[Beginner] What's a good start in 2026?

Hardware Home Automation
1

Hi there, I didn’t see a lot of “state of the home automation” posts, so please bear with my beginner questions.

What I want:

I live in Germany and I’m interested in starting automating things in the house. Main priorities (in order) are:

  • Automating my heating in order to reduce costs. It’s definitely the most important to me.
  • I’m rethinking my lighting situation, so I’m interested in smart lights.
  • Smart shades/blinds would be next
  • Maybe some small solar panels in the future

Where I am

I’m a free software and webdev guy, so that’s why I’d love to use openHAB. Flashing and configuring devices should be no problem to me. Still, I’m not looking to tinker a lot. Installing, configuring, ok, but always adjusting is not my jam. But I can solder and DIY too if needs be.

I’m open to having a non-free solution if it means convenience and ease of use, as long as it’s not collecting my personal data. So this excludes Apple, Google and Amazon solutions.

I’ve read that matter over thread is the future so I’d like to go this way entirely. Though I’m open to counter-arguments.

Server Questions

  • Is a Raspberry Pi still the best way to start? Are there smaller boards that could work? Are there reasons to choose a “real” beefier hardware?
  • If I want local services running on a server (media player, DIY smart TV etc.), is it interesting to run openHAB on it too? or should I just separate everything on different hardware?

Matter integration

So I’ve read I’d need a Matter/thread hub. I’m eyeing the SMLIGHT SLZB06M, but also stumbled upon their nanoHUB. If I understand it right, the nanoHUB would allow for the matterbridge to run even though my openHAB board doesn’t. Is it a use case I need to think about or is the SLZB06M just enough for my needs?

Are there better configs for my simple use case?

2

Hi @OpenMastering !

Welcome to the openHAB community.

Regarding hardware, it’s possible to use Raspberry Pi, and I believe the newer versions with more RAM are more suitable for when you need to expand your automation system in the future.

I use a Rock Pi 4B+ and I’m very satisfied with it.

A Rock Pi 5 would be better. Maybe in the future I’ll upgrade my environment.

Currently, I use a mix of WiFi, Zigbee, and some parts with 433 MHz, since my system is old and I update and expand it whenever possible.

I believe using matter is more suitable for those starting a system from scratch.

3

Interesting question.

Most people tend to go with what they know so ones preference would be different from another.

If I had my time over I would go entirely with Zigbee instead of Z-wave for my primary protocol, however Aoetec have a dual protocol dongle which can control both, this means I don’t use the Hue hub any more. Personally I don’t like to have too many things running.

This is what I use, with the Aeotec Pro10 plugged into the USB.

If it was me, I wouldn’t want to place all my eggs in one basket, however it may be beneficial if services you want are available at a ‘localhost’ level, one unit might be better in those circumstances.

4

If you don’t require any GPIO pins on the RPi to do anything (serial, I2C, digital IO etc) it’s hard to choose the RPi over a mini pc. A second hand NUC would be a good choice, no need to get anything with up to date specs that will break the bank.

5

The whole point of openHAB is you don’t have to choose any one technology to standardize on. The state of home automation is so fragmented, and Matter is so new (and complicated), that you likely will not be able to reach your goals using just Matter. There simply isn’t the variety of devices available yet.

Note, I’m not aware of any purely Thread based devices short of a couple products from Nest. Do you really mean Zigbee?

RAM is the limiting factor. So you’ll want the equivalent of at least an RPi 4 with at least 2GB RAM, 4GB + is better. And it’s really just the lack of RAM on the RPi 3 which makes it unsuitable.

For the price, often a refurbished mini-pc gives you more for your money. However, using them with openHABian can be trickier and more involved. So it depends on whether you want a turn-key system or to manually install and configure everything.

That’s up to you really. It all depends on how beefy the computer(s) are you run this stuff on, how you want to manage and maintain everything, and what your tolerance for downtimes are.

The turn-key approach of openHABian would have you run openHAB and just a few other home automation related services on one machine and everything else would run somewhere else. Some people use Proxmox clusters or Kubernetes and the like with automatic failover.

Except for the fact that openHAB requires certain ports, there’s nothing inherent in it that makes it incompatible with other services on the same machine.

