Home Assistant beginners

martin363 said:
I am also interested in Thread and Matter. I am trying to research a little on them as they seem to be the future, given they also 'unify' the walled gardens into one box, at least that seems to be the idea and can operate a bit like a WIFI Mesh network I think, but from what I can tell are not backward compatible with Zigbee or Zwave.

Obviously Thread is now available in Apple TV, and has been I believe for a while in HomePod and Google Home, but has anyone started to use it? and can offer advice re. benefits and drawbacks? I am investing in HA now and want to future proof myself where I can.

thanks
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Yup - whole lot of stuff on this, decent summary here - HA supporting all of it as and when devices start to support (suspect it'll be some time):
www.home-assistant.io

Matter in Home Assistant workshop announcement

On June 15 we're showing how Matter will work and guide you in getting it set up.
www.home-assistant.io www.home-assistant.io

I think I'd summarise as Matter/Thread will open up and remove a lot of the home automation noise, but a) companies like Apple, Google, Phillips will not want to give up their dominance so will be 'limited' in their approach and b) they will still not offer the extra features Home Assistant lets you get access to (as they'll want to charge you for it with separate devices and/or services!)

Summary from HA here:

At Home Assistant we're very excited about Matter. Here are some highlights for ... | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com news.ycombinator.com
So in short, I think it'll make HA integrations even easier and not much else...
 
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katie279 said:
Yup - whole lot of stuff on this, decent summary here - HA supporting all of it as and when devices start to support (suspect it'll be some time):
www.home-assistant.io

Matter in Home Assistant workshop announcement

On June 15 we're showing how Matter will work and guide you in getting it set up.
www.home-assistant.io www.home-assistant.io

I think I'd summarise as Matter/Thread will open up and remove a lot of the home automation noise, but a) companies like Apple, Google, Phillips will not want to give up their dominance so will be 'limited' in their approach and b) they will still not offer the extra features Home Assistant lets you get access to (as they'll want to charge you for it with separate devices and/or services!)

Summary from HA here:

At Home Assistant we're very excited about Matter. Here are some highlights for ... | Hacker News

news.ycombinator.com news.ycombinator.com
So in short, I think it'll make HA integrations even easier and not much else...
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Thank you, will have a read. I am sure as you say, the big players want to maintain control of their devices and revenue streams.
 
dLockers said:
So does it decomm my Hue Hub? Or does my Pi speak ZigBee already?
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I'd advise to keep the hue hub rather than integrate the lights individually. The reason being that it provides some redundancy if your HA goes down for whatever reason, you can at least still control the lights with the hue app.

@dLockers - edit: was meant to say hue app*
 
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Semple said:
I'd advise to keep the hue hub rather than integrate the lights individually. The reason being that it provides some redundancy if your HA goes down for whatever reason, you can at least still control the lights with the hue app.

@dLockers - edit: was meant to say hue app*
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Absolutely - if you have it already, no reason not to. Although the reverse is also handy - couple of times the hue app was famously buggy and slow to respond, so I was able to just use HA to instantly control
 
Have to say, our Hue Bluetooth app and Google Assistant Bluetooth link have both flaked out for us, but the HA app has never once failed to access them. Plus it's had 100% uptime since about March aside from 2 reboots while I was updating.
 
dLockers said:
You are bypassing the hub?
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No hub - they're Hue Bluetooth bulbs so originally we bought them and paired via mobile app and directly to the Google Assistant. Then we got Home Assistant with a ZigBee dongle (coordinator) and connected that too.

I don't know if it's the Bluetooth link or the Google cloud side of things, but sometimes it just says it can't access the bulbs. And the Hue Bluetooth app just periodically forgets who we are and makes us log in and "set up new devices"
 
Well I managed to get it up and running on a docker on my Synology and running directly from an external SSD. Not a big deal for a lot of you but this is stretching my knowledge.

That said it couldn't find any of my devices so had to manually add them and create external components folders for some of the stuff.

