
Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3 - fanf2
https://www.home-assistant.io/
======
alias_neo
I've been using Home Assistant for a couple of years now. I won't go too much
into what I use it for, there's a bunch of info about that, and the guys on
the Discord have entire public repos full of all their cool automations (on
Github).

What I would share is that in the couple of years I've been running it, I've
been through a dozen Sandisk and Samsung MicroSDs on my Pis _even though_ I
was running my time-series database, and my MQTT server on a separate server.

Running on Raspberry Pi it's a nice toy, but when you get serious, install it
on a proper box with an SSD/spinning rust.

I bought a NUC-like device which is what most people will recommend to run it
on, installed Arch (you can use whatever you like, Debian is probably best
supported) and get going.

Briefly though, I log all of the temperatures and light levels in each room of
my home using Z-Wave sensors, store them in Influx and graph them in Grafana.

I have my desk lamp turn on when motion is detect at or around my desk, I have
my cameras start recording when nobody is home (based on location reporting
from our mobiles using Owntracks back to my self-hosted MQTT server).

I have hue lights in every light socket in the home so I can switch them to
various moods based on motion, time of day, lux, whether the TV is on, the
weather, the temperature, etc etc.

The Home Assistant dashboard shows my server load in my rack , temperature in
my rack (via a temperature sensor connected to an ESP8266 talking MQTT back to
the server), all info on my UPS, load on various power meter wall plugs
(Z-Wave) which can also be controlled on/off via HA, it shows the current
temperature and light level and motion in each room via Z-Wave motion sensors.

Most importantly, the community that sit on Discord are a friendly and helpful
bunch so it's nice and easy to get started.

~~~
snapetom
Man, so glad it isn't just me. I've had so many problems with my SD card
corruption on my Pi/HA setup, it's ridiculous.

~~~
ce4
The Pi3 can boot directly off usb, alternatively just have the boot partition
config (fat filesystem) on microSD point to the real rootfs on ssd/spinning
hdd.

I have a raspbian cups fileserver thats ignoring all this and keeps running
for 3 years on the same cheap sd: have it set up to offload almost all writes
to tmpfs to reduce wear: /tmp, /var/run, /var/tmp, /var/log, the cups spool
folder and more (/var/spool/*). Noatime mount option.

~~~
CBLT
> /var/log mounted on tmpfs

I would never do this at my job, even if I ship logs. I might do this on cheap
hardware at home though.

> Noatime

What makes noatime better than relatime?

~~~
ce4
It's at home, an old raspberry was used as a wifi bridge for a laser printer.
I basically used only spare/scrap parts. Also: s/fileserver/printserver/
though, my bad.

> relatime

Sits somewhere between atime and noatime, where "somewhere" is tunable. I
wanted the least writes, so i went with noatime.

------
balloob
Founder of Home Assistant here. Happy to answer any questions.

~~~
hirundo
My initial experience with Home Assistant has been very frustrating. I filled
my house with HomeSeer HS-WD100+ and HS-WS100+ wall dimmers/switches. I
thought I was safe as they are best sellers in zwave devices. But Home
Assistant doesn't seem to support them without elaborate workarounds that, as
a noob, I haven't been able to penetrate. The forums have been talking about a
solution coming soon ... for years now. In the meantime I'm stuck with a house
full of home automation that I can't automate.

I may be too dumb for this, but I do manage to survive as a full time
developer, in linux, using yaml daily. Yet the learning curve on Home
Assistant has been brutal.

Can Home Assistant improve on this? Can we someday buy best selling devices
and expect them to work with it? I realize that Home Assistant is not intended
to be and will never be as noob friendly as the proprietary consumer hub
software. But can it at least get friendly enough for a professional dev to
figure out how to turn on a light without several weeks worth of head banging?

~~~
balloob
On the YAML front: we've added support for configuring integrations via the
UI, no YAML involved[1]. However each integration will need to be adopted
individually for this. YAML will still be around for power users and people
who like to use version control.

