Definitely Zigbee or Z-wave instead of wifi. Once you start to build out more devices you will be glad to not have gone down the wifi route.

I went with Zigbee and have Sonoff SNZB-02 temperature and humidity sensors in each room that have been absolutely flawless since the day I installed them, and they last about two years on a single battery!

I would obviously recommend them but I don’t have any experience of other thermostats or of Z-wave.

I did also install smart Zigbee TRVs on each radiator but I don’t rely on the internal thermostats of them as they don’t accurately represents the overall room temperature.

As others have mentioned the Philips bulbs are about as good as you can get but they are also the most expensive. And that you can save money by going with the IKEA lineup but the quality isn’t as good. But your third option is Innr bulbs which sit perfectly in between Philips and IKEA for quality and price.

TLDR

Philips - best quality / most expensive

Innr - medium quality / middle pricing

IKEA - lowest quality / least expensive

Note: when I say the IKEA is the lowest quality, I just mean between these three. They are still miles ahead of any of the no-name brand crap you can get on Amazon.

I use Syncthing for files/photos/videos and Nextcloud for calendar and contacts.

Amazfit with Gadgetbridge.

I bought one a couple of years ago and it works great. Gadgetbridge keeps all the smart functionality local to your phone.

I’ve heard good things about the Garmins as well which I think are mostly also supported in Gadgetbridge.

Yeah, just use the Beta, it’s extremely stable. Don’t get it from the Play Store though, as you’ve seen it hasn’t been updated in years. Just get it from their GitHub.

I’ve tried quite a few after leaving Nova a few years ago and have settled on Lawnchair. It seems to be the most stable and is under active development.

Best alternative for WhatsApp would be Signal

I’d recommend checking out Gadgetbridge. It is an open source app, with no network permission requirements, that replaces the OEM app for a large number of watches. I’m running an Amazfit GTS 4 with it and it has been almost flawless.

I’d second the recommendation for Gadgetbridge and would add most of the Amazfit watches to the list. I have the Amazfit GTS 4 and it has run flawlessly with Gadgetbridge.

That’s fair. There are just quite a few that you’ve posted that I’d have loved to know who they were by so I could check out their other stuff.

deleted by creator

It would be great if you could credit the OC when you post these.

Who is the OC?

The front fell off! That’s not very typical.

Ugreen do this type of adapter

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079K773M7

Happy to help

I’ve added my Docker Compose files in a reply to my original comment which may help make things a little easier for you when you get to setting it up yourself.

I’ve replied to my own original comment for better visibility if you want to check that.

For those asking, here are my Docker Compose files for Piper (text-to-speech), Whisper (speech-to-text), and OpenWakeWord (allows the use of a wake word with things like the Atom Echo)

Piper

version: '3.3'
services:
  wyoming-piper:
    container_name: wyoming-piper
    image: 'rhasspy/wyoming-piper'
    ports:
      - "10200:10200"
    volumes:
      - '/docker/containers/wyoming-piper/data:/data'
    command: [ "--voice", "en_US-danny-low" ]
    restart: always

Note: The voice can be changed depending on your preference. Listen to the possible options here.

Whisper

version: '3.3'
services:
  wyoming-whisper:
    container_name: wyoming-whisper
    image: 'rhasspy/wyoming-whisper'
    ports:
      - "10300:10300"
    volumes:
      - '/docker/containers/wyoming-whisper/data:/data'
    command: [ "--model", "base", "--language", "en" ]
    restart: always

Note: The model can be changed depending on the power of your system. See possible options here.

OpenWakeWord

version: '3.3'
services:
  wyoming-openwakeword:
    container_name: wyoming-openwakeword
    image: 'rhasspy/wyoming-openwakeword'
    ports:
      - "10400:10400"
    volumes:
      - '/docker/containers/wyoming-openwakeword/data:/data'
      - '/docker/containers/wyoming-openwakeword/custom:/custom'
    command: --preload-model 'ok_nabu' --custom-model-dir /custom
    restart: always

Note: Even though the model for the wake command is set in the Compose file, this can easily be changed in your HA Assist settings.

After they are up and running, you can just manually add the Integrations to HA which will create the Wyoming Protocol Integration. Then go back to your Assist settings and they should be available in the relevant dropdowns.

I hope this helps

No problem. Yeah I found the documentation a bit of a maze as well.