Home Assistant beginners

jonneymendoza · 9 Oct 2024 at 10:06

dlockers said:
I use govee ones. It has a web app and a lan controller

Can you buy separate lan controllers and power outlets so you can cut the led strip in half and use it twice on two separate lan controllers and power?

Blackvault · 10 Oct 2024 at 17:51

My Raspberry Pi-hosted Home Assistant has stopped appearing on my network. I've switched it off and back on, several times and it refuses to appear on the list of devices on the network.
What's my next step?

b0rn2sk8 · 10 Oct 2024 at 17:52

See if the SD card is still working and check the power supply otherwise it might be time for a new Pi

Blackvault · 10 Oct 2024 at 17:59

b0rn2sk8 said:
See if the SD card is still working and check the power supply otherwise it might be time for a new Pi

I took everything out, shook it around and put it back ... sounds like my sex life

It also begs the question, is there a better way to host Home Assiant and in particular Zigbee devices?

b0rn2sk8 · 10 Oct 2024 at 18:01

I run mine within a VM on my NAS, I didn’t find the Pi very reliable however I was using an SD card and I expect the constant writes killed it quickly.

LuckyBenski · 10 Oct 2024 at 19:52

I've never like Raspberry Pi for long term usage in this manner. Personally I have it in a VM on a USFF PC, NUC style. I really should install more services on there...

Pickers · 10 Oct 2024 at 21:23

I have a mini pc running a VM for home assistant, another for pi hole, and recently another for local Minecraft server... Good fun!

squerble · 11 Oct 2024 at 16:50

So I got Proxmox installed over my lunch break today, and used a helper script to build a home assistant VM on there. I’ve VLAN tagged the VM to my IoT network, and installed HACS, and added Octopus Energy integration as I have a Home Mini.

Now I don’t know what else I’d actually use it for

not to mention the Octopus app on my phone shows me the usage for the day already so I don’t feel like I’ve gained anything yet. I don’t have anything around the house that’s able to be integrated - basic programmable thermostats, no smart plugs, no smart light switches etc.

Gammawolf · 11 Oct 2024 at 17:16

squerble said:
So I got Proxmox installed over my lunch break today, and used a helper script to build a home assistant VM on there. I’ve VLAN tagged the VM to my IoT network, and installed HACS, and added Octopus Energy integration as I have a Home Mini.

Now I don’t know what else I’d actually use it for not to mention the Octopus app on my phone shows me the usage for the day already so I don’t feel like I’ve gained anything yet. I don’t have anything around the house that’s able to be integrated - basic programmable thermostats, no smart plugs, no smart light switches etc.

I like the fact it can easily track/log point in time power usage at a more granular level, as opposed to just the usage over a half hour period. It let me know when in my dishwasher cycle the heating cycles happen so I can optimise at what time it starts to fit the heavy power usage part of the wash into exactly a 60 minute window.

squerble · 11 Oct 2024 at 17:42

Gammawolf said:
I like the fact it can easily track/log point in time power usage at a more granular level, as opposed to just the usage over a half hour period. It let me know when in my dishwasher cycle the heating cycles happen so I can optimise at what time it starts to fit the heavy power usage part of the wash into exactly a 60 minute window.

How often are you polling, once a minute? I think there’s a 100/hour call limit to the API?

Gammawolf · 12 Oct 2024 at 20:06

squerble said:
How often are you polling, once a minute? I think there’s a 100/hour call limit to the API?

I have an octopus home mini so i think it polls the mini locally for that data? Not really sure, i left the defaults on which for me was 1 minute polls

dlockers · 12 Oct 2024 at 20:26

Anyone have any experience with WiFi thermometers? The Bluetooth is just too unreliable for me.

b0rn2sk8 · 12 Oct 2024 at 20:46

I've got a Shelly one, runs of 4 AA batteries. It works - no idea on battery live, I've not had it that long but they allege 1 year, I'm using re-chargeables anyway.

LuckyBenski · 13 Oct 2024 at 01:30

dlockers said:
Anyone have any experience with WiFi thermometers? The Bluetooth is just too unreliable for me.

You mean for the oven, or temperature sensors? For the latter, go ZigBee.

dlockers · 13 Oct 2024 at 09:05

LuckyBenski said:
You mean for the oven, or temperature sensors? For the latter, go ZigBee.

Latter. Can it hop onto my hue network?

LuckyBenski · 13 Oct 2024 at 09:51

dlockers said:
Latter. Can it hop onto my hue network?

Looks like maybe not - some stuff does but limited support. The long term solution really is to get a universal ZigBee controller. I skipped over Hue Hub and went straight to a Sonoff USB controller with HA.

Zigbee sensors with Hue Bridge

Yes, Hue bridge + Zigbee bridge can both be installed, but they form 2 separate Zigbee networks.

community.home-assistant.io

Bluecube · 13 Oct 2024 at 10:07

Even if you have a Hue set up, it’s worth having a Zigbee controller to give more options with what you can use with HA.

dlockers · 13 Oct 2024 at 10:07

LuckyBenski said:
Looks like maybe not - some stuff does but limited support. The long term solution really is to get a universal ZigBee controller. I skipped over Hue Hub and went straight to a Sonoff USB controller with HA.

Zigbee sensors with Hue Bridge

Yes, Hue bridge + Zigbee bridge can both be installed, but they form 2 separate Zigbee networks.

community.home-assistant.io

This is costing me more money now :mad:

LuckyBenski · 13 Oct 2024 at 10:13

dlockers said:
This is costing me more money now

Your mistake was spending any money on Hue

dlockers · 13 Oct 2024 at 10:32

LuckyBenski said:
Your mistake was spending any money on Hue

Haha, nawh, I still believe in full redundancy and it is totally wife proof. It hooks up to Alexa really nicely too.

The thermometers via Bluetooth and ESP32 have been a trying experiment though....