IoT Migration To Home Assistant ~ SmartThings Behavior & Pending Charges Prompt Big Shifts 24Oct26

SmartThings' Rumbles & Rambles ~ I am sufficiently concerned with Samsung's/SmartThings' (ST) cavalier treatment of my data and their pending pricing for access to my own systems that it prompted a complete migration. "Cavalier" is code for data broker sales and advertising "sharing." I am migrating off of ST to Home Assistant OS (HA or HAOS) for my longstanding IoT network @ Blodgett. HAOS is a solid open systems project doing all that I do with ST, and more, and it is backed by a strong community of contributors. The migration is not simple but necessary to get all my shit under my own control and out of the cloud. The first steps were to get an HAOS system up which supports Zigbee and ZWave and then to "migrate" my sensor array from ST to HA. Here's the kit today with keen ZWave Plus and Zigbee 3 antennas (coordinators) and dedicated future-proofed hardware for HA.

ST > HAOS "Migration" ~ I wish there were a migrate button but the fact is that making this shift requires a careful build up of drivers and applications on HAOS and a methodical deinstallation of sensors, switches, alerting, and automations from ST and a rebuild of same on HAOS. Frankly days of work for the HA neophyte... fortunately it is a pretty decent and secure system & community. Plus, Claude helped plenty guiding with stepwise moves; I did a lot of groping as well though. I began installing the core Zigbee and ZWave support infrastructure and then moved on to removing sensors and lights/switches from ST and adding same back into HA. Here's the Zigbee subsystem with Mosquito, MQTT, my antenna, and some initial sensors and lights migrated. I like automatic lighting on stairs, 'cause I'm old. Ultimately simple automation was used: "if present at top or bottom of stairs and it's not daylight, light it up." But, that took some work.

ZWave Is More Secure ~ A lot of my IoT install is ZWave and ZWave Plus (800 class chips), which is more secure. But, it comes with some management issues, like disassociating from existing ZWave nets before joining a new one (network info persists). I went sensor by sensor, removing stuff from ST and then adding same back to HA... brutal as it required decent access to each sensor and switch to "exclude" on the old and then "discover" on the new. It's good the new system has the dials I want to assure security. Here's the ZWave subsystem adding new S2/S3 secure devices. I've added the needed "automations" for these too ~ "if there's a water leak, notify me" or "if there's door opening while I'm away alert me." Work but I understand what I want and am methodically building it.

Tailscale/Wireguard VPN and Remote Access To HA And AI And SMB ~ I've used Wireguard point-2-point but it is a challenge to configure and I had to build a split tunnel in Summit to simultaneously connect to Blodgett and the Internet. However, Matt taught me Tailscale today, which runs on top of Wireguard and handles so much of the dirty work. We now have a "tailnet" where I can get access to Matt's AI Appliance for relatively free locally-hosted LLM chats (my work processes can't be absorbed by OpenAI or Anthropic now). He gains access to my Plex server and TBs of media. He built a nice ChatGPT chat front end for me so I can use his locally hosted models. Here is me using qwen on our tailnet. And the tailnet is also active on  iOS and therefor I can just run the Home Assistant Companion app without having to pay or enable "cloud access" or poking port forwards when I am remote from Blodgett as I added Tailnet to HA. And I can run queries on qwen anywhere. I've moved completely away from Google Drive as well and encrypted VPNs give me confident but unfettered access to all the files on my server ~ here I'm just showing access to manuals I store there (I store all User Guides and Manuals on my drive as I never know when I might need access to documentation) over 5Ge cellular... though now I have qwen I can ask in real time. Free, and open, and local is better. 

Home Assistant Next Steps ~ With ZWave stuff migrated, automations updated, and Tailscale allowing Kala and me remote access to HA for notifications, etc I need to expand the use cases for HA and eliminate more cloud-based, service-pricing-based vendors. SmartThings and Google are toast, who's next? I also have significant networks of weather sensors in Summit and Blodgett, from Acurite. Those sensors feed panels in my homes but also are transferred through a gateway to "myAcurite" website and also to WUnderground for crowd-sourced weather offers. I bought the 433Mhz antenna and associated SDR dongle for HA and plan to dive on receiving stuff directly from my Acurite sensors and publishing my data directly to WUnderground. More coding required qwen & Claude. Could be certification issues but I'll let you know. The next big "cloud elimination" is Arlo. I've used this motion detecting camera system and cloud recording effectively for years in El Paso and Summit... it helps secure my remote sites. I need to migrate all that motion-cam-recording stuff away from Arlo (now $30/mo/site) to a self-hosted scheme on HA.

Visiting K2 In NCarolina ~ GR8 Fall Visit With Hikes, Birds, Family, Food, & Theater 14Oct26-19Oct26

Kala and I headed to NCarolina to visit Karla & Kevin. We arrived Wednesday night, visited briefly, and rested for the onslaught.

Thursday morning we headed to a local lake and hiked around it on a very nice day. We lunched at Wongs' Tacos, "so Wong it's right" ~ tasty. Afterward we went to Sylvan Waterfowl park. The bird sanctuary was an awesome several acre park with a number of large cages of keen birds from around the world. We returned to Raleigh in time to dine at Pickled Onion and watch the TNF thriller where Broncos bested the Seahawks. I found the tasty Surf Wax hazy from Burial ~ my favored brewer in NCarolina.

Friday we enjoyed a great tapas dinner at Mateo's in Durham's foodie area near the excellent Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC). We then went to the fabulous musical Maybe Happy Ending. This show was very good ~ happy story/book, cute, very funny, well sung and acted by all the actors and it used a set that was the coolest thing I've ever seen. So fun ~ highly recommended, as is DPAC, sound was excellent.

Saturday featured rain all day so we chose to largely veg in front of TVs for college football games. We even ate in and enjoyed Karla's charcuterie plate with a nice Amarone wine K2 wanted us to try. Great wine and great games not always won by the "good guys."

Sunday was again a football day ~ it's "Holy Day" for these fantasy football fans. Before all that though we did go to a very cool craft art cooperative called Cedar Ck gallery. We met Kyle at the shop to visit and have him pick some birthday gifts for his new house in Durham. We even saw some glass blowing and making demos. It was great to see Kyle as it's been a minute, and we were fortunate to meet his partner Isaiah. Afterward we ate at the Carolina Ale House, with a hundred TVs blasting NFL games; I do mean blasting. Back at the nice new K2 home in Raleigh we completed our watch-fest and enjoyed good pizza.

Monday we went to Crooked Hammock Alehouse after the women completed some more Jari estate work. We played weird card game and setback before going to the airport. The return home to COS was not fun with mechanical issues making our plane late to arrive in RDU, cascading to an assured missed connection in DEN to get home. We booked a rental car for a drive instead of flight and found out how to make righteous claims and unwind from other stuff. Admin load but we got home at 1:30am fine. Great visit with K3.

Matt's 32nd ~ F1 & Ikea Build Then Brew Stop & Sushi Den 11Oct26 & 13Oct26

Kala, Letha & I headed early to Matt's on Sunday for the Singapore Grand Prix and a hang in Denver. The race was decent but a smidge boring ~ Max officially is back in the hunt to reel in the Mercedes team. We followed up with brunch at the bagel spot and then a trip to Ikea to pick out a gift dresser for Matt's apartment. We had a pretty good time all-hands-on to build the dresser and listen to Russian pop.

We also went back to Denver on Tue the 13th and grabbed Matt for a beer and great sushi dinner at Sushi Den. Letha met us at the restaurant. It was great sushi and a very nice sake.

Oct26 Music Appreciation ~ Legends And Future Ones Deliver 09Oct26

Legends past, current and future... MA Oct26 has it all from just recent drops.

• Sara Bareilles “Still Crying” OV 31Jul26 ~ What a voice. Let’s go country ballad.
  
• Jaid Joice @ The Portchlight “Devil Won’t” 12Sep26 ~ Introducing Swamp-Rock; cool southern voice accompanied by a nice resonator guitar choice. Very cool one woman show.
  
• Norah Jones & Linda Perry @ NJ’s Playing Along 22Sep26 ~ I’m agog with Linda Perry; dropping a skyrocketing career as bandleader of 4 Non-Blondes to getting behind the panel to engineer and produce many hits for others. Of course Norah Jones is cool but even she is a smidge in awe. Hey Linda.
  
• Punch Brothers @ Back Porch “New Bike” 24Sep26 ~ New album drops soon. It'd be hard to find a finer American string band.
  
• Watchhouse covers “Strawberry Wine” @ Geen Mtn Fest 24Sep26 ~ Always brilliant; here with a keen cover that’s not sad.
  
