: https://www.amazon.com/Aeotec-Z-Stick-Z-Wave-create-gateway/...

Final thought: If I ever get Mycroft setup, I'd essentially have a robot in my home running off a Raspberry Pi. He wouldn't move (wouldn't need him to) but he would do whatever I wish. For now openHAB has a UI for me.

Edit: Forgot to mention that openHAB is also scriptable, and even has a bit of IFTTT type of capacity internally.