I am looking to do a massive home automation project in my new home, but at the moment I am very new to automation/smart homes and what not. Still learning programming and such.
That being said I am looking to have things started and improve/replace/upgrade things as I go and learn more on how to do these things. But the biggest requirement of all is to run EVERYTHING locally. No Cloud integration… No Alexa, or Google Pod, or Siri, or what have you…
At the moment my biggest project is smart heating at home. I’ve been looking at smart thermostats online, but practically ANYTHING and everything does not specify it’s integration with other devices/systems. It just tells you that it’s compatible with electronic devices like phones, desktops, and ipads… Which only tells me “You can install our app on your device and control it that way”… My idea is to be able to integrate things (Eventually) to a centrally managed system.
First thing that comes to mind is “Matter” and devices compatible with it as it is meant to be an open standard that can be controlled centrally regardless of who manufactured the “Smart device”… But it doesn’t look like many manufacturers are adopting the idea of “Matter” and do not make things that are compatible with it…
So my question is - What are the options out there for a smart thermostat that eventually down the line I’ll be able to centrally manage via a program/script I run on a local home server or something along these lines?
And one that doesn’t look like this
Probably not helpful for a thermostat on a local only net, but there is a specific use case for a thermostat connected to a third party network. If you have a iot only network that you can allow outside ingress and egress to you can get a connected thermostat to participate in smart grid demand response events. Basically instead of having your thermostat just set to your preferences, you can also allow a utility company to modify the temp offset by +/- 4 degrees temporarily or even do things like “pre cool” your house by having your tstat be set to autocool the house aggressively before the hottest part of the day and then switch off when everyone else’s starts turning them on and your house is cooled already. This makes it easier for utilities to supply houses with renewable electricity instead of relying on peak power coal plants. The controls they send out allow for an opt-out, but the less you opt out the more money you generally receive off your power bill or thru some other incentive
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/07/smart-thermostats-inadvertently-strain-electric-power-grids
(How tstat with user only settings affect electric grids)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2210670720308556
(How distributed demand response with devices like thermostats, car batteries, water heaters etc can help)
https://blog.srpnet.com/how-smart-thermostats-are-changing-the-electrical-grid/ (An example from a utility directly)