For Z-Wave: the current integration is based on openzwave, a reverse
engineered implementation of the Z-Wave protocol with an irregular release
interval. As we depend on their releases, it's out of our control.

However, there is hope :) Sillicon Labs (owner Z-Wave) has recently published
an official SDK for Z-Wave[2]. Once Home Assistant Cloud is generating money,
the plan is to pay a developer to integrate it into Home Assistant. Once we're
on an official stack, I expect our Z-Wave story to improve significantly.

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qpKe-
FW9Yk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qpKe-FW9Yk) [2]:
[http://zwavepublic.com/developer](http://zwavepublic.com/developer)

~~~
gbrayut
Glad to hear there are plans to improve it. I'd be willing to do a patreon or
monthly donation just for better zwave!

Keep up the great work!

~~~
gerdesj
My experience has been a bit different to yours but has included a fair bit of
headbanging 8)

Zwave support seems to be really good to me. This:
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00YETCNOE/ref=oh_aui_de...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00YETCNOE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
works passed through to a VM after a vMotion to another host! All Zwave
devices I've tried seem to simply work but to be fair I have not done anything
like an exhaustive set of tests.

The support on the forums is awesome - one of the best communities about. I'm
not quite there yet to really give decent advice but I'm close.

Home Assistant is being developed at a breakneck pace. That means that you
must be careful and treat your project with respect. Backups and backout plans
and testing must be taken seriously. You have to read everything you can get
your eyes on - the forums and docs are very, very, very good. If you do all
that then you will be richly rewarded.

------
Lightbody
Since this comment thread involved a lot of people talking about their smart
devices, I’ll just put out a PSA: don’t bother with cheaper zwave light
switches and dimmers :) if you’re looking for a high quality decent price
option, just get Lutron Caseta. Or if you want higher end / better style, get
Lutron’s RA 2 Select hub (basically Caseta++) for $100 more and then you can
use Caseta dimmers or higher end Maestro dimmers that have a nicer interface
(but cost 2x).

I’m speaking from experience: I put in a bunch of $35 zwave switches but they
are physically worse (ex: thicker metal margins that make fitting wall plates
more awkward) and they are more painful to work with the software (ex: setting
high/low dimmer trims is awkward compared to Lutron’s in-app approach). I wish
I had just gone with the $60 Casetas switches (plus remote if white is your
color). The price difference is well worth it.

~~~
bradfitz
Lutron devices don't form a mesh network, though?

And a limit of only one range extender.

And only 50 devices?

[http://www.casetawireless.com/Pages/faqs.aspx](http://www.casetawireless.com/Pages/faqs.aspx)

I'll stick with Z-Wave, even though it's not perfect. And it's true that
there's some terrible Z-Wave hardware but there's also better (and pricier)
gear.

~~~
rufugee
I've tried both Z-Wave and Insteon, and have settled on Insteon. It forms a
mesh network over both powerline and RF and it's been extremely reliable so
far. With Z-Wave, I had quite a few range problems.

~~~
Klathmon
zwave is unfortunately VERY dependent on the devices you use.

If you get high quality devices across your whole network, it works great.
It's fast, it's reliable, and it'll work over pretty long distances with the
mesh networking stuff.

But even one shitty device can bring a whole network down, not to mention that
you tend to gamble the first time you buy a device if you are gonna get a good
one or not.

Things are MUCH better now if you stick to zwave-plus only as the zwave people
are taking a much more "hands on" approach to ensuring that you can't sell
garbage with the zwave name on it, and they've added a ton of really nice
improvements to the system.

But unless you are just starting out it's gonna be tough to get a full zwave-
plus network.

------
Djvacto
I have a raspberry pi where I installed Home Assistant a few months ago when I
moved into my new home. I did a little bit of messing with it, but stopped
while waiting to have more devices that could communicate with it.

What are some of the more useful things people have found they are able to
accomplish with this, and what was the best way to go about them?

Ideas I currently am toying with: presence sensors to turn lights on/off,
somehow measuring the voltage used by appliances (washer/dryer, dishwasher,
etc) to notify me when they finish running, a camera in my backyard that uses
basic image processing to tell when my dog squats and I have to go pick it up.