I'm now thinking "now what?". I've got my devices all in one place which is awesome, I can even see my CCTV in real time which is cool. I just need to work out what I want to do with it.

Haven't connected any solar or battery stuff yet.
 
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Freefaller said:
Well I managed to get it up and running on a docker on my Synology and running directly from an external SSD. Not a big deal for a lot of you but this is stretching my knowledge.

That said it couldn't find any of my devices so had to manually add them and create external components folders for some of the stuff.

I'm now thinking "now what?". I've got my devices all in one place which is awesome, I can even see my CCTV in real time which is cool. I just need to work out what I want to do with it.

Haven't connected any solar or battery stuff yet.
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Heh, welcome to the club!

Yes, I've got Synology too and I've generally found them a little tricky to do the simple stuff, eg CMS, image management, run docker instances. I suspect this is as much about my lack of skill than anything, but if you e got this far, you're over the hardest bit!

Few ideas:
- play with some graph cards to track when your CCTV is being triggered
- add your phones to it so you can track battery levels, make a button to make your phone ring when you've lost it
- add local traffic cams so you can see what traffic is actually like in the morning
- add weather integrations to show satellite clouds and forecast for your house, work etc
- add your Synology to it so you can track disk levels, CPU usage, network bandwidth etc
- obviously you can add your solar/battery stuff
- add hass.client app to your PCs so you can track their status, CPU usage, temps, send commands to them (eg hibernate, shut down at certain times) and use as media players around the house.
- integrate your tvs

Goodness the list is endless - obviously depends on what other devices you have in the house...
 
One glitch yesterday was my SD card for my Pi was clearly knackered. So a fiver later and a crazy fast delivery from Amazon, I am up and working in seconds (using Hue bridge);

Zdq8pWO.png

Just want to play with getting Hugo/Bright data integrated...
 
dLockers said:
One glitch yesterday was my SD card for my Pi was clearly knackered. So a fiver later and a crazy fast delivery from Amazon, I am up and working in seconds (using Hue bridge);

Zdq8pWO.png

Just want to play with getting Hugo/Bright data integrated...
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And you're away!

Good fun, eh??

Yes in due course you can migrate to an SSD if you want to ensure long lasting endurance - I used home assistant on an SD for about four years without any problems, but they do have a shelf life for intensive use apparently.

Have a poke at automations at some point - eg you could create a button that turns on your sonos, picks a certain playlist and puts your lighting to a certain mood.

Likewise you could have an automation that turns your bedroom lights to a nice blue light and gradually fades them up in the morning to wake you...!
 
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katie279 said:
Likewise you could have an automation that turns your bedroom lights to a nice blue light and gradually fades them up in the morning to wake you...!
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How do you do that one? I’ve been running HA for a couple of years now but this particular automation has always seemed overly complex and beyond my understanding…
 
Bluecube said:
How do you do that one? I’ve been running HA for a couple of years now but this particular automation has always seemed overly complex and beyond my understanding…
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I did it manually many years ago (basically automation that starts at X o'clock and then every few seconds increases the lights until reaches full level)

However, these days there's a blueprint for everything:
community.home-assistant.io

Wake-up light alarm with sunrise effect

GIthub Gist: Home Assistant Blueprint: Wake-up light alarm with sunrise effect · GitHub This is a blueprint for a wake-up light / alarm clock using a dimmable and color-temperature controllable light entity. It takes its alarm time from an existing timestamp source (such as the _next_alarm...
community.home-assistant.io community.home-assistant.io

Not tested, but should do the job!
 
dLockers said:
This is badass.

rnyELiQ.png
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Great work DLockers! I believe you're hooked, eh?

See if you can add a chart showing average WiFi speed over last 24hrs next

I've added weather satellite map also so I can see cloud patterns etc for my area

Are your lights colour/dimmable? You can add colour selectors/slider controls there too.
 
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