Smart Home Energy Management: The Landscape

Part 2 of the Smart Home Energy Management series. ← Previous: From Power Plant to Smart Home

The Contenders

The smart home market is crowded. But when we filter for platforms capable of serious energy management—not just turning lights on and off—the field narrows considerably. Let's examine the major players.

Home Assistant

The open-source powerhouse.

Home Assistant has become the de facto standard for DIY smart home enthusiasts. Its strengths for energy management:

• Energy Dashboard: Built-in visualization of production, consumption, and grid interaction
• Integrations: Supports virtually every inverter, battery system, and smart meter on the market
• Automation: Powerful YAML-based or visual automation builder
• Community: Massive ecosystem of add-ons and custom components

Limitations:

• Steep learning curve for advanced configurations
• Energy management is an afterthought, not a core design principle
• No built-in forecasting or predictive capabilities
• Automations can become unwieldy for complex energy logic

OpenHAB

The enterprise-grade alternative.

OpenHAB targets users who want structure and stability over bleeding-edge features.

• Rule Engine: Powerful, but requires Java/JavaScript knowledge for complex scenarios
• Bindings: Good coverage of energy hardware
• Persistence: Solid data storage and historical analysis

Limitations:

• User interface feels dated
• Smaller community than Home Assistant
• Energy management requires significant custom development

ioBroker

The German engineering approach.

Popular in German-speaking countries, ioBroker offers a modular adapter-based architecture.

• Adapters: Extensive support for German energy market (Tibber, aWATTar, etc.)
• Visualization: Flexible dashboard creation
• Scripting: JavaScript-based automation

Limitations:

• Documentation often German-only
• Less polished user experience
• Energy management still requires custom scripting

Proprietary Solutions

Vendor lock-in with polish.

Inverter manufacturers (Fronius, SMA, Huawei, etc.) and battery vendors (Tesla, BYD, Sonnen) offer their own energy management platforms.

• Pros: Tight integration with their hardware, professional support, often "it just works"
• Cons: While they work well with their own hardware, functionality beyond that is severely limited. Why would Huawei care about your shutters? Or your non-Huawei heat pump? These platforms optimize for their ecosystem, not your home.

The Common Problem

All these platforms share a fundamental limitation: energy management is bolted on, not built in.

They were designed for general home automation—lights, thermostats, door locks—and energy features were added later. This shows in several ways:

• Reactive, not predictive: Many just respond to current conditions, not forecasted ones. And even fewer provide a strategic mode of operation.
• Device-centric, not energy-centric: You control devices, not energy flows
• No optimization: They execute rules, they don't optimize outcomes
• No holistic approach: What does energy management have to do with shutters? For starters, a lot: correct shutter management means less heat influx, which means less air conditioning usage. And what about an AS3935? 😉 You'll see. 🌩️

What's Missing?

For serious energy management, we need capabilities that go beyond what these platforms offer out of the box:

• Weather-aware production forecasting
• Consumption pattern learning
• Multi-objective optimization (cost vs. autarky vs. battery health)
• Grid tariff awareness (dynamic pricing, peak/off-peak)
• Cross-site coordination
• Graceful degradation during communication failures

These requirements form the foundation for understanding what real energy management demands—the topic of our next article.

Next Up

In Part 3, we dive deep into the technical requirements for proper energy management. What does a system need to do to truly optimize your private power plant? [Link to Article 3]