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\n <\/source><\/source><\/picture>\n Andrii Yalanskyi\/Shutterstock<\/span>\n <\/div>\n
A smart home without the internet may sound like a paradox, but stay with me. There are already plenty of smart devices that work offline, but you can take it a step further and build a brand-agnostic smart home system that works locally. That means a smart home that doesn’t need the cloud or rely on one company’s servers to run. With the right devices and setup, a smart home without the internet is much more possible than it might first seem.<\/p>\n
AWS and Cloudflare have become the proverbial backbone of the Internet, and each time one of these providers suffers an outage, we’re all reminded that our smart devices aren’t the only Internet to be dumb. With a locally controlled smart home, you can avoid this problem, as long as your local network is online. You also retain greater control over your network traffic and data when everything is decentralized and from the cloud, giving you a high level of privacy.<\/p>\n
While a local smart home comes with all the benefits mentioned above, the tradeoff is easy remote access, which can be especially useful for smart locks, cameras, and thermostats. So if that’s not a concession you’re willing to make, you can take a more mixed approach.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
All you need to build an offline smart home<\/h2>\n\nThe linchpin of most offline smart homes is the Home Assistant hub. Home Assistant is an open source home interface that prioritizes local device control and privacy, so it’s balanced. While you can install Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5, or even a Home Assistant Green spring, it’s better to buy a cheap little PC, given the current cost of memory. Hubitat is a lesser known option, and it works well for a basic setup using Zigbee or Z-Wave, but it is very limited compared to Home Assistant. Using Hubitat also requires purchasing a dedicated automation hub for local processing, but it’s still an option.<\/p>\n
Beyond the hub, you need to select devices that will work offline. You can reconfigure other Wi-Fi or IoT devices by isolating them from your LAN. However, doing so involves digging into your router and firewall settings, and your range may vary from device to device. Both Zigbee and Z-Wave are wireless protocols that don’t rely on Wi-Fi, enabling local control with a compatible hub or controller. Regardless of which one you choose, both will require an adapter to allow the connection of your devices. Home Assistant offers both, in the form of Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2 for Zigbee, and ZWA-2 for Z-Wave. There are also other USB adapters for both platforms, so you can shop around.<\/p>\n
Both Zigbee and Z-Wave power devices in the standard smart home categories, but Zigbee products tend to be cheaper, open source, and offer a wider catalog of devices. IZ-Wave is proprietary, and often more expensive, but generally has better range and device compatibility. Both use AES-128 standard encryption and both create a mesh network with other devices in the ecosystem. Voice recognition for voice commands can also be achieved with local LLMs integrated with the Home Assistant feature.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\nDon’t forget about Power Line Communication<\/h2>\n\nOften left out of the offline smart home discussion is Power Line Communication (PLC). Power Line Communication works by transmitting data through existing home power lines. The PLC has been around for years, and is the basis of the X10, widely regarded as the dawn of home automation when it arrived in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
The most widely available and affordable PLC based option is Insteon – and I speak from personal experience as a smart home hobbyist and electrician who has installed customers in the past. Insteon’s reputation was badly damaged when it suddenly declared bankruptcy and closed its doors, but it was revived soon after by dedicated users who literally bought into the company. Insteon’s financial problems have never been about its products, but mostly about its mismanagement by its former parent company, SmartLabs, during the supply chain crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Insteon is unique because it uses dual-mesh – or “dual-band” as Insteon calls it – technology that uses both wireless RF and power cable connections. This allows Insteon devices to not only work without Wi-Fi, but also work as a peer-to-peer network. To get started with Insteon, you’d normally buy an Insteon Hub for web access, but a better route for offline control is the Insteon USB PLM, which you can use to connect Insteon devices and interface with the Home Assistant.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
\n<\/article>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Andrii Yalanskyi\/Shutterstock A smart home without the internet may sound like a paradox, but stay with me. There are already plenty of smart devices that work offline, but you can take it a step further and build a brand-agnostic smart home system that works locally. That means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-laptops-gear"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15079,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077\/revisions\/15079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The linchpin of most offline smart homes is the Home Assistant hub. Home Assistant is an open source home interface that prioritizes local device control and privacy, so it’s balanced. While you can install Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi 4 or 5, or even a Home Assistant Green spring, it’s better to buy a cheap little PC, given the current cost of memory. Hubitat is a lesser known option, and it works well for a basic setup using Zigbee or Z-Wave, but it is very limited compared to Home Assistant. Using Hubitat also requires purchasing a dedicated automation hub for local processing, but it’s still an option.<\/p>\n
Beyond the hub, you need to select devices that will work offline. You can reconfigure other Wi-Fi or IoT devices by isolating them from your LAN. However, doing so involves digging into your router and firewall settings, and your range may vary from device to device. Both Zigbee and Z-Wave are wireless protocols that don’t rely on Wi-Fi, enabling local control with a compatible hub or controller. Regardless of which one you choose, both will require an adapter to allow the connection of your devices. Home Assistant offers both, in the form of Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2 for Zigbee, and ZWA-2 for Z-Wave. There are also other USB adapters for both platforms, so you can shop around.<\/p>\n
Both Zigbee and Z-Wave power devices in the standard smart home categories, but Zigbee products tend to be cheaper, open source, and offer a wider catalog of devices. IZ-Wave is proprietary, and often more expensive, but generally has better range and device compatibility. Both use AES-128 standard encryption and both create a mesh network with other devices in the ecosystem. Voice recognition for voice commands can also be achieved with local LLMs integrated with the Home Assistant feature.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
Don’t forget about Power Line Communication<\/h2>\n\nOften left out of the offline smart home discussion is Power Line Communication (PLC). Power Line Communication works by transmitting data through existing home power lines. The PLC has been around for years, and is the basis of the X10, widely regarded as the dawn of home automation when it arrived in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
The most widely available and affordable PLC based option is Insteon – and I speak from personal experience as a smart home hobbyist and electrician who has installed customers in the past. Insteon’s reputation was badly damaged when it suddenly declared bankruptcy and closed its doors, but it was revived soon after by dedicated users who literally bought into the company. Insteon’s financial problems have never been about its products, but mostly about its mismanagement by its former parent company, SmartLabs, during the supply chain crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Insteon is unique because it uses dual-mesh – or “dual-band” as Insteon calls it – technology that uses both wireless RF and power cable connections. This allows Insteon devices to not only work without Wi-Fi, but also work as a peer-to-peer network. To get started with Insteon, you’d normally buy an Insteon Hub for web access, but a better route for offline control is the Insteon USB PLM, which you can use to connect Insteon devices and interface with the Home Assistant.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
\n<\/article>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Andrii Yalanskyi\/Shutterstock A smart home without the internet may sound like a paradox, but stay with me. There are already plenty of smart devices that work offline, but you can take it a step further and build a brand-agnostic smart home system that works locally. That means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-laptops-gear"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15079,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077\/revisions\/15079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Often left out of the offline smart home discussion is Power Line Communication (PLC). Power Line Communication works by transmitting data through existing home power lines. The PLC has been around for years, and is the basis of the X10, widely regarded as the dawn of home automation when it arrived in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
The most widely available and affordable PLC based option is Insteon – and I speak from personal experience as a smart home hobbyist and electrician who has installed customers in the past. Insteon’s reputation was badly damaged when it suddenly declared bankruptcy and closed its doors, but it was revived soon after by dedicated users who literally bought into the company. Insteon’s financial problems have never been about its products, but mostly about its mismanagement by its former parent company, SmartLabs, during the supply chain crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
Insteon is unique because it uses dual-mesh – or “dual-band” as Insteon calls it – technology that uses both wireless RF and power cable connections. This allows Insteon devices to not only work without Wi-Fi, but also work as a peer-to-peer network. To get started with Insteon, you’d normally buy an Insteon Hub for web access, but a better route for offline control is the Insteon USB PLM, which you can use to connect Insteon devices and interface with the Home Assistant.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n
\n<\/article>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Andrii Yalanskyi\/Shutterstock A smart home without the internet may sound like a paradox, but stay with me. There are already plenty of smart devices that work offline, but you can take it a step further and build a brand-agnostic smart home system that works locally. That means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-laptops-gear"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15079,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15077\/revisions\/15079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runwayritz.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}