My own house,run by one platform I can fix.
Home automation · iPhone apps · self-hosted · 2026
One self-hosted platform now runs the whole house, where every system used to need its own vendor app: KNX actuators, Loxone, Zigbee, a heat pump that only spoke to its vendor’s cloud, the car, the doorbell and the network, with three iPhone apps on top. Built in six weeks, with close to 2,000 automated tests.
What it replaced
A vendor app for every system in the house, each with its own login and its own idea of what is going on. Now one platform holds the state of everything, and every automation can be switched off on its own.
The automations
Automations, each with what you lose when it is off
- The gate closes itselfOnOff: the gate stays open until someone closes it.
- Climate follows the heat pumpOnOff: the house and the heat pump can disagree about the season.
- Hot water stays in a safe rangeOnOff: nothing guards against Legionella or frozen pipes.
- Every sensor silent at onceOnOff: no alert if the whole Zigbee network goes quiet.
The systems connected
A home controller, spoken to directly
Its encrypted protocol implemented from scratch, including commands found only in the controller’s own web app.
A cloud-only heat pump, made local
Its app decompiled and its network frames written out, so the house talks to it without the vendor’s cloud.
Rooms from Bluetooth beacons
97.5% correct room detection, against 73% for the nearest-beacon rule, tuned over 384 configurations.
When something fails
Deploys roll themselves back
A release that does not answer its health check is swapped back out, without anyone watching.
Unknown is never healthy
Anything unreachable shows as unknown on the status page, and an alert goes out when it breaks and again when it recovers.
Hardware reports intent, not reality
The gate’s state is trusted only from its end-limit switches, and a moving gate never gets a second pulse.
What I stopped doing
Checking apps. The house tells me when something needs me.