Home Assistant

Semple · 3 Dec 2020 at 15:48

So, i know a few of you dabble with Home Assistant, and i've found myself recommending it frequently on the "how smart is your home thread". So i figured it would be worthwhile having a dedicated thread where we can discuss our HA setups, share what integrations we have, help on any configuration issues, or even just bounce some ideas around for what you plan to integrate.

For those new to Home Assistant, it's essentially an open source hub where you have a single control point for all your IoT devices. I'm sure many of you have experienced the annoyance of having to open up the Hue app to adjust your lights, and then having to open a kasa app to turn a plug socket on, followed by opening the Nest app to adjust your heating can start to get a bit tiresome.

Link to site: https://www.home-assistant.io/

Demo page to show you what HA is capable of: https://demo.home-assistant.io/#/lovelace/0

My lovelace GUI needs a bit of a tidy up, so i won't share a screenshot of my setup just yet.

In terms of integrations i currently have:
- Adguard
- Phoscon
- Google Cast
- HACS
- Meross
- Hue
- PiHole
- Plex
- Simplisafe
- Sonos
- Speedtest
- Spotify
- TpLink
- Transmission
- Tuya

NeilF · 8 Dec 2020 at 11:54

So it's just an app you can run for example on a PC on your network that then grabs info in from what ever it can interface with?

Semple · 8 Dec 2020 at 12:04

NeilF said:
So it's just an app you can run for example on a PC on your network that then grabs info in from what ever it can interface with?

In short yes.

In terms of an install, it's more of an OS, so you can install it on a VM or a docker, or on some dedicated hardware like the raspberry pi's.

For any IoT devices that collect/generate data, then these can get logged to a database, and then you can setup graphical software like Grafana to create some nice graphs.

As an example i have speedtest plugin, which runs a test every 5 mins and logs the upload/download/ping to a database, and i can then see how stable my connection is:

NeilF · 8 Dec 2020 at 12:18

Oh, so it's not just a dedicate program, but you in effect need a whole machine (VM or not) dedicated to running it?

ps: As for running a speed test every 5 mins, given that hammers the line for 10-20s, isn't that counter productive? ie: If I run a speed test, I can see the performance hit on other devices...

Semple · 8 Dec 2020 at 13:55

NeilF said:
Oh, so it's not just a dedicate program, but you in effect need a whole machine (VM or not) dedicated to running it?

ps: As for running a speed test every 5 mins, given that hammers the line for 10-20s, isn't that counter productive? ie: If I run a speed test, I can see the performance hit on other devices...

Correct.

It could be counter-intuitive on slower connections yes, i've never noticed any bandwidth or latency drop (i'm on standard FTTC 80/20) so it's probably less of an impact unless i was fully throttling the link.

katie279 · 8 Dec 2020 at 14:02

Yeah - I've just got mine installed on a raspberry pi and this powers the whole house.

Integrations are:
- Hue
- 2x Synology NAS'
- 3x Roombas
- 4 x Google Cast
- Samsung TVs x 2
- Dyson Fans
- HACS
- Plex
- Speedtest
- Spotify
- TpLink smart plugs
- Tuya
- Netgear Orbi
- Roku
- Logitech Harmony
- Adax Radiator
- Tado Radiators x 16
- Epson Printer
- Met Office
- 3x phones (Pixel & iPhones)
- Samsung Smartthings - Washing Machine

Have also 3d printed a home panel for the hall and embedded a tablet into the wall as a handy control panel for it all...!

Semple · 8 Dec 2020 at 14:07

katie279 said:
Yeah - I've just got mine installed on a raspberry pi and this powers the whole house.

Integrations are:
- Hue
- 2x Synology NAS'
- 3x Roombas
- 4 x Google Cast
- Samsung TVs x 2
- Dyson Fans
- HACS
- Plex
- Speedtest
- Spotify
- TpLink smart plugs
- Tuya
- Netgear Orbi
- Roku
- Logitech Harmony
- Adax Radiator
- Tado Radiators x 16
- Epson Printer
- Met Office
- 3x phones (Pixel & iPhones)
- Samsung Smartthings - Washing Machine

Have also 3d printed a home panel for the hall and embedded a tablet into the wall as a handy control panel for it all...!

