Long time Hubitat user, who initially came over from Smart things. Been in this game for probably 8+ years.
Now that it’s 2025, is there anything new worth trying out in smart home tech? Replace old devices/switches with new ones? Nothing has seemed too exciting to me for the cost. Not sure if matter is worth replacing anything. Anything else that is recommended?
I have nearly all zigbee/zwave devices, but a few that work through Alexa. I’ve bought a few more leak sensors/motion detectors, but not much else the past few years. I’m not huge into coding and creating vms/containers for my smart home.
I have been thinking about booting Alexa out, replacing with Sonos or apple home, just bc I’m getting tired of the advertising/potential listening.
Apple HomePods are great for home automation -- they are the ears for HomeKit. The Apple Home app is a nice dashboard for basic control. While my home relies mostly on automations, such as motion activated lighting, Siri comes in very handy for miscellaneous other tasks. We threw out all of our Echo devices when they started to become intrusive, and have zero regrets moving to Apple instead.
Only thing holding me back a little in moving off Alexa is the investment in ring alarm and cameras. However I realize we only use our phone for looking at the cameras.
Do you need the Apple TV Hub for it all to work?
I would enjoy better sounding music. The Alexa devices are meh for music.
It’s such a shame. They started out so strong and have just taken a nose dive over the last three years. Have better luck with a third-party app. Absolutely hate the forced software updates with no opportunity to roll back.
That was a terrible part of SmartThings too. Conversely, Hubitat Elevation is so strong with user choice capabilities.
I do agree there are better methods. In the main areas of the house I'm using a centralized audio system. The living room is currently 7.1 but I would like to upgrade that to 7.1.6 one of these days.
The only issue I have had with the HomePods is that it would take up to 10 seconds for a TTS message to be spoken. I gave the Ikea Sonos variant a try and it is almost instant. I then picked up one of their wall speakers to test and do like it. I'm moving my office to two of those with two HomePods (two stereo pairs). Even if it isn't as nice as the main audio system it is plenty immersive for my office space.
I haven't used the app for daily driving. I use the Sonos speakers for TTS and AirPlay. I find the Ikea price point palatable enough compared to the Sonos premium.
We don’t have a massive Sonos system like some. Just a Beam with two Symfonisk bookshelf speakers for rear surround.
I used to rely on the Sonos app for accessing our music from a Synology NAS, but now I use an app from a Chinese developer called Stream Music.
As you might have guessed, it’s very difficult to locate in the App Store with that name. Here’s the direct link to the iOS app
It’s far from perfect, but he is responsive and kindly added my suggestion to make music artists searchable by first letter on CarPlay. One of the only CarPlay apps that is compatible with a NAS, and also has that capability as far as I’m aware. There are still issues with it, but it works. Love being able to access music on my NAS from the car without having to make playlists.
It was a bit of sarcasm , scrypted is quite excellent. Cameras -> Homekit it’s my goto tool.
It’s lead me down some fun rabbit holes like this one.
I sorta thought so, but my sarcasm meter is a bit off today. I’m starting to look into bringing some Reolink cameras into HomeKit. I’ll need to check it out!
, scrypted is quite excellent. Cameras -> Homekit it’s my goto tool.
