The Home Automation Stack That Actually Works (After 3 Years of Tweaking)

Short summary

After 3 years of experimentation, the author shares a battle-tested home automation architecture: intent-driven automations outperform presence/time-based triggers, local-first protocols (Zigbee mesh) are more reliable than cloud-dependent systems, and manual physical buttons beat voice commands in practice. The core insight: fewer automations (8 vs 80) run more reliably because there's less that can break.

• •Automations triggered by intent succeed; time/presence-based ones fail
• •Local-first infrastructure (Zigbee mesh, no cloud) beats cloud-dependent WiFi devices
• •8 reliable automations outperform 80 fragile ones—simplicity is the real feature

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