Yes, this is certainly not one of the easy ones. It is just a shame that you cannot find similar ones that are as good, or at least I could not when I bought it.
Yes. I am annoyed because I received a new iRobot Combo 10 Max as a warranty replacement. The reason is that I had already ordered a Roborock by that time. 
So, I did not buy this particular model myself, but rather the J9+, and I had already been wanting a Roborock for a long time…
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Idk, I’m a sucker for a good ol’ manual Dyson v15 (whatever the model with the accessories)
Just works, simple, practical and warranty works fine too in case of any problem (just don’t drop it + don’t let it suck water 
).
No need to let a company map out my entire house for some breadcrumbs on the floor.
For example, looks cool but eh, it’s Xiaomi…
I noticed that the tokens are the same as on the old account. This made me think that the device somehow forgets the Wi-Fi information when I delete the account. And yes, they work with such a small delay that the control must be happening locally. I came to the same conclusion when I looked at the tool’s repository on GitHub for a bit.
So, I’m setting up a Home Assistant system for my cottage. The assistant itself and controlling things based on the spot price of electricity are not a problem. I’m just thinking about buying a router for the cottage. What is the best, easiest, and most secure way to connect to it over the internet?
Sorry, connect what?
The router? Can’t you put a cable down the ground?
Haven’t watched it yet but this video covers the topic apparently
So the holiday home is 150 km away.
Wire them with a selfhosted VPN (Tailscale/Netbird) and they’ll be on the same shared network. 
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Tailscale was already my top choice before I asked. Do you have any experience with it, does it work really well?
Tailscale works super seamlessly from the small needs that I had back in the day yes. There is a reason it’s that popular.
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I use Home Assistant, but only with devices that are “local only,” or that can be hacked to become local only (the Sonoff plugs belong to this category). I remotely access HA through Wireguard (I refuse to use Tailscale or other commercial services). I do have a fixed IP however.
The running cost of my setup is basically $0; the Docker host was already in place for other services when I started using HA and I got things right from the start after doing a lot of research when it comes to hardware (bulbs, a few “smart” plugs, a few cameras, AC, garage door, and a few sensors).
My advice is to keep your setup simple. Always keep physical switches as backup, etc. I haven’t touched the setup in months, so unless HA becomes a hobby in itself, it is essentially set and forget. I never had any Big Tech home stuff to compare, but would categorically refuse to give any company any access to anything happening in my home, so HA is the only game in town as far as I am concerned.
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Around here, you can only dream of getting a fixed IP address for a home connection, at least as far as I know..
In my country all (most?) ISPs offer it as a home business plan for extra charge. I don’t think it’s necessary for self-hosting as you can easily use a tunnel. As I wrote, I like the cloudflared tunnel for all my self-hosted stuff as it easily binds to my sub-domains. I rely on cloudflare for all my DNS related stuff which I initially needed before for the email DNS records for custom domains for proton mail.
It sucks that PG is not recommending HA. HA is an amazing tool and is a prerequisite for anyone that cares about their IoT privacy.
My only HA “maintenance” is to keep clicking on its update prompts.
Words to live by here.
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I just double-checked, and according to what I found online, they are only for business customers. Of course, I haven’t called to ask if you could get it with money anyway.
I have a holiday home Home Assistant project going on, and since I’m not worried about anonymity in this case, would you dare to recommend that to compete against the Tailscale that @kissu suggested? The advantage of Tailscale is that I’m already familiar with it, as I use it to connect to my Roon music server with my phone.
edit. The holiday home sounded a bit grand. It’s my dad’s, for now. And https://help.roonlabs.com/portal/en/kb/articles/roon-optimized-core-kit#So_what_is_Roon_Optimized_Core_Kit_ROCK_then
I’ve never used Tailscale so I can’t comment on it too much. Cloudflare is perfect for me since it’s already integrated into HA with its own built-in integration, so I don’t really have to ssh anywhere to set things up. As I wrote, I also like cloudflare’s simple DNS binding stuff. I don’t need to create any custom DNS records myself anymore and it’s all well laid for my custom domain: domain.com - for website, ha.domain.com - for home assistant, molly.domain.com - for mollysocket, ntfy.domain.com - for ntfy (UnifiedPush) server and some custom email records for proton mail.
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I definitely have to try it once I buy the equipment. It sounds like it would be easy to share with my Dad, but I don’t trust him at all, so there really needs to be some way to recognize when someone logs in. I don’t understand how he has managed to work as an entrepreneur for 30 years without problems. It’s like talking to a tree about internet safety.
Cloudflared/Tailscale are about ease of use and security.
If you go the Wireguard/Netbird path, you have the privacy on top of it given a bit more friction to set it up yourself (share it to your family afterwards).
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Yes, you will likely have to upgrade to “business” Internet to get a fixed IP and open ports. The upside is that you can self host everything and never have to pay for cloud anything ever, including email. The benefits of running your own email server are enormous, for example.
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My router supports several types of dynamic DNS so even though I don’t have a fixed IP address I can basically treat it as fixed by always accessing by the DNS name. And the router has a Wireguard server capability which I have enabled. On the iPhone side, the Wireguard client the ability to automatically enable and disable the VPN tunnel to my home based on if it is on mobile and/or which WiFi network it is on. So basically I am always “local to my home”.
So I can access any home service, including my Home Assistant, from anywhere I have Internet connectivity.
No monthly fees, no trusting some one else’s server. Well, I guess I trust the dynamic DNS provider. But with the way Wireguard encryption keys work, the VPN will only connect to my router regardless. If the DNS is spoofed the VPN simply won’t work and I will know something is wrong.
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Yes I think for what you do it is fine not to have a fixed IP, but it does make things harder and the setup somewhat more brittle. If you are hosting email however it is pretty much required as dynamic DNS won’t cut it. The other issue is the residential IP addresses aren’t generally “good enough” (blacklisted).