~~~
Klathmon
some of the stuff i've wired up around my house:

* zwave motion sensors that can turn on the stairs lights at night when I start to walk down

* door/window sensors that will automatically turn the AC off if they are open for more than a minute.

* several methods of presence detection for anyone in the house, and ensuring the doors are locked, lights out, and garage doors down if nobody is home (after an announcement on the google homes just in case anyone somehow is still home)

* automatic notifications to my wife's phone when i'm on my way home after work so she would know when to start dinner (we don't use this one any more as I work from home, but it beat getting phone calls and me guessing how long I was from home every day!)

* notifications that show an image of who is at the front door when there is motion there

* an alert if a door in the house is left open for more than 1 minute

* a vibration sensor combined with a tiny hall sensor on the door of the washer/dryer to notify me when laundry is done (trying to measure power usage on 220v wiring was looking to be more annoyance than it was worth, so i went a different route!)

And one of my favorites that i'm working on right now:

* a system to measure rainfall amount and only turn on the reclaimed water sprinklers when it's not enough, but adjust the runtime accordingly.

~~~
programbreeding
>* a vibration sensor combined with a tiny hall sensor on the door of the
washer/dryer to notify me when laundry is done (trying to measure power usage
on 220v wiring was looking to be more annoyance than it was worth, so i went a
different route!)

Your option was likely much less expensive, but aeotec does make a clamp-on
energy sensor[0]. It's made for reading your whole-home energy but it should
work for your purposes. But like I said, your solution was likely much cheaper
(these are about $99).

[0] [https://aeotec.com/z-wave-home-energy-measure](https://aeotec.com/z-wave-
home-energy-measure)

~~~
Klathmon
I thought about that, and like you said it was pretty expensive, plus it would
require me to cut the power line for the dryer to pull one of the lines out.

And then I was back at square 1 for the washer, which turns out uses little
enough energy in a lot of cases to be hard to tell when it's "done" vs when
it's just pausing between cycles or swapping water out.

I also wanted to have the notifications continue until you actually empty it,
and that required a door sensor anyway!

I really want to get one of those for the oven though, my wife tends to worry
that she left the oven on (she never has!) and something like this connected
to it might help ease that worry. And I REALLY don't want to do anything
invasive to the oven, as that's one thing that i REALLY do not want
accidentally turning on or shorting out.

------
davidu
This project is far and away becoming the standard for Home Automation.
Incredible to watch over the last couple years.

~~~
Klathmon
Not only that, but Home Assistant is by far my favorite example of a well run
"crowd run" open source project.

There's no big company bankrolling it (well there kinda is since ubiquiti
hired the creator, but not to the same extent something like Chromium is just
google), there are a HUGE number of committers, and the structure encourages
people to maintain and improve their own contributions via 3rd party packages.

There's no fighting, there's not much gatekeeping, it's not overly
complicated, and they are EXTREMELY welcoming to new contributions, no matter
how "unique" the use case is (look at some of the integrations! There's
integrations for local bus schedule systems!). And on top of that, there's
world-class documentation! That's rare enough in paid products, but to see it
from a project like this, and the fact that it's almost always up to date is
simply amazing.

They held my hand through creating 2 new integrations, and I haven't developed
in python for almost 10 years, and they were extremely helpful, responsive,
and at the end of the day the product got better for everyone.

I really don't have enough good things to say about Home Assistant.

~~~
balloob
Thank you, really appreciate this kind of feedback :)

I store these kind comments in my notes and whenever people are asses online,
I always go through the stored notes to know why we do what we do.

