Home Assistant beginners

I'm wanting to start setting home assistant up, I have a little server that's running W11 is it easy enough to get it going on that or is just buying the Green thing and ZigBee usb the best and easiest way.
 
Bluecube said:
Buying a HA Green with Zigbee dongle is the best way to start by far. It'll save you a lot of pain! You can run HA in a VM on Windows but it's not recommended except for test purposes.
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The HA Green is definitely the easiest way to get started.

The SkyConnect Zigbee dongle is the "official" dongle (Link) but it's support for Z2M is still experimental, it works fine with ZHA.
When I set up my new home I used Z2M, it's not as simple as ZHA, you have to install a Mosquito broker as well, but once it's setup it gives you more control and information than ZHA.

Zibgee USB dongles don't work that well when plugged in to systems with USB3 sockets (some wireless interference?), the Green only has USB2 but I would still put the dongle on a 1 or 2m extention to be on the safe side.

HA is an enjoyable slippery slope :D
I started off with a Pi3, now running a Proxmox mini pc with HA in a VM, Z2M in container and 48 Zigbee devices
 
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the-evaluator said:
I went down the Home Assistant Yellow route because I wanted M.2 storage and for it to be PoE powered. I'd definitely go HA Green over a Windows 11 box.
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What's the difference between green and yellow.

I ultimately to start with want it to control all my Philips Hue stuff, using my Unifi stuff like camera alerts and sensors.
I also have Honeywell Evohome I can bring in and Amazon Echos for voice input. But mostly lighting with Hue and Unifi

It does seem a separate device would be best for stability, the W11 server will definitely be getting restarted and messed with a lot more. It's only doing Plex at the minute.
 
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robj20 said:
I ultimately to start with want it to control all my Philips Hue stuff, using my Unifi stuff like camera alerts and sensors.
I also have Honeywell Evohome I can bring in and Amazon Echos for voice input. But mostly lighting with Hue and Unifi
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Hue and Unifi are very well supported. However, unless something new has passed me by recently, you won't be able to us the Echos for voice input. You'll be able to use the Echos to control your lights but only through setting them up in the Alexa app.
 
Bluecube said:
Buying a HA Green with Zigbee dongle is the best way to start by far. It'll save you a lot of pain! You can run HA in a VM on Windows but it's not recommended except for test purposes.
Click to expand...
What's not recommended about running HA in a VM on Windows? I've been running HA as a VMware Workstation VM for going on 3+ years now and I can't fault it. You get all the benefits that come with virtualisation and basically no down side. If nothing else, having the ability to snapshot the VM before applying HA updates is a godsend so you can quickly roll back to a pre-update point without risk to corrupting the database should there be issues...and let's face it, not every HA update has been perfect!
 
Bluecube said:
However, unless something new has passed me by recently, you won't be able to us the Echos for voice input. You'll be able to use the Echos to control your lights but only through setting them up in the Alexa app.
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It's possible, there's a couple of options.

Pay for a Nabu Casa subscription (£6.50/month I think).

Another option is to expose HA to the internet (Cloudflare tunnels are popular) and then use Node-RED and this website. I've got several HA devices working through Alexa this way but it's a fairly involved setup so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. I'm going to trial a Nabu Casa account and see if it's worth being less of a tight git.
 
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the-evaluator said:
M.2 storage, optional PoE power & built in Zigbee radio.
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What do you need the storage for? Poe would be handy and the built in radio would mean I can get rid of the hue bridge I think.

Echo and lights isn't an issue, the wife uses switches anyway, but I really do need to find some good switches that work without a neutral wire.
 
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Think I'll stick with the green see how I get on, later add a usb radio dongle so I can remove the Hue bridge.

Then I need some physical switches for the lights.
 
cokecan said:
What's not recommended about running HA in a VM on Windows? I've been running HA as a VMware Workstation VM for going on 3+ years now and I can't fault it. You get all the benefits that come with virtualisation and basically no down side. If nothing else, having the ability to snapshot the VM before applying HA updates is a godsend so you can quickly roll back to a pre-update point without risk to corrupting the database should there be issues...and let's face it, not every HA update has been perfect!
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I was being very general. The various threads and conversations about running HA in a VM on Windows have focussed on VirtualBox. VirtualBox is apparently horrible to run HA on due to losing track of any USB dongles you have plugged in. The other aspect of running on Windows is that a good chunk of people use their everyday desktop machine which may disrupt the running of the HA VM due to necessary reboots, intensive gaming, etc and also could be quite power hungry.

I've absolutely nothing against HA on a VM per se as I run it on Proxmox myself but I do think that it's best run on a lightweight box or server so it can run quietly and undisrupted in the background.


the-evaluator said:
It's possible, there's a couple of options.

Pay for a Nabu Casa subscription (£6.50/month I think).

Another option is to expose HA to the internet (Cloudflare tunnels are popular) and then use Node-RED and this website. I've got several HA devices working through Alexa this way but it's a fairly involved setup so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. I'm going to trial a Nabu Casa account and see if it's worth being less of a tight git.
Click to expand...
I've got a a Nabu Casa subscription but I've been using HA for so long I've completely lost track over the years as to what allows what and how it's done! What I do have on my set up (as a result of the subscription or otherwise) is the ability to expose entities in Home Assistant to Alexa. You have to install the Alexa app on a mobile device and then the Home Assistant Skill. You can then add the exposed HA entities to Alexa and control then voice control them. This is what I meant to replying to @robj20 - apologies for muddying the waters.
 
Bluecube said:
I've got a a Nabu Casa subscription but I've been using HA for so long I've completely lost track over the years as to what allows what and how it's done! What I do have on my set up (as a result of the subscription or otherwise) is the ability to expose entities in Home Assistant to Alexa. You have to install the Alexa app on a mobile device and then the Home Assistant Skill. You can then add the exposed HA entities to Alexa and control then voice control them. This is what I meant to replying to @robj20 - apologies for muddying the waters.
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A much neater and vastly more simple process than mine. I'm going to retire some kit at home, at which point I'll move away from Cloudflare Tunnels + Node-RED to Nabu Casa.
 
Would like to get into some home automation lighting, looking at Philips Hue, I want to start off with some strip lighting for under the cabinets in the kitchen to replace some tube lighting.

Do I need the Philips hue bridge?

Will likely use Apple Home to control things or the hue app itself.
 
beachBOYken said:
Would like to get into some home automation lighting, looking at Philips Hue, I want to start off with some strip lighting for under the cabinets in the kitchen to replace some tube lighting.

Do I need the Philips hue bridge?

Will likely use Apple Home to control things or the hue app itself.
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If you're just going to use Hue lights then yes, you'll need the Hue Bridge. Hue does integrate with Apple Home and has done for quite a while so you'll be OK there. Have a look at the Hue Pro bridge which has just recently been released as this will give you a degree of expansion flexibility in the future
 
Bluecube said:
If you're just going to use Hue lights then yes, you'll need the Hue Bridge. Hue does integrate with Apple Home and has done for quite a while so you'll be OK there. Have a look at the Hue Pro bridge which has just recently been released as this will give you a degree of expansion flexibility in the future
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Thanks, I just got a light strip with base and the original bridge for a decent price, so will see how it goes.
I did notice the pro bridge, but I think the standard bridge will be fine for my needs, can always upgrade in future if need be.
 
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