Does it require an internet connection or can it operate locally? Does it need an app/account?

I’m not really familiar with Deseret besides the history and concept. It was optimized for typesetting, lacking ascenders and descenders that tend to break off of metal type over time. That makes it hard to read. It sure has an aesthetic though, and I fancy it would make a great arcane glowing script flowing across a magical obelisk. Shavian was made for the pen. Every letter can be written in a single stroke without lifting the pen, and it uses ascenders and descenders to make the coastlines of words more distinct. Shavian also strives for a “mid-Atlantic” accent in its spelling. This does create some issues if, like me, your dialect uses the same first vowel in cot, caught, father, and bother.

Of the two I think Shavian has a bigger following.

ugh I hate this. I have two absolutes when it comes to what makes a good smart device. First, it has to be able to be controlled via a local network, be it wifi, zigbee, z-wave, bluetooth, etc. There is no reason why my communication needs to leave my network when both the sender and receiver are in the same network. Second, it must work as a dumb device. If my LAN goes down or access is otherwise impeded I don’t want it to be a brick.

I got into Hue way back in 2014, before I knew what HA was, and before I cared about local control. Hue is OK, and they have a wide variety of form factors to choose from, but I’m always afraid they’ll enshitify to the point you can’t pair the bulbs with a non hue zigbee controller. I’m pretty sure I can’t update the bulbs unless they’re connected to a hue bridge.

Using smart bulbs to mitigate the lack of in-wall plugs/switches is a great idea. I do that with my bedroom fan since the light chain is busted.

𐑢𐑧𐑤 𐑦𐑓 𐑞𐑨𐑑𐑕 𐑞 𐑒𐑱𐑕, 𐑮𐑩𐑡𐑧𐑒𐑑 ·𐑤𐑨𐑑𐑦𐑯, 𐑧𐑥𐑚𐑮𐑱𐑕 ·𐑖𐑱𐑝𐑾𐑯.

𐐊𐑉 𐐔𐐯𐑅𐐨𐑉𐐯𐐻 𐐮𐑁 𐐷𐐭’𐑉𐐨 𐐩 𐐣𐐫𐑉𐑋𐐲𐑌.

A fellow thorn enthusiast I see

This. If they sold a dumb lock that just reported whether it was locked or unlocked I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Just quickly searching “Brother Printer” on Amazon and every listing has “Includes Refresh Subscription Trial” in the title.

While this is interesting it wouldn’t work for my needs, mostly because I’m not the one using the printer most of the time. I need something that can print on heavy card stock.

I use a z-wave thermostat (Honeywell T6 IIRC). If you want to avoid the cloud WiFi probably isn’t what you want. I’d look at z-wave or zigbee models. Some thermostats also require a common wire (C-wire) which means they’re powered by the HVAC system itself rather than using batteries. This is especially true of WiFi models.

The cameras are connected to a Unifi Dream Machine Pro. Home Assistant is running on a Raspberry Pi 4.

¯_(ツ)_/¯ maybe. I assumed the detection happened on the NVR (Dream Machine Pro in my case).

Not unless there’s a Home Assistant auto body disposal as well. Also I was wrong, it was a opossum.

This is a Sonoff PIR sensor.

I’m already running a proxmox server on an old laptop. Maybe I could look into that. I need to figure out USB passthrough for the zwave and zigbee dongles.

You can buy a zigbee USB dongle and use the ZHA integration to control (most?) Philips Hue products. I can at least confirm their light bulbs and motion sensors work. You add them like any other zigbee device.

Thirdreality might be a better fit than Hue if you’re using HA, as they advertise HA compatibility right on the product page. I started home automation with Hue bulbs right after they first came out, so my HA setup was very much brown field.

This is the zigbee dongle I use. It came in a 2-pack for some reason.