Home Assistant beginners

robj20 · Sunday at 11:57

Finding I need to restart HA most days, soon as I click on the settings page it crashes otherwise.
Going to try a Restart Home Assistant automation, the Restart Host Device didn't seem to work.

Honestly getting close to ditching all this automation stuff. Just checked and right now I can't access the device just get the HA logo and nothing else, the app fails to connect.

andy_mk3 · Sunday at 12:01

robj20 said:
Finding I need to restart HA most days, soon as I click on the settings page it crashes otherwise.
Going to try a Restart Home Assistant automation, the Restart Host Device didn't seem to work.

That's far from ideal. Anything showing up in the logs?

robj20 · Sunday at 12:03

andy_mk3 said:
That's far from ideal. Anything showing up in the logs?

They just look like gibberish to me to be honest, nothing useful that I can find.

I have removed my Evohome from the yarl file, as that seems to be blank half the time so maybe it's that.

b0rn2sk8 · Sunday at 13:01

This sounds like something you’ve done to it, or your specific hardware configuration.

robj20 · Sunday at 13:05

b0rn2sk8 said:
This sounds like something you’ve done to it, or your specific hardware configuration.

All I have done is use built in stuff, the only edit I made was to add the Evohome bit.

Crashed again already, can't access via the IP and app won't load.

b0rn2sk8 · Sunday at 13:30

Have you rolled it back to before it started crashing?

Any and all integrations and add ons are third party developed. It’s not really possible to only use built in stuff because HA doesn’t really do anything on its own.

robj20 · Sunday at 13:43

As far as I can tell all the automations are still functioning it's just the front end

The1nonly1 · Sunday at 20:23

Dr House said:
Ok im going to give HA a go,

Should I start with this

Dell Wyse 3040 – Home Assistant OS Hub Smart Home Automation Server - FREE P&P | eBay UK

All software included is open source and provided as-is, without warranty. No setup needed! Just plug in, power on, and start automating! Host add-ons like advanced automations (Node-RED), and more.

www.ebay.co.uk

or go straight to the Green?

Personally, I'd go with something more cpu power and RAM. I have a elitedesk 800 G2 that has an i5-6500t, 24GB RAM (I run proxmox with other VMs and LXC containers) and 1TB SSD. I'd always suggest going a bit more when starting as iot's easier to scale up. This is a good buy to start with https://ebay.us/m/Qh90wO. They are easy to upgrade the RAM and storage if needed.

If you then want to go into smart lights, you'll need a Zigbee USB Gateway regardless of which mini PC you buy. HA can easily go from small to large scale quickly.

willhub · Monday at 08:27

I've just heard of home assistant, well actually that's a lie, I have heard about it but never looked into it because I just thought it was for boilers and things....

Anyway I installed it on virtualBox last night and couldn't believe how easy it is to get up and running and consolidate my Lifx, Yelight bulbs, samsung smart things, tp-link plugs.

I'm wondering what else I can do with it?

I can't seem to link my Merros smart plugs but they can connect via smart things.

Is there any advanced controls possible for LG tv's, as in full remote?
Can I have a card for plex media server (not plex server running on the home assistant VM, just the card that can control it on the host PC.

Is home assistant a possible OS for a NAS as well? Since a lot of add-ons are apps directly running, like Plex

I do consider in the future a small low powered device for it but for now just testing it.

Demon · Monday at 11:53

willhub said:
I've just heard of home assistant, well actually that's a lie, I have heard about it but never looked into it because I just thought it was for boilers and things....

Anyway I installed it on virtualBox last night and couldn't believe how easy it is to get up and running and consolidate my Lifx, Yelight bulbs, samsung smart things, tp-link plugs.

I'm wondering what else I can do with it?

I can't seem to link my Merros smart plugs but they can connect via smart things.

Is there any advanced controls possible for LG tv's, as in full remote?
Can I have a card for plex media server (not plex server running on the home assistant VM, just the card that can control it on the host PC.

Is home assistant a possible OS for a NAS as well? Since a lot of add-ons are apps directly running, like Plex

I do consider in the future a small low powered device for it but for now just testing it.

My advice.. don't use Home Assistant to host any form of NAS, do it the other way around, most people have a good quality NAS OS and run Home Assistant either in a docker container (a little limited) or as a VM from their NAS OS..

I use Unraid for my NAS OS, this then has Home Assistant running in a VM, alongside that, Unraid also has 40+ containers (docker) running all manner of things (non Home Assistant related)..

Whilst Home Assistant is fairly awesome, it's not without issues/foibles that IMO would make me very nervous trusting it with critical data or large media libraries natively..

willhub · Monday at 12:04

I can't afford a NAS at the moment unfortunately, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I was thinking have I got anything in the house I don't use that is powerful enough, my ASUS ROG Ally handheld, I just wonder as it's sitting around, could I make this a temporary NAS? connect it to a USB C hub. Then create a backup so when I get a real NAS at some point can just put that backup onto it? Then stick Home Assistant on that.

Demon · Monday at 15:18

A Rog Ally is actually almost a way OTT processor.. most NAS' are much less powerful!

