Philips Hue has worked well at home, but adding more smart lights and switches can get expensive. I wanted to gradually move to more affordable IKEA devices.
I already had a small home server: a Mac mini running Ubuntu. I installed Home Assistant OS in a virtual machine on it, giving me one place to control devices and more freedom to combine products from different brands.
At first, I thought switching to IKEA would mean giving up my Hue devices. It turned out that wasn’t necessary. Using a ConBee III coordinator with Home Assistant’s ZHA integration, I was able to connect Hue lights directly to the system without the Hue Bridge. IKEA switches could also control Hue lights.
That turned out to be a better solution than replacing everything with one brand. I can add more affordable IKEA devices where they make sense and keep using the Hue lights I already own. Home Assistant brings them together in one system.
I moved the devices over gradually, one at a time. That also gave me a chance to try out automations and check their traces when something didn’t work as expected. When a switch stopped responding once, the traces showed that Home Assistant had received the button press and sent the control commands. I couldn’t confirm the exact cause of the interruption, but the logs helped narrow down where the problem wasn’t.
The goal was to save money by moving from Hue to the more affordable IKEA range. With Home Assistant, I ended up bringing both brands together instead. Now I can choose devices based on what fits the need and the budget, without making the whole home use one brand.