I like to have them on esphome. In my case I have them as Bluetooth proxies and also use them with Bermuda BLE triangulation (in addition to the air quality stuff).
I have a Airgradient One (indoor) and a Airgradient Open air (outdoor) and love them. They are Esp boards with esphome configs available. They use readily available component that makes sensors easy to replace when they wear out or loose accuracy over time.
The whole project is open and you can buy the DIY kit and build it yourself or buy a prebuilt one.


The reticulum project with the Sideband client is probably a lot more censorship resistant than DeltaChat or Meshtastic.


For those of you who are interested in this but don’t know where to start I think https://www.freedombox.org/ may be a good starting point. It’s been around for a long time, provides easy enough installation and a nice web interface for management. Its based on Debian and you can give it a try on their demo.
Also the vision for the project aligns pretty much with what op is saying https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Vision


I have two Yale Zwave locks that are at least 11 years old and still kicking. The key factor to this is the non reliance on the cloud.
Zigbee, Zwave, Esphome and other non-cloud will always work longer than any cloud based solution that is at risk of being shutdown, use a outdated or no longer available app, become a subscription, etc.
I agree with you that they should be required by law to open their code and unlock the devices but I doubt this will happen any time soon.
These are the latest official configs for the echo.
I have a surface 8 pro too and the easiest way to set it up was to use Aurora (or bluefin if you prefer Gnome). All the drivers were preloaded and if you want to use luks with the tpm it is a breeze to setup.
You can achieve the same with other distros, I’ve done it with Arch and Nixos too but if you don’t have a solid Linux background I strongly suggest Aurora or Bluefin for an easy and solid installation.
Not Matter but this one looks interesting : https://blog.prusa3d.com/a-cheap-smart-light-controller-thanks-to-3d-printing_136243/