Introduction
Theatersoft Home
“…automate your home with JavaScript”
Motivation
You want your smart home devices to work together flawlessly, so you have to use a central hub to connect different device classes and protocols. But should you use a proprietary hub if you value privacy, reliablity, extensiblity, and complete control over your own home? Only open source solutions satisfy those concerns.
The ideal solution is one that you can easily audit and customize yourself. That solution is JavaScript, widely used for client apps and server code, with Node.js add-on modules for native device support.
Theatersoft is an open source JavaScript platform designed for the needs of home automation applications and custom user automations and extensions.
Platform Highlights
Theatersoft Home is a platform designed for extensibility.
- A modern message bus and service architecture designed for distributed applications.
- Core home automation services implement common device types, state and actions.
- Device services provide integrations for device classes and protocols.
- A web user interface that enables custom configuration extensions and even entire applets.
Principles: Privacy, Trust, Reliablity
Devices that depends on cloud services are unusable during internet or service outages. Those that are funded through advertising or that exist to provide retail channels are hardly trustworthy. Proprietary products decide what features they provide, what devices they support, and what happens to your data. They may accidentally stop working due to service outages, expose your network and data through security flaws, remove features or even shutdown entirely.
Alternatives
Is Theatersoft appropriate for you?
By leveraging the JavaScript ecosystem, there is a large community of potential developers for this platform. Try out a test install and send your feedback, especially if you enjoy the JavaScript ecosystem and want to contribute.
What if you have unsupported devices? If building device support yourself (with or without community help) isn’t possible, you may need to look elsewhere for now.
Two popular open source alternatives are:
Home Assistant Python 3 backend, JavaScript and Polymer frontend
openHAB Java backend, various frontends
Each can be installed on the Raspberry Pi 3. Try all three!