Home Assistant fans anywhere here?

[taxbuster]

I've been dicking around with Home Assistant now for a few months...mostly for sensors (eg a freeze sensor in our pump shed) and a few things like switches, bulbs, weather station, remote UPS monitoring etc just for fun.

My primary thing with HA is that it is ALL "local" (ie no calls home to China!) and in any event is on an isolated IoT VLAN.

Wondering if anyone else is using HA?

[Hemi-Cuda]

Yep. Mine controls my garage door, garage and storage room lights (timer so that they turn off automatically), holiday lights (Wyze bulbs and a Twinkly string), and a few other random things. The coolest thing I've done with it so far is with a Marantz receiver that is in the basement storage room that controls the home theater stuff down there, and some outdoor speakers. I've got an old Chromecast connected to it, and if I start casting to it that triggers HA to turn on the Marantz and switch the input, no need to fiddle with a remote. If there's nothing playing for 30 minutes it shuts back off

And the outdoor speakers were initially a pain. They can only be a separate input from the main speakers if you use bluetooth, which didn't work from the backyard. Chromecast worked, but that required turning on an All Zone Stereo mode which combined the two zones and then muting the indoor speakers. I could do all that through the Marantz web interface on my phone, but it was clunky as hell. Managed to script everything in HA though and put it in a toggle switch. Now getting the Chromecast on the outdoor speakers is a single button press, which is handy since my wife can do it now without asking me everytime

[taxbuster]

Ha! That's terrific!! Neat idea.

My wife just detests the idea of remote-controlled anything (except when it suits her LOL) but does appreciate the "sensor" portion. When we are away from the acreage it's good to know what's going on there.

I use the UPS monitoring to tell if the power has gone out ... the UPS will run my fibre (yes...FTTH in the middle of everywhere BC!) and I can VPN into the system throughout that time to see if/when power is on or off. If need be then I can take appropriate action, like call a neighbour for assistance.

As a non-coder, doing YAML anything has not been too easy, and trying to get automations right or get the various cards to "look" the way I want hasn't been too simple either...but I'm slowly getting there.

[ericschand]

Home Assistant is great for many things but it requires setup and maintenance. Some of the things I do with it:
- voice control via Rhasspy (and Raspberry Pi)
- control various room lights via voice. Lights are through Hue. For example, "bedroom lights on/off/percentage" Percentage is the brightness. "Movie lights" adjusts the lights as to how I like them when watching a movie or gaming
- control the TV via voice, eg. "Watch Hockey" turns on the TV to CBC
- bedtime routine, which checks for garage door closed, turn off the TV, turns on upstairs lights for 5 minutes, then turns it all off. If the lights flash green, the garage is closed. If red, go check, it's open. (flashing is 15 seconds)
- voice control does NOT open/close the garage door; I feel that's too insecure
- find a movie to watch by title, actor, etc.
- tell me the date/time, weather conditions and forecast via voice command
...and more

For your "I'm not a programmer" look into NodeRed for Home Assistant. It kind of makes it so you use blocks to build your code. It does get messy though but there's much less yaml or code to worry about.

As for the maintenance aspect, I didn't update HA or anything for a couple of years. Then I did. Which promptly broke everything. I'm still cleaning up one month later as I find the "broken" NodeRed nodes.

I also chose HA and Rhasspy as nothing leaves the home network. It all happens inside.

ers

[totti_07]

anu suggestions for what parts to attach to raspberry pi to be able to control zigbee and zwave products?

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by totti_07

anu suggestions for what parts to attach to raspberry pi to be able to control zigbee and zwave products?

I only have Zwave so I use this

https://www.amazon.ca/Z-Wave-Stick-A.../dp/B07GNZ56BK

If you need both you could give this a try

https://www.amazon.ca/GoControl-CECO.../dp/B01GJ826F8

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by totti_07

anu suggestions for what parts to attach to raspberry pi to be able to control zigbee and zwave products?

I use a Nortek UUSBZB-1 combined USB dongle. Works fine.

[CaptainReboot]

Originally Posted by totti_07

anu suggestions for what parts to attach to raspberry pi to be able to control zigbee and zwave products?

I have this one to control my Zwave door locks, motion and door sensors. I migrated over from SmartThings when that hub failed. Works great, no issues and it's currently on sale.

https://www.aartech.ca/zw090/aeotec-...ick-gen-5.html