• Broken Compass Bluegrass @ Rocky Mountain Highway 28Sep26 ~ Just a spectacular NorCal string band showing what can be done; speed counts. Love this band.
  
• Natalie Merchant @ Paste 28Sep26 ~ Beyond 10,000 Maniacs she’s a legend with all the pipes and writing in tact. And she's giving back with stories to tell. Wow.
  
• Humbird “Morning When It Comes” @ Someone's Back Yard 02Oct26 ~ MN woman is a killer songwriter with a new album; here’s the title track in "somebody’s" back yard. Awesome with her long time collab on bass and her keen vocals.
  
• Nicole Atkins “Singing In The Mirror” OV 05Oct26 ~ Nicole is a great singer/songwriter: “They’re coming for your soul to sell it for parts.”
  
• Allison Brown,  Del McCoury & Dan Tyminski With Steve Martin "Old Town Road" 08Oct26 -Literal legends w/ Steve Martin sing a classic; always welcome here.
  
• The Interrupters “Warrior Spirit” OV 08Oct26 ~ ‘Cause it’s been 4 years! Wow… welcome back warriors.
  
  
  

Fall Classic Golf @ Flying Horse ~ Not Playin' To A Thirteen 03Oct26

Wilks, TK, and I met our host Yoho at Flying Horse on a spectacular fall day in the Rockies (including a dusting on Pike's Peak). This was to be the 3rd gathering of this unvarnished foursome for a classic golf outing at Jim's club, and so it was. We had a glorious time despite the entirely untrained game of the Coffins this season. So much fun ~ thanks Jim; thanks Wilks & Matt for coming down; thanks weather gods for sharing splendor.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers Concert @ Gothic Denver ~ Awesome Setlist But Weak Sound 02Oct26

Arrive & Dine... Matt, Jim, & I headed to dinner at The Barn South Broadway on our way to the Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers concert at the Gothic Theater in that 'hood. It was fine for pre-game beers and some bar food. We rolled the Porsches on a clear night and parked close to everything for walking. The queue wasn't too big at 7:15pm but was full of fans. Roger Clyne again provided a great show of southwest tunes to an educated and appreciative crowd. We found our way to a good rail spot near center above the mosh pit (or was it good?).

Chris Day Band... Chris Day opened the show with a 45 min set of stuff I'd not heard; he was not dissimilar from Clyne but the sound sucked from the Gothic floor frankly. Boomy and devoid of mid-range, we couldn't understand his songs. We agreed we'd give Roger two songs and move up to the balconies if the situation continued... it did.

Gothic Sound Issues... The Gothic sound has never been my favorite in town and tonight again produced concern. Sure it was loud, my watch said it was a "loud environment" and I was in danger of hearing loss with 10 minutes of exposure. I used my keen  titanium ear plugs (supposedly just reduces dBs but are flat across the spectrum) for much of the Chris Day set. The issue is that the mids are just not sufficient in the mix and the bass and the low-end dominates and make it boomy and unintelligible. I might be resonances as well. Whatever, we moved the the 3rd balcony and stood behind and between the balcony rail folks. They knew something as I could withstand the errors more readily up there. I cuffed my ears to hear the vocals but it was passable and didn't require too much attenuation. Don't get me wrong, it's a gorgeous and pretty intimate place for music ~ but it needs work.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers... This band and its predecessors with Roger (The Refreshments) are and have been for 30 years a favorite of mine. Jim has now absorbed some of that enthusiasm and Matt is a flat out fan. Matt & I sang a ton of songs ~ he was 2 yrs old when "Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Bouncy" dropped, but he knew them all; good exposure from dad I suppose, but he did need to adopt it for his own. The show tonight was bookends with some splash. They played a number of cuts from the "original album" FFB&B along with cuts from the latest album "Hell For Breakfast." Roger Clyne is a fine vocalist and decent guitar player, but we come for the decades of southwestern-inspired irreverent song-writing and some searing guitar licks from his lead. The crowd was amazing tonight; at least ~50% of the folks knew most of Clyne's songs and sang and bounced and drove fists in the air with enthusiasm. This was good and our new spot in the balcony was serviceable for audio. So ultimately the setlist was great, and the band's playing was likely excellent, but the sound left us wanting for clarity. Fine night with fam and friends though.