That's my eventual vision/ambition, but i keep changing things around so my lovelace UI is a bit of a mess. I did see a few major updates ago that you can now have multiple lovelace interfaces - so you could set one up for a tablet, and a different one for your TV.

How well is Tado smart heating integrated with HA? That'll be my next big home automation change, but i haven't decided on which one to use - i have a fair bit of Nest and i was put off when Google had pulled the API, but now it's back Nest may well be back on the table.

katie279 · 8 Dec 2020 at 14:17

Yeah, lovelace has become miles better over last few iterations - they're aiming for the big 1.0 this month, so suggest wait for that and you'll be sorted.
works perfectly already on Phone, PCs and tablets around the house (just need to think about designing responsively)

Tado works very well on HA - pretty seamlessly really - looks like this:

Few other screens from other thread for noseyness....

Psycho Sonny · 8 Dec 2020 at 15:51

What is the 30 degree room?

Bikram yoga or weed room?

katie279 · 8 Dec 2020 at 15:54

Heheheh - think it's the gym which currently has a massive pile of boxes covering radiator, hence thermostat's getting confused..!

Eddie2k · 8 Dec 2020 at 21:36

Only just heard about and installed home assistant the other day when searching for a way to log my heating.

I have heatmiser thermostats but their app is completely useless for any kind of logging.

Really happy so far my HA set up. It's purely for heating at the minute but will start integrating other things once my raspberry PI arrives

dadofsam · 10 Dec 2020 at 22:02

What hardware are people running this on?
I know Pi’s are popular but you also need to purchase a zigbee/other relevant protocol adaptors?
Is there a ‘cheats’ package to get me up and running at least from a hardware perspective - I’m comfortable with the software element.

andy_mk3 · 10 Dec 2020 at 22:17

I'm running Home Assistant in a Hyper-V virtual machine under Server 2019 on a Dell R210ii, this machine also runs pfSense and Unifi Video for my CCTV, basically all the stuff that needs to run 24/7 without being touched.

Been using Home Assistant for a few months now and really liking it. I dabbled with it some time ago but it seemed so daunting I shied away from it. But once you get to grips with it, it's quite easy to get things set up. Plus the more they update it, the less you need to play with YAML and more that can be done in the UI. Mostly using it to centralise all of my smart home gear and run automations. All of the automations are handled my Node Red as I love the way you can make things with the flows. Automations are mostly control of lights currently, using timers for scenes throughout the house as well as motion sensors in a few rooms.

I have a Conbee II adapter for ZigBee, that's plugged into a Pi Zero which runs Socat to relay that to my server and through to Zigbee2Mqtt, this is done so the Conbee can be central in the house for good signal. I have quite a few Xiaomi Aquara things such as motion sensors, door sensors, temperature/humidity sensors and lux sensors, as well as some smart buttons and a cube, also Hue lights in every room.

Current integrations are:

Alexa Media
Broadlink
Garbage Collection
Google Cast
HACS
Logitech Harmony
Meteorologisk institutt
Mobile App
MQTT
Philips Hue
Spotify
TP-Link Kasa Smart

No doubt more to add in future too as I add to my smart home.

One of my best features is my own 'Smart Doorbell', using my Unifi G3 camera which is pointing at the front door and an Aquara smart button, it's handled by Node Red to take a snapshot from the camera when the smart button is pressed, save it to local storage then send it out to our phones as a notification to say the doorbell has rang along with the image. Also it sends a command to the Google Home devices to play a doorbell sound.

Below is my current lovelace dashboard, still a work in progress but it means my wife can control things easier which is always a bonus!

Semple · 10 Dec 2020 at 23:05

no idea what said:
I'm running Home Assistant in a Hyper-V virtual machine under Server 2019 on a Dell R210ii, this machine also runs pfSense and Unifi Video for my CCTV, basically all the stuff that needs to run 24/7 without being touched.

