I’ll give you my unbiased opinion on whether you want to take the Homebridge pill first or the Home Assistant Pill to build your DIY Smart Home. You will be surprised the pill I have Taken !

It’s a known fact that I love using Homebridge. However Its been a while I started tinkering with Home Assistant. So when I started onboarding myself with Home assistant – I looked around for opinions on the matter. 

Guess what, all Homebridge users said use Homebridge, 

All Home assistant users said use Home assistant. Now the good news is that as of today I’ve been actively using both and thought I should provide my unbiased opinion.

Now before we go knee Deep into this video – let’s set the stage right  to avoid any confusion. 

  1. Both are open source and amazingly both are free to use.
  2. Both can be run on pretty much any hardware, 
  3. This video is NOT a comparison between the two because their value propositions are totally different
  4. And Your primary choice of a Smart Home Ecosystem is basically Apple Homekit 

So before we go ahead and decide which DIY smart home pill to take – you first need to ask yourself what kind of DIYer are you with your smart home

  1. Are you a NOOB which is a person who is totally  inexperienced with tech and needs 100% tech support. However you can
    • With some guidance Scan a QR code 
    • Pair a device 
    • And do everything within an app like the Apple home app.  
    • And You dont have any spare time
  • Or Are you Tech Savvy which is a person with basic tech experience and needs some kind of tech support. However you can
    • Do All that a NOOB can do
    • Setup Smart home systems following online tutorials 
    • Build Basic Automations 
    • You have some spare time
  • Or are You a TINKERER which is a person who literally enjoys building, fixing, experimenting and has a broad knowledge with technology. However you can also 
    • Do all that a Noob & a Tech Savvy can do 
    • Build a local control system over the smart home
    • You Aim to unify all the Smart devices under one roof 
    • Lastly you have all the time in the world

So once you identify what kind of Smart Home DIYer you are – its time to find out the Value proposition of both these amazing systems. 

First Up HomeBridge – Their value proposition is crystal clear – Bringing HomeKit support where there is none.  That is HomeBridge is just a “bridge” to make devices HomeKit compatible.

Meaning it allows you to integrate with smart home devices that do not natively support HomeKit. 

So In short – Everything that has been made for Homebridge, was designed to be used and controlled in Apple HomeKit by basically installing, configuring and using plugins.  Which in turn makes devices HomeKit compatible.

And your main method of Smart Home control & automation is going to be all done within the Apple home app. 

Second up Home Assistant – Their value proposition is to literally awaken your home. 

Meaning it allows you to put local control and privacy first when building your smart home system. 

So In short, Home assistant is a fully featured self hosted home automation software where You have total control in setting up your smart home like creating scenes, automations, build your own Smart Home hub that supports multiple smart home protocols like Zigbee, Thread  Matter plus theres a dedicated app.

You basically don’t need Apple or google or Amazon to sell you a Smart device. You buy them on your own terms and conditions to add them to your smart home setup.

And your main method of Smart Home control & automation is going to be all done within a Dashboard created & self hosted by you. 

So the question is – which DIY Smart Home Pill to take first ? 

Now here’s where my unbiased opinion kicks in 

If you are a tech savvy and want everything to be controlled within Apple Homekit – the answer is obvious – do take first the purple pill which is Homebridge. 

This will allow you to learn the ropes to get you into building a DIY smart home, introduce you to basic code like json and yaml if you are to use zigbee2MQTT, plus it allows you to know that you can mix and match brands & their devices into Apple Homekit.  

So If you’re content and looking to create a HomeKit smart home, there’s a 95% chance the purple pill is the way to go for you.

Now if you are a tinkerer, you have out grown your use of Homebridge, You built a solid foundation in navigating code, opening & debugging issues, you have a need to control every feature of a smart home device plus your driven by curiosity to see how deep the rabbit hole goes into building a DIY Smart Home – Then ONLY you need to take the Blue Pill which is Home Assistant. 

Thats like literally taking the red pill from the matrix movie – you are Alice in the wonderland

With the blue pill – You have universally accepted the choice for free and open-source home automation. You have opened the door to not just add devices or a plethora of services but also add NFC Tags, 

Add blue prints that are basically automations, build scripts, create scenes, run extra applications all within the operating system and most importantly  – Together with the SkyConnect Dongle which is a combination Zigbee, Thread and supports the Matter standard – you have literally future proofed your Smart Home with additional network protocols for a fraction of a cost. 

However here’s a wind of caution – if you do decide to take the purple pill you know your Smart Home is limited to Apple HomeKit. 

With the Blue pill – your are only limited by your ability & imagination of having a near perfect functional Smart Home and most importantly how much are you willing to invest in building that.  

🌟 Looking for a Smart Home Advisor 📧 info@buildasmarthome.org

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️:
================
00:00 Intro
00:36 Opening
01:12 Setting the stage
01:46 What kind of DIYér are YOU?
03:11 Purple Pill value proposition
04:00 Blue Pill value proposition
04:57 Purple Pill Benefits
05:41 Blue Pill Benefits
06:54 Word of Caution
07:14 My Final Thoughts

➡️ Homebridge – https://homebridge.io/
➡️ Home Assistant – https://www.home-assistant.io/

🌟 My Smart Home Services 🌐 https://www.buildasmarthome.org

🖥️ Homebridge Installation Links 🖥️
✔️ Install Homebridge in a Synology NAS DSM 6 – https://youtu.be/CTe-gSrzLFE
✔️ Install Homebridge in a Synology NAS DSM 7 – https://youtu.be/ai51lXT2zIA
✔️ Install Homebridge in macOS – https://youtu.be/Nqh2vSeTzC0
✔️ Install Homebridge in Windows 10 – https://youtu.be/5mxhAgryuVo
✔️ Install Homebridge in a Pi 4 – https://youtu.be/D0YfkdGAIhY

Buy me a 🍺 – https://www.buymeacoffee.com/eddiedsouza

FOLLOW ME ON –
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/buildasmarthome.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddiedsouza/

#homebridge #homeassistant #applehomekit #smarthome

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