Got this notification today…so I guess I am in the market now for some outdoor smart plugs.
Can’t do ZigBee or Z-Wave as I do not have that setup for this property, and ideally would want something local (tasmota for example) but I may just have to settle for some Kasa plugs. Any thoughts on where to look for some cheap ($30 max each) and local outdoor plugs that also interface with Alexa (even if it has to through NR)?
You can get normal outlets and put some Shelly relays behind them. They are cheap and pretty good. You can use them in the local network only or through the cloud but that’s your choice. And they will integrate with pretty much anything.
I wouldn’t be so quick to abandon devices you already have, homekit is a local protocol so you just need a controller that isn’t an idevice. Homeassistant has a built in homekit controller library, and there’s one written for node.js as well. Can’t find any nodered nodes that use it yet, but I think I saw something about a similar integration being worked on with CORE
I would not want to keep these devices simply based on principle with this kind of move regardless of how good they are (and they are nothing special). Moves like this are anti-consumer and I do not plan on supporting it in ANY way.
I completely agree, definitely wouldn’t buy anything from them, it’s part of the problem with wifi IOT devices in general, cloud integrations can disappear at any minute.
I was just offering an alternative, since you already own them, to keep them working locally without their cloud services. Not out of principle, but just because I’m cheap and it’s what I’d do lol
@Cjkeenan Hey there, it would appear that ihome didn’t pull the plug on their cloud service. That said, if you are giving away your smart plugs, please PM if it’s still available. I’d like to take them off your hands. Thanks in advance
Reason number 268 on the list of “cloud devices suck”
They should give you your money back, like Iris did when they shut down for any devices THEY made useless by shutting down
