Looking for BI/Home Automation advice

G

Gswanson74

Young grasshopper
Jun 20, 2016
55
2
I have had BI for about 2 years. All cams were wireless Wansview cameras (which I like and never had issues with). Running all 9 cams wireless, I had to drop resolution. I finally got around to hardwiring all the cams and now need to proceed to my next step. I am fairly new to Automation and don't know if Home Assistant, Smart Things, and OpenHAB all do the same things (they are all hubs, correct?)... hence my need to seek advice. I currently have 5 chromecasts, 8 google homes, a few Sonoff power devices, a few wall switches (also Sonoff or wemo), some LIFX bulbs, and that's about it. I want to keep the protocals recent (wifi over ZigBee etc). I want the ability to use BI to trigger devices and devices to trigger BI. Also, would be nice to have Google display a cam on the TV via voice commands. Which is the most logical step (learn Home Assistant, get smartthings hub, use OpenHAB)? Ease of use, combined with customization is cool, depending on the learning curve. Thanks in advance for any input!

Also, I would like to have touch display control panels (not sure how this impacts my choices).
 
You have a lot of reading ahead of you!
Homeassistant and openhab are like two different brands of the same product.
They are both software that you run on your choice of hardware (raspberry pi is popular for both) that is platform agnostic. You can then add different hubs or switches or....whatever they have support for.
I think homeassistant is easier, but I haven't tried openhab since 2.0 came out so you may want to experiment if you go this route.
Smart things is a hub and there is a community that does custom code for devices that aren't natively supported, but it is limited.
I personally use the Universal Devices ISY and have insteon, z-wave and added in hue and my alarm and other stuff.
It's quite stable and versatile.
I also have blue Iris alert me via turning on a certain light if there is someone in my driveway through my ISY.
Check them out here:
UDI Forum
Hope that helps a little bit.
 
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