What brand of switches are they?

There is a blueprint in home assistant for that. Its called Link On/Off State of Multiple Devices v1.0.0.

I use it to keep a dummy smart switch and a smart light on a ceiling fan in sync

It looks great. I tried to find out whether this panel can be bought anywhere and was not able to find it. There are many diy instructions but no commercial product. I'd love to buy 2-3 of these for 20€ each.

Great find!

Credit to you for posting the details in this post in addition to a video.

> Would love to hear if anyone else is using WLED for quirky automations!

I'm using it for the same reason, although I'm driving an RGB LED strip that's mounted behind a sideboard in the dining room. With NodeRed automations, it lights up green when it's garbage night, and blue when it's recycle night.

I also have a button to press that indicates the bins are out, so the lights shut off until the next week.

Bonus: our outdoor permanent LED lights also go blue on recycle night so all our neighbours are reminded!

Ok ok

Lots of fans of Playwright it seems - agree this is still probably your best bet on the web side. It’s mature and it works.

On mobile, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be using Maestro at this point. It’s on a different level when it comes to simplicity and reliability. And I've been seeing a trend of major brands switching to it: Doordash, Microsoft and the React Native Meta team have all adopted Maestro over Appium. That’s all you really need to know

(Maestro happens to support web as well, but looks like support for web is a bit early still)

1. Create a list of things you need from an automation tool.
2. Study the market.
3. Compare 1 & 2.
4. Pick the best tool for your needs.

You can go with playwright for web testing n appium for mobile testing as I don't think playwright will serve you best for detailed mobile testing.

The company i work at has taken demos of mostly all the popular QA automation tools out there, i believe Quash and Finalrun stood out for us.

There are many automation tools available for Web and Mobile automation. It depends on your requirement. If your first priority is open-source, here are a few recommendations:

Use Playwright if your web app is modern, JS/React/Vue etc., and you want fast feedback & minimal fuss.

You can consider Selenium with good abstraction, If you also have legacy browser support needs, or many different languages, or non-JS heavy.

For mobile, if your app is Android + iOS, and you can afford separate stacks, then for speed use native: Espresso for Android, XCUITest for iOS. But if you want a single cross-platform solution and accept some overhead, use Appium. If your app is React Native, then Detox may be quite efficient.

Hope this will be helpful.

One of the things I always do is give camera view access on the touchpanels. I also will use motion detection at the front door to jump the touchpanel onto the front door camera for 30 seconds. Everyone has always loved that.

I can never figure out for the life of me why a Control 4 dealer would ever sell crappy sonos product. Sell a Triad 2ch soundbar and a sub. Use Control 4 native music services so the entire house has the same flow on the interfaces. 🤦

I'd cut over to Home Assistant. It won't get any easier and you'll gain access to a lot of interop between ecosystems.

You can eventually do a lot without cloud, too, and no company can take that away from you or charge subscriptions for it.

I would never in a million years

I do not use devices that are reliant on the cloud for basic function when alternatives exist.

Home Assistant is really not that hard

Google Home gets a lot of hate. I'm pretty heavily invested in it and for the most part really like it. Over time I've migrated to more advanced hubs still really like many of the practical things Google Home devices can do.

This being said, given how old the devices are I would not buy them now. They haven't been refreshed in years and current support is hard to determine if the Home product line is a part of Google's long term strategy or not.

I was along for the ride from the pre-aquistion Nest days to just recently when their video price increase finally pushed me out the door. My observations 

Google is where hardware innovation goes to die. The Nest product line development basically stopped a couple years after Google bought them. It was too bad because it was really the most exciting consumer hardware available. We get half-hearted updates every three years now. 

Google isn't focused on this market, I think they are too invested to completely walk away, but it's not making them money like ads make money so product and R&D don't get support like an independent company would. 

Google home the app over promises and under delivers. Gemini and AI over promise and under deliver. I don't know why they think adding AI to home will fix anything. 

So the hardware is underwhelming and the software under delivers. 

I've been much happier with rock solid point products from manufacturers that actually care about this market. I don't have voice control anymore, but when we're watching a movie my handy physical switches don't have to be asked 6 times, with a full conversation, to turn off the kitchen lights. 

Home Assistant will always call like a siren song.

If you can, I’d suggest starting there if HomeKit isn’t an option you’d entertain.

Google’s lack of new investment would give me pause before jumping in.

Also, Google’s approach has always been cloud-first, so that’s something else to consider.

You want Home Assistant. It works with most of the brands, is open source and free (which means it will outlive most of the proprietary options on the market).
Avoid buying any automation hardware that relies on a cloud server or you'll be re-buying that hardware long before you want to. Give preference to fully-local hardware options running on Zigbee or Zwave. Wifi hardware may seem more convenient but in the long run you will usually regret it, especially as configuration apps stop being updated and your devices stop getting security updates. Some wifi devices are worse offenders than others for this though.

I’m integrating everything through home assistant and using Apple HomeKit as a front end for voice commands and making it easier on my wife.

If you want everything truly integrated you would be looking at control4, Crestron Home, Lutron Homeworks or Savant. Those are all very pricey solutions designed and installed by professionals.

HOME ASSISTANT and afaik the others aren’t even close

I interpreted OP as wanting one platform that can control everything from a single interface, ie not having to use different apps for each set of components. This is where HA shines

Let me summarize all of the comments (I don’t need to read them) I’ve been doing HA for a 10-12 years and the simple answer is NO. Your are going to find that you need more than one protocol to balance features, reliably, price, etc.

IKEA will do switches, outlets, bulbs, motion/lux sensors, water leak sensors. They are also rolling out 20 new undisclosed devices next year. Cheap but very reliable devices.

DSC alarm system installed in 2000 works great. Envisalink 4 Internet connection with cellular backup added a few years ago. Self monitored, sends notices and alarms to two cell phones. Paid monitoring is optional. Separate from POE NVR cameras.

If you’re tech savvy then nothing compares to Home Assistant.

If you want cameras then nothing compares to Ubiquiti. They make the best camera software out currently, along with their networking software.

My only advice in buying shades, is don’t cheap out. Look at the website reviews. Check YouTube for installation tips. I am a big Lutron switch fan. They are pricey at $70.00 each and will require a bigger box but, since you are there replacing. Cutting a bit of drywall is no big deal. They require their own Lutron Hub that you plug into your router. You can run up to 75 devices on one hub. The switches use two wires. So you don’t need to mess around with a neutral wire.

People always hate on ADT but I pay $54 a month and it syncs 100% with my other systems. And they've come through for me on a few different occasions. Just make sure you only sign one year contracts.

We've had our Eufy system for over 3 years and have been very happy with it. We subscribe to their monitoring plan, but it's purely optional.

Make sure all your devices are matter compatible. I personally only purchase matter over thread devices as I’ve been homekit only. Smartwings shades are awful by the way. Also just replaced my soon to be unsupported Nest thermostat (thanks Google for that) with Tado X.