Home Assistant beginners

Cheetah Designs said:
Trying to decide on what ecosystem to buy into for smart home automation. Some examples of the sort of automation I want:

- Switch lights on/off via voice or tablet/phone
- Ability to view cameras on TV via voice or tablet/phone
- When doorbell rings, automatically notify via the speakers, show a PiP view of the camera on any of the TVs that are on, pausing what is currently playing and also notify on the devices with the ability to view the camera feed on any of the devices that have screens.
- Ability to view historical camera feeds (willing to let this one slide)
- Open/Close the blinds by voice or tablet/phone
- Search for what to watch across the various streaming services

Wife has iOS devices, i will probably switch to iOS devices, so my natural inclination is to just buy into HomeKit. I think HomeKit and Siri can do all off the above with the exception of the video doorbell which it seems to be lacking. By not going with HomeKit I think I'm loosing the tight integration with iOS via the Home control center and also Siri integration..is that correct? Are there any other bits that I'm loosing too that I've missed.

I don't mind investing a bit of time to getting a non obvious solution like HA working if its going to be able to do what I want without weird misdirection. I don't want something like "Siri, ask home assistant to turn off the lights"...it should just be "Siri, turn off the lights"

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Home assistant integrates homekit all very nicely, so don't think you're limiting yourself. It also doesn't 'take over' like Apple, Amazon, Google etc like to do, so you could run both or use Siri to trigger if you fancy.

Everything you describe can be done in HA and a whole lot more...

It's also the perfect year for you....
www.home-assistant.io

2023: Home Assistant's year of Voice

Our goal for 2023 is to let users control Home Assistant in their own language.
www.home-assistant.io www.home-assistant.io
 
I’ve sung the praises of the Wyse Thin Client for HA in this thread, but i’ve already run out of space on the 8GB flash drive :(

But fear not there is a solution!

I bought a Kingston 120GB SATA SSD, shucked the board out of its case, opened up the Wyse box and it’s a straight swap for the 8GB board and then used the same process to restore from a recent backup https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/home-assistant-beginners.18962197/post-36034329
 
Hello guys
Looking for a cheap motion sensor to trigger hue lights which are connected to a hue bridge. I ordered a sonoff zigbee one for near enough £11, but discovered it won't connect to a hue bridge despite it being zigbee :/
What's my best alternative here? Just get a sonoff zigbee USB hub thing? Does that need a pc to set up and link to the cloud etc?
Thanks
 
ShivP said:
Hello guys
Looking for a cheap motion sensor to trigger hue lights which are connected to a hue bridge. I ordered a sonoff zigbee one for near enough £11, but discovered it won't connect to a hue bridge despite it being zigbee :/
What's my best alternative here? Just get a sonoff zigbee USB hub thing? Does that need a pc to set up and link to the cloud etc?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Bite the bullet and get a 3 pack of Hue motion sensors when they're on offer? HA can read the hidden thermometer that's in there too if it helps justify the cost.

I say 3 because they're often on some kind of bundle deal at Currys...
 
I would say long run if you're planning to get more motion sensors/ZigBee sensors, then set up a separate ZigBee network. The dongles aren't too expensive, but does mean you can buy cheaper ZigBee sensors - hue always will be quite pricey.
 
Hmm yeah idk, difficult decision
The stuff I have is such a mishmash at the moment, couple of WiFi door sensors, hue bulbs buttons etc, might be fitting a couple of sonoff zigbee wall switch thingybobs
 
Had some ZigBee switches turn up in 14 days from China, while Royal Mail are managing similar within the UK :D

Done some experiments, all works as expected. I'm also going to figure out how I can use one of these as my thermostat/boiler actuation switch!



 
ShivP said:
TsLWDzA.png

Anyone have any idea why half my config is constantly missing?
I've got the USB sonoff bridge plugged in but can't seem to set it up correctly

@katie279 @andy_mk3 if you have any ideas as I know you have these?
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Hi ShivP, I don't actually have any sonoff stuff (that might be andy_mk3), I know a lot of folk seem to flash them to ESPHome to get rid of all the cloud dependencies etc.

I also use ZHA rather than Z2MQTT, so slightly clueless.

What do you mean by the config keeps disappearing?

You followed one of these tutorials to check you're not missing anything?
 
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katie279 said:
Hi ShivP, I don't actually have any sonoff stuff (that might be andy_mk3), I know a lot of folk seem to flash them to ESPHome to get rid of all the cloud dependencies etc.

I also use ZHA rather than Z2MQTT, so slightly clueless.

What do you mean by the config keeps disappearing?

You followed one of these tutorials to check you're not missing anything?
Click to expand...
Yeah I've followed a few tutorials
That config in the image is about 1/3 of the length it should be and misses a load of parameters - copy and pasting in the 'correct' config doesn't work either, the add-on just crashes :/
No worries if you can't help, I may post an issue on the z2m github
 
@ShivP which exact Sonoff stick do you have? There's a Dongle 'E' and a 'P' version.

Mine is the later 'E' version and this is my config below. Not you need to get the serial location from Settings > System > Hardware > All Hardware. Also if you have the 'E' version it's a good idea to run Zigbee2MQTT Edge.

njaP0Rc.png
 
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andy_mk3 said:
@ShivP which exact Sonoff stick do you have? There's a Dongle 'E' and a 'P' version.

Mine is the later 'E' version and this is my config below. Not you need to get the serial location from Settings > System > Hardware > All Hardware. Also if you have the 'E' version it's a good idea to run Zigbee2MQTT Edge.

njaP0Rc.png
Click to expand...
Cool, thanks. Annoyingly I've ended up with the 'P' version but could return to get the newer E as I understand it's a bit better
 
nst68 said:
I’ve sung the praises of the Wyse Thin Client for HA in this thread, but i’ve already run out of space on the 8GB flash drive :(

But fear not there is a solution!

I bought a Kingston 120GB SATA SSD, shucked the board out of its case, opened up the Wyse box and it’s a straight swap for the 8GB board and then used the same process to restore from a recent backup https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/home-assistant-beginners.18962197/post-36034329
Click to expand...

I did similar when I set mine up just before xmas, I've got a 128GD SATA SSD stuck in mine, only thing I had to do was trim a tiny bit off a heat shield that was round the RAM.
 
Thanks @andy_mk3 all working now :)
Disappointingly this dongle has quite a crap range, so looks like I need to buy some mains powered zigbee devices to make a mesh :/
I have 2 hue bulbs in the area in between, but I'd like to keep them on the hue zigbee network as the buttons and remotes are much easier to adjust using the hue app instead of HA
 
Out of interest, do you have the coordinator plugged directly into the machine? They're quite sensitive to noise from nearby USB 3 ports, so a cable extension is recommended to distance it from the ports. It's not magic though - range is obviously finite. But may help.
 
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LuckyBenski said:
Out of interest, do you have the coordinator plugged directly into the machine? They're quite sensitive to noise from nearby USB 3 ports, so a cable extension is recommended to distance it from the ports. It's not magic though - range is obviously finite. But may help.
Click to expand...
Yeah it's through a USB extension
I'm not too surprised it doesn't reach tbh, there's 1 brick wall (quite thick) and about 6-7m from the antenna to the motion sensor so probably right on the edge
 
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