Home Assistant

Home automation on its own Raspberry Pi, with Zigbee, allowed into the IoT network and nothing more.

Needs The Firewall guide: the server and IoT networks, and the rules between them, are set up there.

Status Coming later: the chapters are not written yet.

Home Assistant runs on a Raspberry Pi 3B, on DietPi, plugged into the Super6c's second Ethernet port in the server network. A Zigbee USB stick lets it talk to the lights, a water sensor and a smart plug directly, with no manufacturer's hub or cloud in between.

The Raspberry Pi 3B in a blue 3D-printed case with a fan, with its USB and network cables — The Raspberry Pi 3B in its printed case, with the cable to the Zigbee stick on the left.

A Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus with its antenna attached — The Zigbee stick, a Sonoff ZBDongle-E, with its antenna.

What the guide will cover

Home Assistant on the Pi, and why it stays outside the cluster: a cluster experiment should never turn the lights off.
Zigbee with the built-in ZHA integration and the Sonoff stick: pairing lights, sensors and plugs.
The firewall rules: phones on the trusted Wi-Fi reach its web interface, and Home Assistant may reach the IoT network, not the other way round.
Notifications to the phone app when the water sensor or the fire alarm goes off.

This Pi runs Home Assistant Core, which Home Assistant no longer supports as an installation method. The guide will say what the supported options are for a Pi 3: Home Assistant Container, or Home Assistant OS on a Pi 4 or 5.