------
eddyg
Last discussion was ~10 months ago[0], but lots of progress has been made
since then, including the new Lovelace UI[1] and HassIO[2] for the Raspberry
Pi, based on the new HassOS[3] (a very small and efficient OS to run Docker
like a hypervisor).

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15521743](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15521743)

[1] [https://www.home-assistant.io/lovelace](https://www.home-
assistant.io/lovelace)

[2] [https://www.home-assistant.io/hassio/](https://www.home-
assistant.io/hassio/)

[3] [https://github.com/home-assistant/hassos](https://github.com/home-
assistant/hassos)

~~~
adamfeldman
Multi-user auth is another exciting development, and it just hit RC status

[https://developers.home-
assistant.io/blog/2018/07/02/trying-...](https://developers.home-
assistant.io/blog/2018/07/02/trying-new-auth.html)

------
adamfeldman
I use an Intel NUC* with Hass.io and am absolutely thrilled with it (switched
due to slower reboot times on the Raspberry Pi — HA requires reloads when
changing device config)

*Model NUC6CAYH

Am actually running Hass.io within Proxmox, so I can easily run other stuff on
the machine as well. Haven’t yet tested USB pass-through for my Z-Wave and
Zigbee USB sticks.

~~~
jvolkman
+1 for the NUC. I replaced my Raspberry Pi with one because I was building
custom versions of OpenZWave, and I found cross-compiling painful and
compiling on the Pi even more so.

I run Hass.io, but just installed it manually within a Debian installation.
It's worked fine (including plugins/updates) for ~6 months.

------
ocdtrekkie
At the time I started rolling my own home automation software, Home Assistant
didn't do what I needed, but if I was starting today with where it's at now, I
would almost certainly also be using Home Assistant. It now supports what it
was missing before.

Truly unreal number of integrations built for it now.

------
syntaxing
Is there an on-device voice assistant for home assistant? I looked at snips.ai
but debating if this fits my use case. I just need something to turn on/off my
lights (and adjust color) and maybe play music through my TV.

~~~
HarveyJJ
I use snips regularly, set it up for music and lighting control just like you
haha. I really enjoy how easy it was to setup - have a ton of Pis sitting and
gadgets sitting around. Are you looking to get their maker kit? Or use your
own setup?

~~~
syntaxing
I plan on using my own setup, I'm might get there eventually when I actually
buy a Philips Hue set...Do you have any good tutorial? I saw the two on Snips'
medium blog but I am not sure if there is anything else out there?

------
ohitsdom
Incredible project. Such a well-run open source system- monthly updates with
great release notes and documentation.

~~~
HarveyJJ
Yep fully agreed - eager to see where they go - mass adoption is huge but I
think because their platform targets newb and prosumer audiences it'll be
easier. Also, the website does a good job at showing features - some
competitors out there are NOT doing this enough. Privacy aspect + edge vs
cloud is what triggered me to get it :P

------
orthecreedence
I have a question for the home automation crowd. Are there any wifi switches
(wall-wart style that don't need to be embedded in the wall) with an open spec
or open source that I don't need a custom app with a weird protocol to talk
to?

I'd really like to wire up some automated switches but after days of research,
found that just about every wifi-enabled switch requires some bullshit android
app that requires phoning home to a third party. I'd like to keep everything
LAN-only.

~~~
throwanem
You're probably going to have a hard time finding consumer networked light
switches that run on anything that _isn 't_ a wireless protocol. It's been a
minute since I did any of this kind of work, but as I recall it, most US
building codes forbid high-voltage (for residential values of the term,
meaning ~120V wall supply) and low-voltage cabling from being run in the same
conduits or boxes. That makes Ethernet and any other wired protocol (that
isn't powerline) impossible, at least unless you're OK with risking your
network cabling becoming live at mains voltage, and/or not getting a payout
from your fire insurer if your house ever burns down.

