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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • I think the answer largely depends on the devices you use. Many devices require an internet connection to integrate with HA. Fortunately, each HA integration should list whether or not they can work locally.

    Here are some device suggestions:

    • Bluetooth
    • Zigbee/Zwave/Zwhatever (local radio control). I don’t use this, but a lot of HA gripes I notice tend to center around support for these devices.
    • The HomeKit spec requires local only control at least as an option. HA can act as a HomeKit hub through the HomeKit Devices integration, so you don’t need any Apple hardware to use HomeKit devices.
    • Shelly makes great wifi and Bluetooth devices that work locally.
    • If you get wifi devices, put them on a separate network and/or have firewall rules that deny them internet access.
    • Use a VPN like Tailscale to access your HA from the internet, rather than exposing your HA instance to the internet through port forwarding.

    Just as an example, I have Ecobee thermostats that are HomeKit compatible. Ecobee provides a cloud service, but I don’t use it at all, and my thermostats are denied internet access at the network level. They still work great through the HomeKit Devices integration.

    Good luck!








  • I started out as “oh that’s a neat idea, I should play around with it” and now, just a month or so later, I depend on it almost daily.

    Just one example: My family was on vacation and my wife asked if I remembered how long our next planned activity would take. Of course I don’t remember, but because I was using Anytype as a scratch pad for picking out our vacation activities (this was weeks prior), I was able to pull up the answer on my phone in less than 10 seconds - even though I had no internet or cell service at the time.

    Having not come from Notion, Obsidian, or any other related software, there was a bit of a learning curve for me. But now I can’t help but keep dumping information into it.


  • It all still works great for me across all my devices (Linux, Synology NAS, Mac, and iOS) plus it looks like their community forums are still active, and they have packages for Synology DSM 7, which is relatively new. The last iOS app update was 2022, but maybe that’s just a sign that it is stable and doesn’t need frequent updates?

    I wonder if you were using their old software called BitTorrent Sync. At some point they did a rebranding, and it could have left you with an abandoned client that stopped working, maybe? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

    Bummer that it’s not working for you. It’s definitely one of my favorite apps.