The GL.iNet GL-S10 is a small IoT gateway based on an ESP32 which has the particularity of being POE powered. It’s apart from this rather unremarkable which makes it perfect for running ESPHome which is increasingly attractive due to the new bluetooth proxy feature in homeassistant. They’re also super hackable and this seems fully supported by the vendor which even gives relatively nice instructions. Aquiring such devices is pretty easy from the usual sources, I found mine on ebay for ~30eur each since I’m impatient and didn’t want to wait.

If you have some Velux blinds (SSL, MSL) or windows which use the velux ACTIVE branding you likely can hook them up to control them remotely. In order to do this you need to buy the velux gateway KIG300 which is often sold as a kit with some temp/humidity sensor which I didn’t get. The annoying thing with this setup is that it’s using the apple homekit integration as well as requiring a smartphone app for the initial setup, pairing this with a network that has no internet is also a little tricky, so this is by far not my favourite solution.