In any case, good luck!

~~~
orthecreedence
I'm looking for something like this: [https://www.amazon.com/RockBirds-
Required-Function-Control-A...](https://www.amazon.com/RockBirds-Required-
Function-Control-
Appliances/dp/B072BRBK2S/ref=sr_1_4_acs_osp_osp20-60fdd6fb-08_2)

Except, doesn't require a custom android/ios app. I do want wireless protocol,
but once the switch is networked, I want to be able to control it without some
middle-man app that is phoning home outside of my network.

~~~
hondadriver
There are many options. For the wireless part my suggestion is to use zwave or
zigbee devices as both protocols are open and widely used.

You can use a raspberry pi with a controller and Home Assistant (or
equivalent) or an Athom homey which is not fully open but freely programmable.

Option: [https://xiaomi-mi.com/sockets-and-sensors/xiaomi-mi-smart-
so...](https://xiaomi-mi.com/sockets-and-sensors/xiaomi-mi-smart-socket-
plug-2-zigbee-edition-white/)

And Ikea will release zigbee wall plugs this year, their gateway uses the open
coap protocol (no need to use their app) and as said you can also use any
zigbee controller you want.

Fibaro sells zwave wall plugs, but there are others.

Finally sonoff has wifi plugs which can be flashed with open firmware.

~~~
hondadriver
No need to wait for Ikea (expect for probably lower price)

Innr smart plugs

[https://www.athom.com/en/store/product/innr-sp120-smart-
plug...](https://www.athom.com/en/store/product/innr-sp120-smart-plug-energy-
monitor-2300w/?_ga=2.251972809.1586758823.1535128888-828477ac-179f-9906-418c-d9f54b987999)

------
tssva
I last took a crack at setting up a home automation system about 10 months
ago. At the time I found Home Assistant to be the easiest open source solution
to setup and configure. Unfortunately this was a very low bar.

Although the basic documentation regarding installation and configuration of
the core Home Assistant was ok the documentation for the individual components
used to integrate and automate were either extremely incomplete or outdated.
Successful configuration of the system required searching forums to dig out
the required configuration items that weren't documented anywhere else.

Creation of a usable interface was another struggle. Again proper
documentation was an issue and even once that was found configuring anything
useful was just a tedious process.

Unfortunately I had to give up on an open source solution and reluctantly
moved to a commercial home automation system which turned out to be worlds
above any of the open source solutions when it came to ease of configuration
and UI/UX.

Hopefully the open source solutions mature quickly and using them nolonger
approximates the experience of maintaining my linux desktop in the 90s.

~~~
rufugee
I worked with Home Assistant for some time, but ended up falling back to
OpenHab2. While I don't like the "enterprisey" java-ish feel of OpenHab2, the
documentation is much better that Home Assistant, and the support for
components is much broader. It's been nearly flawless in production for me for
over a year. ymmv

------
hottopic4
Also agreed with the zwave sentiment on a hardware side lightbody. I'm
building out a multi car garage at the moment for the wifey and looking for
something that adopts to multi-room voice commands and automation. So far
tried a few open source pi configurations but felt at a loss for additional
benefits. Home Auto was nice and did good stuff! Moved to Snips recently
(someone mentioned them in the thread i think?) and have really enjoyed it.
Tried out their live console which is quite nice. Privacy is an added bonus in
my opinion but the multi language support (french) is fantastic. A ton of cool
projects going around though.

UI for end user is also stinging point so many do wrong. What else are you
looking for? Purposes, end goal?

------
mendelk
Since there are eyes on this thread: Has anyone successfully linked their HA
Cloud account with Alexa? I keep on getting "We were unable to link Home
Assistant at this time."

~~~
balloob
We're working with Amazon support in trying to pin down why this is happening
but the support response time is slow. Our end looks all fine and the majority
of people are able to link their account.

You can try some of these troubleshooting steps[1]. If you are on Twitter or
Discord, PM me (@balloob) your username and an exact timestamp that linking
failed so I can forward it as another example to Amazon.

[1]:
[https://twitter.com/clstokes/status/1019039457339535360](https://twitter.com/clstokes/status/1019039457339535360)

~~~
mendelk
Thanks balloob. Tried all the solutions in the thread. None worked for me.

