Home Assistant beginners

Couldn't find another thread, so here goes.

Recently upgraded my network kit to Unifi stuff, but balked at their camera prices, so went with Synology Surveillance Station on my ancient NAS (DS214).

I've got mostly Hue kit around the house, but the kitchen has Tradfri strips under cupboards and a Tradfri motion sensor, none of which play ball with Hue.

Anyway, I've managed to get Home Assistant running on the NAS as well, and have a Zigbee USB stick on the way, which may or may not work. If not I may go the NUC route.

Aim is to have proper control over the Tradfri gear and have automations that work with all the lights and potentially link with the reolink cameras to trigger stuff.
 
Well, I've tried and failed to get my Sonoff Zigbee USB controller working on my NAS, can't find USB drivers. It is a 10-year old unit.

Now do I just get an ethernet ziggbee controller, or rustle up separate system.......*rummages around for old laptops*
 
mid_gen said:
Well, I've tried and failed to get my Sonoff Zigbee USB controller working on my NAS, can't find USB drivers. It is a 10-year old unit.

Now do I just get an ethernet ziggbee controller, or rustle up separate system.......*rummages around for old laptops*
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I'm using a HP Prodesk 400 G3 with a 256GB SSD, 4GB RAM and an i3 7100T I got from MM for £30. Works super well if you can't find a suitable laptop; and it's only the size of a large RaspPi.
 
dlockers said:
I'm using a HP Prodesk 400 G3 with a 256GB SSD, 4GB RAM and an i3 7100T I got from MM for £30. Works super well if you can't find a suitable laptop; and it's only the size of a large RaspPi.
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Ordered a Nuc from the bay. I found an old Samsung NC10 but couldn't find the PSU and tbh it's good for the bin anyway.

Quad core N3700, 4gb, 128gb. Should do the job.

The HA version on synocommunity is quite old, be good to have a bare metal HAOS install anyway.
 
mid_gen said:
Ordered a Nuc from the bay. I found an old Samsung NC10 but couldn't find the PSU and tbh it's good for the bin anyway.

Quad core N3700, 4gb, 128gb. Should do the job.

The HA version on synocommunity is quite old, be good to have a bare metal HAOS install anyway.
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Totally concur with that - had several issues with BT dropping out when using hypervisors. Although I am still having BT issues but I am putting that down to the actual temp sensors I am using now :mad:
 
Is a home assistant good for a elderly relative? I quite like the idea of automations making my mother's life a bit easier but if it's a bit temperamental and I don't wanna make things like turning off a light annoying.
 
Stovepipes said:
Is a home assistant good for a elderly relative? I quite like the idea of automations making my mother's life a bit easier but if it's a bit temperamental and I don't wanna make things like turning off a light annoying.
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I'd stick with Alexa and some hue bulbs. It's helped my mum out no end and it's pretty bullet proof.
 
dlockers said:
I'd stick with Alexa and some hue bulbs. It's helped my mum out no end and it's pretty bullet proof.
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I recently bought a couple of indoor motion sensors and whilst not touching the lights in the home for years thanks to setting up time of day things it meant lights were mostly on.

I would have upstairs hallway on nightlight mode 10%, downstairs hallway at 20% and kitchen at 30% for if anybody needed to get up during the night for toilet, it meant they didn't get blinded by switching lights on and their eyes could gradually adjust to the slight increases (800lumen bulbs) and turn off when sufficient light was present, manually adjusted ofc.

Bought some sensors for house, 1 for kitchen and 1 for upstairs window that has line of sight for landing and hallway so even coming in through the door triggered the upstairs and downstairs light to come on for 3 minutes then go off, I just wish they were a bit cheaper to get a couple more but we still have the switches if you wanted them on brighter during the low light hours.
 
Got HAOS on my NUC all running nice with Sonoff USB zigbee adapter, all very smooth and painless.

Any recommendations for Zigbee motion sensors? I've got a Tradfri one but it doesn't expose luminance.

Hue ones are good, having motion, luminance, and temperature sensors, but a bit spendy.

Any happy in between? Or just bite the bullet and get the Hue ones? I need a couple more.
 
mid_gen said:
Got HAOS on my NUC all running nice with Sonoff USB zigbee adapter, all very smooth and painless.

Any recommendations for Zigbee motion sensors? I've got a Tradfri one but it doesn't expose luminance.

Hue ones are good, having motion, luminance, and temperature sensors, but a bit spendy.

Any happy in between? Or just bite the bullet and get the Hue ones? I need a couple more.
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Aqara are one of the best rated, good compatibility, and well priced. Only problem is you pay a premium to have them delivered next day in the UK, if you're happy to wait 7-10 days delivery from China then well worth it.
 
The Hue ones are expensive but are completely rock solid. I’ve got three around the house and they’ve never once failed in the five years I’ve had them.

The Aqara ones are a great alternative though! I’ve got one for testing purposes and it seems to be working very well. Get them from Aliexpress and wait patiently for the delivery from China
 
mid_gen said:
Got HAOS on my NUC all running nice with Sonoff USB zigbee adapter, all very smooth and painless.

Any recommendations for Zigbee motion sensors? I've got a Tradfri one but it doesn't expose luminance.

Hue ones are good, having motion, luminance, and temperature sensors, but a bit spendy.

Any happy in between? Or just bite the bullet and get the Hue ones? I need a couple more.
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The temp sensor isn't great just fyi. And I've never seen the luminance output
 
mid_gen said:
Are the Sonoff ones not worth trying? The Sonoff controller seems to be working fine for me.
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I’ve also got a Sonoff one which was cheap and works. However there’s no luminance or temperature exposed. I should say that I use Zigbee2MQTT for the vast majority of my zigbee devices so if you’re connecting yours with a different method then more/ less sensors may be exposed to HA
 
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