Technically called a Thread Border Router (TBR) to bridge between the Thread network and IPv6 network (Matter does not work on IPv4). You only need one if your Matter devices use Thread instead of WiFi. Many hubs support Matter but do not provide a TBR. So watch out for that.

I haven’t done much with Matter yet so I don’t have any opinions about the hardware you point out. However, the OH add-on doesn’t yet support inclusion a new devices yet as far as I know. So you will need something, usually an app on your phone, that works with the hub to do inclusion. Inclusion usually requires scanning a QR code as I understand it.

Most people use these just for inclusion. Once a device is part of the Matter network OH can see it and represent it.

6

Welcome to openHAB Samuel. I have been using OH for about 6 years. Before that I had a number of systems in houses using z-wave on a platform called Vera. I am not nearly the technical expert that some of the people here are but I have installed and manage dozens of these systems.

Despite that I am in a similar situation to you because I have recently moved from the US to Europe, so I am re-thinking everything.

For me, by far the simplest and most reliable approach for the controller is openHABian on a R-Pi with a passive case. It’s small, cheap, silent, convenient to install and maintain, and there is nothing else running on the system to cause or contribute to problems. I have about 40 of these systems out there and have experienced an extremely high level of reliability.

For devices I started with z-wave because that’s what gave me the best choice of hardware. The early years of z-wave were a bit rough, honestly. The inclusion process was pretty difficult and buggy, range was pretty bad, and some devices went through batteries at alarming rates. Version 6 was a significant improvement in all areas, and then again with version 7, especially with the expanded range. I have not had any experience with v8 yet. The biggest remaining issue I have seen with z-wave is when the device is in close proximity to metal objects. Even plastic-foil coverd HVAC ducts can significantly hinder z-wave communication.

I am also interested in Matter/Threads as it seems to be the future and, being over wifi (if I understand correctly) I expect the range to be better. I am currently living in a stone house with some seriously thick walls, even inside, that I would expect z-wave to have difficulty with.

I would be interested to hear what experience others have had with Matter/Threads.

7

Unfortunately in the couple of months since my last post, the pricing situation on RPis has only worsened, with no improvement for years likely.

At this point I would recommend scavenging old hardware as even the second hand market is inflated. A while back I salvaged an old business computer with an Intel 6100 cpu that was destined for the bin. After upgrading the drive from magnetic to SSD, and upgrading the RAM from 4G to 16G, it’s slightly less raw cpu power than a RPi 5, and still runs around 15W under load. Thankfully I purchased the RAM and SSD before the price explosion.

The current state of affairs brought to you by the AI companies and the RAM/SSD cartel.

8

Matter is a standard that operates on WiFi or Thread. Some devices use WiFi only. Others use Thread only. Except for hubs, I don’t know if there are any that can do either or.

To use Thread one needs a Thread Border Router which is kind of like a Zwave controller in a lot of ways. It bridges from the Thread mesh network to the WiFi network.

In a lot of ways Thread is closely related to Zigbee. So I would expect it to work about as well as Zigbee in most deployments.

9

Thanks @rlkoshak yes I looked into things more after my post and it seems that z-wave actually has better range, but mains-powered devices run on Matter and some wifi routers (my TP-Link Deco) include a Matter hub so that makes it convenient. That way you are using the wifi mesh network already in place. Almost the only battery-powered devices I have used lately have been leak sensors. It would be nice to see those with USB power/Matter functionality.

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I have the Decos too. They do not support Thread. Only WiFi.

11

Right, mine have an integrated Matter hub but no TBR.

12

I recently changed my hardware setting to include a thread network. I had both zwave and zigbee networks running fine. I bought a SMLIGHT SLZB-MR4U that offers both zigbee and thread networks simultaneously. I was a bit disappointed because of the lack of an OTBR within the firmware. So I left it in a drawer for a while…

I recently used it and I discovered that a new firmware release offered an OTBR. I decided to replace my Sonoff zigbee USB dongle plus by the SMLIGHT. 3 days after, the zigbee network seems to run fine (the migration was very easy). I started to experiment the OTBR with some IKEA devices. I successfully included those devices using the chip-tool command.

Next step will be to connect my zwave USB dongle to the SMLIGHT (there is a USB connector for that).

Hope it helps.