Been using Home Assistant for a few months now and really liking it. I dabbled with it some time ago but it seemed so daunting I shied away from it. But once you get to grips with it, it's quite easy to get things set up. Plus the more they update it, the less you need to play with YAML and more that can be done in the UI. Mostly using it to centralise all of my smart home gear and run automations. All of the automations are handled my Node Red as I love the way you can make things with the flows. Automations are mostly control of lights currently, using timers for scenes throughout the house as well as motion sensors in a few rooms.

I have a Conbee II adapter for ZigBee, that's plugged into a Pi Zero which runs Socat to relay that to my server and through to Zigbee2Mqtt, this is done so the Conbee can be central in the house for good signal. I have quite a few Xiaomi Aquara things such as motion sensors, door sensors, temperature/humidity sensors and lux sensors, as well as some smart buttons and a cube, also Hue lights in every room.

Current integrations are:

Alexa Media

Broadlink

Garbage Collection

Google Cast

HACS

Logitech Harmony

Meteorologisk institutt

Mobile App

MQTT

Philips Hue

Spotify

TP-Link Kasa Smart

No doubt more to add in future too as I add to my smart home.

One of my best features is my own 'Smart Doorbell', using my Unifi G3 camera which is pointing at the front door and an Aquara smart button, it's handled by Node Red to take a snapshot from the camera when the smart button is pressed, save it to local storage then send it out to our phones as a notification to say the doorbell has rang along with the image. Also it sends a command to the Google Home devices to play a doorbell sound.

Below is my current lovelace dashboard, still a work in progress but it means my wife can control things easier which is always a bonus!

Is the garbage collection integration even useful? Does it work on a pre defined range of dates?

katie279 · 11 Dec 2020 at 19:30

dadofsam said:
What hardware are people running this on?
I know Pi’s are popular but you also need to purchase a zigbee/other relevant protocol adaptors?
Is there a ‘cheats’ package to get me up and running at least from a hardware perspective - I’m comfortable with the software element.

No need for any adapters, just uses exposed APIs from thousands of bits of hardware - just basically I stall on raspberry pi, plug into your network and it'll discover everything...

andy_mk3 · 11 Dec 2020 at 19:33

Semple said:
Is the garbage collection integration even useful? Does it work on a pre defined range of dates?

Several ways of doing it, with mine I've just set the bins to odd/even weeks respectively. It's note massively useful but it's a thing haha.

Semple · 12 Dec 2020 at 09:29

katie279 said:
No need for any adapters, just uses exposed APIs from thousands of bits of hardware - just basically I stall on raspberry pi, plug into your network and it'll discover everything...

It's better to use a zigbee adapter (like @no idea what I've got a conbee2 stick) because you're relying on a 3rd party to provide you with a service. If their servers go down, or they go bankrupt, then your device becomes dumb. Being able to send commands to the local device means that it is still usable.

katie279 · 12 Dec 2020 at 10:21

Sorry, what are you using the ZigBee for exactly? Is this for certain devices or something? There's no server dependency I've got, hence confused - open source raspberry pi and then it connects to devices without needing to bounce outside the firewall. Ive got lots of esp8266 devices I've programmed in Arduino to control things internally also

PaDE · 12 Dec 2020 at 14:06

Interested in the 3d printed panel, are you happy to share a pic?

We ended up using Vidabox mounts for both our iPads which was hard to stomach at over £100 each (for a bit of plastic) need to do similar for another two when we get some more building work done.

Thanks

katie279 said:
Yeah - I've just got mine installed on a raspberry pi and this powers the whole house.

Have also 3d printed a home panel for the hall and embedded a tablet into the wall as a handy control panel for it all...!

katie279 · 12 Dec 2020 at 18:24

Yes of course, quick photo below.

This one has an Amazon Fire 10 inside. Made a wall mount that sits flush with the wall and has 5mm magnets in 8 or so places that clip the front frame to it really neatly (means I can easily pull out the tablet if I needed to). Reckon the cost of filament / printing was around £2-3 vs your Vidabox mount.....

Happy to print one for you if you were doing it again...! Although for £100 a pop you could get yourself a decent 3d printer for a few of those!

I've kept the sensor on the right uncovered as I use that to display a screensaver of family photos by default and then when it detects someone moving in front of it, it flips to wall panel mode.