Building a Privacy-First Smart Home with Raspberry Pi: A Complete EU Guide
After growing increasingly uncomfortable with cloud-dependent smart home devices that send my personal data to unknown servers, I decided to build a completely local smart home system. Living in the EU, I also wanted to ensure full GDPR compliance while maintaining the convenience of modern home automation. This post documents my journey building a privacy-first smart home using a Raspberry Pi, EU-sourced components, and entirely local control. Table of Contents Why Privacy-First Smart Home? What We’ll Build The EU Advantage Component Selection and Sourcing System Architecture Setting Up Sensor Data Collection Smart Plug Integration Building the E-Ink Dashboard Data Management Best Practices EU Regulatory Compliance What’s Next Why Privacy-First Smart Home? The typical smart home setup involves devices that constantly communicate with cloud servers, often in different countries with varying privacy laws. When I started researching smart thermostats and sensors, I discovered that most popular brands require cloud connectivity and collect detailed usage patterns, room occupancy data, and energy consumption information. ...