> Does the hub requirement matter that much though? I mean if you want truly peer to peer, then yeah, but if you're already using Home Assistant you can plug a cheap ZigBee usb dongle into that.

Maybe not, but I don't really want to actually run Home Assistant, I want the basics to hack on, really. Trying to pick the most open thing that will be easy to program without relying on using something like Home Assistant (not that its bad or anything).

> So the bit I'm missing: how do you control them purely over WiFi? Do you run software on your phone that can control the target? Eg: app talks directly to the device over your network, instead of via a browser + Home Assistant running on a Pi. I can't think of any examples of a product that works this way without being cloud enabled (IE: there is a hub but you don't own it)

Yeah that's my goal -- basically I want to be able to control the devices from anything web connected (and ideally, the same program running in multiple places).

My thinking is that I can build this without being cloud enabled if I "just" (famous last words) had Thread/Wifi.

With all the excellent feedback in this thread (thanks HN!), it's looking like a small SBC + a Thread/Zigbee/BLE dongle[0] is the way forward, and hooking that up to my router via USB so it's always powered and follows the router around (maybe velcro it on).

SBC (or something smaller maybe, but probably the SBC) so I can program it myself.

[0]: https://sonoff.tech/product/gateway-and-sensors/sonoff-zigbe...

The basics of Zigbee isn't Home Assistant, it's something like zigbee2mqtt with a USB dongle and then you interface directly to an mqtt broker.

For my automations I do just that and I bypass home assistant and control my devices directly over mqtt. It works very well.

Home assistant absolutely can own the Zigbee coordinator, it works very well, too (this is what I’ve been using for a couple years with the SkyConnect dongle.)

Yes, my point was just that you don't have to rely on Home Assistant if you don't want to.

> Yeah that's my goal -- basically I want to be able to control the devices from anything web connected (and ideally, the same program running in multiple places).

HomeAssistant provides a REST API for all devices connected to it. I don't even use its automation features, I just use it for the API to control my ZWave devices from other stuff.

https://developers.home-assistant.io/docs/api/rest/ (POST to /api/services/ to control remotely)

(Granted it's pretty heavy if that's the only feature you want, but hey, what you want does exist)

Oh yeah I’m aware, thanks for pointing it out. I also have zigbee2mqtt available for me for API-first interaction.

Setting up HA at least at first seems like a good idea so I can figure out the best parts and worst parts and have a baseline