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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

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24 alternatives to Bitdog – a completely hackable home automation toolset

Hello Hacker News, My co-founder and I have spent the better part of years developing a completely hackable Home Automation toolset that runs on a Raspberry Pi, or any machine running Linux. With just a Raspberry Pi and a $45 Z-Wave dongle (https://www.amazon.com/Aeotec-Z-Stick-Z-Wave-create-gateway/...), you can run a complete home automation system! Our hub will support any Z-Wave or Z-Wave plus device. We are cloud hosted service that doesn't require you to purchase any proprietary hardware. Our hub software runs on NodeJS and is completely open source. We encourage…

Bitdog is an open-source home automation system that runs on Raspberry Pi or any Linux machine using a Z-Wave dongle. Built on Node.js, it supports any Z-Wave or Z-Wave Plus device without requiring proprietary… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Bitdog – a completely hackable home automation toolset launched in 2018; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

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    Hi. I heard HN likes e-paper gadgets so I wanted to share a little side project I’ve been working on with @sqfmi. We’re building Beepberry - a portable e-paper computer for hackers, designed for chatting on Beeper. My day job is running Beeper [0], but I will always have a soft spot for building hardware. I wanted to create a ‘weekend’ device that would let me stay in touch with friends and family, without the distractions of a full smartphone. I imagined a tiny, hackable e-paper screen with a physical keyboard, powered by a Raspberry Pi, that I could use to chat around my home…and pretty…

    2023 · beepberry.sqfmi.com · its alternatives →

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    Using the Raspberry Pi to water plants automatically

    2017 · mtlynch.io · its alternatives →

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    A few months ago, I was inspired by this post on Reddit, titled: Food items should have QR codes that instruct the microwave exactly what to do. Like high for 2 minutes, let stand 1 minute, medium 1 minutes.. I thought this was a pretty cool idea, and that it

    2013 · madebynathan.com · its alternatives →

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    Hi HN! Proud to share our open-source robot platform, Dobb·E, a home robot system that needs just 5 minutes of human teaching to learn new tasks. We've already taken Dobb·E to 10 different homes in New York, taught it 100+ tasks, and we are just getting started! I would love to hear your thoughts about this. Here are some more details, below (or see a Twitter thread with attached media: https://twitter.com/i/status/1729515379892826211 or https://nitter.net/i/status/1729515379892826211): We engineered Dobb·E to maximize efficiency, safety, and…

    2023 · dobb-e.com · its alternatives →

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    Using only a Raspberry Pi and an $11 video capture dongle, you can create your own KVM over IP device, allowing you to send keyboard input to a remote computer and capture its display.

    2020 · mtlynch.io · its alternatives →

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    3nd generation with faster processor, wireless and Bluetooth

    2016 · raspberrypi.com · its alternatives →

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    Make your home smart with Raspberry Pi

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

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    Your tiny, tiny $15 computer

    2021 · raspberrypi.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Turn a Raspberry Pi into your home cloud

    2024 · umbrel.com · its alternatives →

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    Raspberry Pi 3 based home automation with NodeJS and React Native. - deepsyx/home-automation

    2017 · github.com · its alternatives →

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    Build computer games for your dog or cat

    2019 · hackerpet.com · its alternatives →

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    Found that you can actually run a 35B Qwen model on a Pi with very impressive intelligence and stability. Built connectors for car ODB to read all about car internals, and manufacturer's cloud service for stuff like changing AC or opening/ locking doors. Gave it info such as the full car manual. And then hooked it up with my other agents in our discussion room! So now it can answer car questions such as "when should I add oil and what kind of oil?" and help you fully offline, and when online talk with the agent family that includes all the most powerful models so they know how the car…

    Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

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    Garage door opener. Contribute to evzaboun/garage-door development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

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    1 record player + 1 Raspberry Pi = team bonding at Mozilla.

    2016 · soundcloud.com · its alternatives →

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    I have realized that a lot of people nowadays self-host services and set up home labs with mini racks. One major pain point I have come across personally is to quickly get health status from self-hosted services and machines, and have the ability to headlessly control my Raspberry Pi inside a mini rack. So It got me thinking about building a built-in GUI that users can easily add to their Raspberry Pi nodes in their (mini or full) racks or elsewhere. I have previously designed this GUI for an open source project I have been working on (called Ubo pod: github.com/ubopod) and decided to…

    2025 · getubo.com · its alternatives →

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    Turn your machine into a URL. Peer-to-peer over WebRTC -- no account, no client to install, no port forwarding. - richlegrand/bitbang-cli

    Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

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    A global contest to grow and monitor your own food with Raspberry Pi - alexellis/growlab

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

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    Homation▲127

    Easy way to create a Smart Home with constructor

    2023 · its alternatives →

  24. 24IV

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →