Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Buy locally configurable stuff only.

That means Zigbee and Zwave and use them with Home Assistant. There are many locks and devices which support either. There's a learning curve in the beginning, but once you set it up correctly not only you get privacy and control your own devices, you also get far more options for automations and useful or plain cool things in general.



This is fine for the HackerNews crowd, but most people aren’t going to have the skills and/or time to run a local setup, and it’s not unreasonable for them to want smart lock functionality.


If you buy a device that works over Zigbee or Zwave, a layperson doesn't need to have the skills to run a local setup because some third party can always come in and help with the integration (either some third party cloud solution or contractors who can come to your house and set up the local solution for you)


Exactly. Most of those IoT products will connect directly with Apple Homekit, Google Home, Smartthings, etc. without some other hub, app, cloud. Which makes it likely it can be kept working regardless of what that company does. You don't have to go full local setup to avoid the most proprietary IoT devices.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: