I’m trying to figure out the best way to keep things organized when you’re running more than one smart home ecosystem. Right now I already have three, Apple Home, SmartThings, and Google and it’s starting to feel a little scattered.
For those of you who juggle multiple platforms, how do you make it all work smoothly?
• Do you let each ecosystem handle its own devices?
• Do you pick one as your “main” hub and bridge the others into it?
• Are Matter/Thread or tools like HomeBridge actually helping in real-world use?
• Any frustrations or lessons learned from mixing ecosystems?
Just looking for real-world setups and what’s been working (or not) for people who don’t live in a single-ecosystem world.
mostly the automation rules may conflict with each other so you have to make sure the rules you created on multiple platforms are not conflicted with each other.
I like apple home’s UI better it is for my daily usage. Then if some extra features/control are needed, I will use the home assistant
I’ve been trying to deal with this myself, and as I got overwhelmed with it, I had to reach out to ChatGPT for help. It’s suggested that I use Home Assistant as the main hub, and then HomeKit as the skin above it all. Since we are so heavily deep into the apple ecosystem, I wanted to retain functionality with Siri. Put in the end Home Assistant seems to be the main integrator.
I run my smart home off the Apple HomeKit platform.I typically will mix brands of devises in my home AS LONG as they have the matter protocol.with doing this I’m able to just operate everything from one app (HomeKit).I create and run all automations from HomeKit and dont create and run in the other brands of products native apps.Doing so will conflict with each other.just choose a main assistant to operate from and you should be good.
Right now, I just integrate everything into HomeKit and run the automations there. There are just a few items I do in the other platforms (e.g. turn on a notification).
I keep all my automations within the Aqara system.
Even automations are hub specific with hub sub devices.
I have found this to be the most reliable. Even if a hub goes offline then it only affects the devices for that Hub. All other automations for all the other hubs continue to work.
With the price of m100 or E1 hubs for small rooms that still works out really well.
My largest rooms contain a dedicated M3 hub and all devices are connected therein.
Smaller rooms like bedrooms contain M2 hubs and all devices are connected therein.
Toilets and bathrooms have either E1 or m100 hubs and all devices connected therein.
I’ve been using smart home systems for a number of years. And to date, this has been the most reliable and bomb-proof system I’ve created.
Everything is connected to home assistant for a nice pretty interface and family control, but there are no automations in there.
I also use home assistant to expose the devices to Google home.
That’s a really good question. It seems to change as we progress down the smart home lane. Adding new devices, updating technology or even moving your home seems to keep everyone evolving.
I tend to use Apple Home for the front end look/feel/daily navigation. I love Home Assistant for the big raw picture to keep everything in order.
I do use Philips Hue app from time to time just for fun and to occasionally make sure all my lights are playing nice with everyone.
I use the Aqara app a lot also for the same reason, just to peek in and check on Aqara devices, make sure Aqara sees what Apple and Home Assistant is seeing.
I often find the Aqara app under performing and is frustrating (it needs so much work) Plus the Aqara app is really only usable on a smart phone.
View/managing a smart home on the big screen has become very important for me so the desktop is the ticket. Quick looks, glances, confirmations and notifications are all great for the smart phone.
What you have to do is to decide on a main one. Then that will do all/most of the work.
For us, it was easy as we are an Apple household and I started there so had lots of investment in that area.
SmartThings came about because I have a fair amount of Samsung equipment (Fridge, washing machine, oven, hob, extractor fan). The fridge comes with a “family hub”. Samsung refuses to integrate with Apple Home and also to create a Matter Bridge.
Home Assistant came about when I implemented a renewable electricity generation capability (Solar and a house battery, but has now expanded to an air source heat pump) and I wanted to manage my electricity usage. It also now acts as my integration point as in allows me to push SmartThings devices to Apple Home, as well as a couple of other devices. Originally this was via a HomeKit Bridge, but now I’m using a Matter Bridge.
Many people talk about how powerful HA is, but it is very much down to the whims of the developers. e.g. the SmartThings integration was not so good until about a year ago… now it is much better.
So, pick what will be your main one, and try and stick with that… otherwise it becomes too complex to manage.
