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As a consumer and homeowner I try my hardest to buy "smart" things that only have local control, especially for important systems like power and HVAC. Our standby generator has a manufacturer supplied wifi pod that I never set up. Instead I use an RS485-to-USB dongle and monitor it myself with open source software. Our HVAC is the same to the greatest extent possible. When shopping for a new robot vacuum Valetudo[1] compatibility is an overriding concern.

If/when we have solar installed it will not be connected to the manufacturer or distributor's cloud systems.

[1]: https://valetudo.cloud



I love the idea of Valetudo but flashing devices with it is a hell of a lot of work (if you can at all) and projects like these aren't entirely safe from takeovers from malicious actors either.




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