There is nothing stopping you using a ROG Ally though, in some ways it might be quite interesting.. I'd still just put on a free NAS OS like TrueNAS, and install Home Assistant as a VM..

Installing HAOS in a VM on TrueNAS

Install Home Assistant OS Begin in the TrueNAS UI by selecting Datasets from the left-hand menu. Next, choose a location within your datasets where you want to place your VM (Virtual Machine). Click Add Zvol to create a new Zvol at least 32 GiB in size. ▶ Show Create Zvol Next, check the Zvol...

community.home-assistant.io

Migrating to new hardware should be do-able in the future..

willhub · Monday at 15:25

I had a google and there was concerns over the battery? If it's plugged it the battery won't have any issues?

Also heat? It's quite low powered surely a NAS doesn't require much power anyway?

I did install HAOS on VirtualBox on my desktop to test and it was surprisingly easy to set up, it "just worked", and picked up a lot of devices straight away.

The1nonly1 · Monday at 15:40

You can't use Home Assistant as a NAS if that's what you're asking. What you can do is purchase a SFF PC, HP elietedesk 800 G2 or G3 or a Dell Optiplex, plenty of old office desktops on eBay, imstall proxmox and run HA and a NAS OS such as Open Media Vault as Virtual Machines in proxmox. This is how I do it, along with other VMs and virtual containers.

Demon · Monday at 15:51

willhub said:
I had a google and there was concerns over the battery? If it's plugged it the battery won't have any issues?

Also heat? It's quite low powered surely a NAS doesn't require much power anyway?

I did install HAOS on VirtualBox on my desktop to test and it was surprisingly easy to set up, it "just worked", and picked up a lot of devices straight away.

I assume like my sons Rog Ally, it has Windows 11 on it? If so, you can just do what you do on your desktop and install virtual box, then HAOS..

Use Windows for file sharing and backup if thats what you want and call it a 'NAS'..

As for battery, I believe you can set this to only charge to 80%, if so, that'd probably do to limit long term effects of leaving it charging at 100% for months on end.

It's like using a Laptop running Windows as a 'NAS' it's do-able, but people always recommend using something more dedicated, but technically it'll work and ultimately it's just a CPU in a box that is actually far more capable than you need..

Most low end NAS' are way less powerful than a ROG Ally!

Dr House · Monday at 18:50

The1nonly1 said:
Personally, I'd go with something more cpu power and RAM. I have a elitedesk 800 G2 that has an i5-6500t, 24GB RAM (I run proxmox with other VMs and LXC containers) and 1TB SSD. I'd always suggest going a bit more when starting as iot's easier to scale up. This is a good buy to start with https://ebay.us/m/Qh90wO. They are easy to upgrade the RAM and storage if needed.

If you then want to go into smart lights, you'll need a Zigbee USB Gateway regardless of which mini PC you buy. HA can easily go from small to large scale quickly.

Thanks for taking the time to post.

What about this?

Home Assistant Server HA OS Smart Home Mini PC 120GB SSD 4GB DDR4 AMD HP | eBay UK

Specs are AMD GX-215JJ 1.50GHz, 4GB DDR4 Ram, 120/128GB SSD. Ram can be upgraded to 16GB (1-Stick), and M2 Sata SSD can be upgraded. HP T530 which is a low power fanless silent computer, suitable for 24/7 running.

ebay.us

Less to do with cost but it’s reinstalled so a little less hassle

1pudding1 · Monday at 19:19

I started with that, a T530. Ran fine, but i upgraded a year or 2 so to a Dell Optiplex which is noticeably quicker and snappier loading dashboards etc... getting HAOS installed isn't tricky, Balena Etcher software on a laptop, a Usb stick and the HAOS image and you'll have it installed in under an hour.

This is what i went with -

Dell OptiPlex 3060 Micro PC 8th Gen i5 8GB RAM 256GB M.2 SSD Win 11 PSU | eBay UK

Dell OptiPlex 3060 Ultra Small Form Factor (USFF)/Micro PC. 8GB DDR4 RA M. These are PLUG & PLAY straight from the box - Simply add your credentials and go! You are purchasing ONE PC. In very rare and exceptional situations we maybe forced to substitute your item due to a warehouse/human error...

ebay.us

jpaul · Monday at 22:02

willhub said:
Is there any advanced controls possible for LG tv's, as in full remote?
Can I have a card for plex media server (not plex server running on the home assistant VM, just the card that can control it on the host PC.

my research is that neither of those are available - I don't really understand why though, having a card that would give you a copy of the physical remote control,
rather than just a subset of most frequently used buttons would be great and make the remotes redundant (a few additional shortcut buttons too, please)

cokecan · Tuesday at 08:33

If the TV is LG WebOS then there's this: https://github.com/madmicio/LG-WebOS-Remote-Control

I haven't tried it so can't comment on its quality

jpaul · Tuesday at 11:05

this is what I have on a web page for my humax - verbatim copy of remote buttons, I can touch, for 10+ years
so can control it from anywhere in the house via phone