Why SmartESP and not Home Assistant?

One of the most promising systems for home automation is the Home Assistant software package. It is free and open source software. There are other solutions, like openHAB or MajorDoMo, but if we open google trends and look at the dynamics, we see that Home Assistant is becoming an increasingly popular solution. And that's for a reason. It really strives to achieve the integration of the whole "zoo" of sensors, devices, protocols into one universal system, where it will be possible to manage them based on composed automation scenarios. This is its great advantage, but it also has disadvantages.

In general, the trend observed today is that IT specialists create quite advanced solutions, but at the same time, they often forget about the "bridge" for transition to the new achievements of civilization for the rest of the ignorant. This is exactly the role of the Arduino project: it allows everyone from small to large to join the world of programming and electronics. Similarly, I would like SmartESP project to become another "bridge" that will help to enter the world of home automation more easily and then make the transition to more complex systems.

How is SmartESP better than Home Assistant?

SmartESP is better for specific tasks. While Home Assistant can integrate a lot of different smart devices, if you have a standard, generic task such as home heating, greenhouse, chicken coop, incubator, etc., it's much easier to use a specialized solution like SmartESP. No matter how you look at it, Home Assistant is a universal and engineering tool and its use requires:

A mandatory computer as a local server. Moreover, the use of single-board computers is good for project start-up and commissioning and bad for permanent solution because of frequent memory card failure and slowness of work with it. It is more correct, though more expensive, to buy a mATX-board, memory, M.2 SSD disk and a case with a silent PSU. SmartESP gives you the freedom of choice: you can use your own server or use a Prepared server.
System Administrator. Although Home Assistant has a simple installation option, due to pre-formed distributions, but still you should realize that it is a linux server. Its main advantage is its stable operation for years, but the disadvantage is that it requires maintenance by a system administrator, who delves into and controls its work. Working with Home Assistant will require installing additional applications, creating complex configurations, checking their compatibility and correctness, and with the inevitable connection to the Internet will arise and the issue of security. Consequently, you need to either figure it out yourself, which is what most people gradually come to, or hire a specialist from time to time.
A lot of time to learn and start. Even if you have knowledge in IT, still add more time. Let you use ready-made modules BLE or Zigbee, but to form algorithms, scenarios of their mutual work will not be quite easy. After all, for example, comfortable heating is a bit more complicated than just turning on/off the heater by temperature. It is different modes, it is a schedule, it takes into account additional factors. In addition, if you do not use standard devices, you will have to develop a connection scheme yourself and correctly configure firmware files via HomeESP, which needs to be compiled every time you make changes, which is particularly time-consuming on single-board devices.

SmartESP is more secure than Home Assistant. Interestingly, HA positions itself as a product with an emphasis on local control of the smart home. That is, you do not necessarily need to have access to the Internet. But in practice, the following questions arise:

Are you always at home? If not, will you have peace of mind if the Internet goes down and you can't know that your smart home is OK? Yes, the local server should ideally work unchanged. But if we are talking about days, weeks, months? Have you provided for all contingencies in your Home Assistant scenarios? Have you never had a situation where you didn't anticipate an unlikely situation when working with a large number of devices? Obviously, a local server is not a panacea for peace of mind and security, so it is essential to have a conditionally permanent Internet connection to your smart home.
How stable is your local network? This is an important question that is relevant for SmartESP as well. However, unlike Home Assistant, where all devices cannot work on their own, SmartESP has an autonomy mode hardwired into each chip. This mode will bail you out and prevent disasters like frozen pipes no matter where the router, cable, WiFi network, or on the way to the server fails due to lack of internet.

SmartESP is more affordable than Home Assistant. The issue here is not just the cost of the hardware needed for a local Home Assistant server. Simplicity and versatility are always inversely proportional characteristics. And if we openly admit that Home Assistant is a more versatile system, it is natural that SmartESP is simpler and easier to understand. Very often, the talented engineer in a family becomes its vulnerability. By keeping such issues as development and editing of automation scripts to himself, he spends his qualified time on routine, plus risks the well-being of everyone. Therefore, the more task-specific SmartESP interface makes control and refinement of smart device algorithms available to all family members.
SmartESP allows you to upgrade to Home Assistant. If you are new to home automation and decide to start with SmartESP, you can always upgrade to HA or your own controller programming afterwards. You won't need to re-solder or rebuild anything. Once you start building a smart home by solving typical problems, you can always slowly move on to building individual systems of complex architecture, gradually adding different controllers and communication technologies. Using SmartESP, you get basic initial experience, and then you can quickly return (if necessary) to a well-established and stable solution.