About

The Local Home is where I write up what actually works in my own smart home. I’m a Home Assistant hobbyist, not a company or an installer, and I care most about one thing: a home that keeps working when the internet doesn’t. That’s what “local-first” means here. I favor devices and integrations that run on your own network, and I reach for the cloud only when there’s no good local option.

I didn’t start with Home Assistant. I added it to a smart home that already worked, and that’s the angle I bring to everything here. My Hubitat hub still runs all of my automations, and Apple Home and Alexa are still in use. I didn’t migrate anything. Home Assistant sits on top as my dashboard layer: one place to see and control everything.

What’s running in my house

Server: Home Assistant 2026.10 in Docker on a Raspberry Pi 5 (16 GB), next to Homebridge and a few other containers. One of them is a small AI camera check that tells me whether the dog is in the garage.
Hubitat connection: Hubitat’s Maker API plus the community Hubitat integration. My Zigbee and Z-Wave devices live on Hubitat, along with my YoLink sensors and Reolink’s AI detection events.
Connected directly to Home Assistant: Lutron Caséta, Philips Hue, Reolink camera streams (through the NVR), a ratgdo garage door controller running ESPHome, TP-Link Kasa plugs for lamps, Google Calendar, a public iCal feed through Remote Calendar, and Met.no weather.
Remote access: Tailscale.
Dashboard: a landscape iPad on the wall in kiosk mode.

What you’ll find here

Practical posts based on what actually runs in my house, a recommended gear list, and my ebook for anyone who wants a complete weekend plan. I aim to keep everything accurate for the current Home Assistant release. If something has changed, let me know.

The Local Home is an independent site. It isn’t affiliated with Home Assistant, the Open Home Foundation, Nabu Casa, or Hubitat.