------
bbarn
This might be what I'm looking for, but the components page is broken. I need
small, affordable temp+humidity sensors that multiple people can monitor via a
web page or app. I did something similar years ago with a solution from a
company called "One wire" and a lightweight PC interface, but it's pretty
dated now and new components are tough to find. Any suggestions?

~~~
SEJeff
I believe you want the esp8266 or esp32 microcontrollers with esphomelib:

[https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2018/06/05/esphomelib/](https://www.home-
assistant.io/blog/2018/06/05/esphomelib/)

You can get esp8266 devices as cheap as about $1.30 on Ali express or you can
get the super tricked out ones (mainly just for prototyping) from adafruit for
about $9.99. They call theirs the Huzzah and it comes with stuff that you
don’t have to solder on to most esps anyways. But a small cheap wireless
sensor (3.3V) that can attach to any small sensor makes for some interesting
automations.

------
platz
I wish automation platforms were language agnostic. That way you can mix
scripting/programming langauges and take advantage of the libraries that exist
in each platform. some vendors only release integration APIs in certain
languages; they are hard to predict and also may not be the language you want
to use for your backend logic, as opposed to your job logic.

------
bcohen5055
I've been running Home Assistant for a while in Docker on my home NAS server.
It runs great, is reliable, very scriptable, and so easy my wife can use it! I
run it on my LAN without needing any additional online services and I VPN when
away from home if I want to check anything out.

------
webXL
For me it still has the same frustrations as Smartthings or some other cloud
based solution, but having more integrations and deeper insight as to what's
happening, when, where and how is the big selling point for me. That and the
speed... Push a button, lights come on instantly!

------
jasonjayr
I couldn't find this easily before, but are there docs for how to build a new
device that would be Home Assistant-ready right away to facilitate easy
integration? Most of the docs appear to be how to get existing devices managed
by Home Assistant..

~~~
selvakn
You can always leverage existing MQTT based components [https://www.home-
assistant.io/components/mqtt/](https://www.home-
assistant.io/components/mqtt/), by making your component MQTT compatible.

Adding new component is also relatively straight forward. For ex, have a look
at [https://github.com/home-assistant/home-
assistant/blob/dev/ho...](https://github.com/home-assistant/home-
assistant/blob/dev/homeassistant/components/switch/zigbee.py) and other
components. You implement couple of methods of existing traits, in this case,
SwitchDevice.

------
jnewland
Home Assistant is super dope. [https://github.com/jnewland/ha-
config](https://github.com/jnewland/ha-config) is my config if anyone's
interested!

------
visarga
I see the home assistant works with a family of devices. But how many of them
are streaming personal data to the cloud?

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Many of them literally can't. My general recommendation is to avoid home
automation devices with a network connection. If you're using things like
Z-Wave and Insteon, they can't talk to the Internet, they're not network
devices, and they rely on an RF adapter or the like to talk to your PC. If you
control the computer/software they talk to, you control what information can
get out.

------
another-cuppa
Does anyone use something like this to help them wake up in the morning?
During the winter in the UK I find it very hard to wake up. I think it would
help if I simulated the sun. Is there a bulb that supports a soft, warm light
in the evening and bright sunlight in the morning?

~~~
gh02t
I've done that using Home Assistant, it's pretty easy. Adjusting temperature
isn't that important, but I'm really light sensitive and having a light slowly
fade on in the morning is enough to wake me up gently.

Many smart bulbs support color temperature adjustment, e.g. Phillips Hue, IKEA
Tradfri, and LIFX all sell bulbs that have that.

