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Home Assistant 2023.11

home-assistant.io

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Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#21

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

Toutouxc wrote: post #7

Hass is the kind of software that has a lot of rough edges, but you use it anyway because there's very little direct competition. And every release feels like so much stuff has been finally polished, but then you deploy the new version and there's still a lot of stuff that feels or looks weird (the part-bad-UI-part-YAML automation). I have been using it for a couple of years now and I still haven't decided whether I…

"HomeAssistant is the worst form of home automation, except for everything else." Eg the amount of work it takes to play a sound locally is upsetting. But once setup, it is rock stable - which is what really counts. And the number of integrations is impressive, it even detected my tea kettle which for some reason has bluetooth.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#22

Post by wjdp »

Dayshine wrote: post #5
lvncelot wrote: post #2

I've tried getting into Home Assistant a few years ago, but it was right at the switch from declarative yaml files for (almost) everything to most of the stuff being set up via the UI. I would love to give Home Assistant another shot - is that still the case, or is there some way to set up the Home Assistant config via code?

I used to be annoyed by the push from yaml to ui. I wanted my config to be version controlled, and I wanted the power that I though text based config gave me. However, it turns out it's really annoying to use text based config for most things. Primarily because integrations can't edit your config, so you have to do a lot more manual migration of config. Yaml also doesn't have any proper ide support, so it's an annoyi…

I'm very much in the same boat as you here I think. I loved the idea of version controlled config and accepted the edit/reboot loop as that was the only way of doing it back then. It does seem though most of what was in config does live more naturally in UI, a great example is editing a scene with realtime feedback on the actual devices.

I do still periodically go into the config folder and do a bulk 'bump' commit, though given the config is likely useless without the state of the database I don't know if this is ever going to be useful. Perhaps having some history is good in case a complex automation is lost but still quite limited.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#23

Post by yoavm »

mongol wrote: post #20

I gave up on Home Assistant, it required too much tweaking of configs between releases. I took inspiration from https://github.com/stapelberg/regelwerk instead

I don't know where all the frustration with HA is coming from. I've only started with it last year and so far the experience is amazing. Not only that everything just works with it, it's also so simple to create fun automations, and recently I've even built a little watering system with a Pi Pico, and integrating it with HA to show graphs and controls was a breeze.

Also, literally can't recall one time I had to update a config when upgrading HA. It's the one piece of software I'm never worried when pressing "update".

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#24

Post by Heliosmaster »

yoavm wrote: post #23
mongol wrote: post #20

I gave up on Home Assistant, it required too much tweaking of configs between releases. I took inspiration from https://github.com/stapelberg/regelwerk instead

I don't know where all the frustration with HA is coming from. I've only started with it last year and so far the experience is amazing. Not only that everything just works with it, it's also so simple to create fun automations, and recently I've even built a little watering system with a Pi Pico, and integrating it with HA to show graphs and controls was a breeze. Also, literally can't recall one time I had to updat…

I've only recently (less than a month ago) started to use HA and I have polar opposite impression from you.

I gave up on updating because the 2 times i updated the HA Core package and the OS most of my integrations broke. The first time i bothered changing the config. The second time I decided to rollback and keep everything as is.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#25

Post by pta2002 »

robert_dipaolo wrote: post #17
pta2002 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. While you can set a lot of things through yaml, some like setting the MQTT broker have to be done via the UI.

Ah interesting, I didn't realise that! I often drop into the YAML to configure Automations, etc. I'm not using MQTT at the moment.

Yes, automations and UI can still be done using yaml (and I don't think they plan on dropping that - it's very useful to be able to put that on version control). It's mostly for configuring integrations that they've dropped the yaml (annoying if you're trying to set it up with NixOS or something, but the home assistant maintainers are unusually aggressive against distro packages anyway, especially for nix...)

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#26

Post by chpatrick »

PennRobotics wrote: post #12

There's a decent amount of friction for a European resident trying to use HA. The landing page has two products with pricing in dollars and nothing else w.r.t. hardware. Click "Getting started" and there's still no sign of what to buy. Click "Installation" and then there are 9+ platforms (and multiple subplatforms) but no quick and realistic comparison of features or pricing. Is a NUC12WSHi3 a better deal, more energ…

I just run it myself on an old laptop I had lying around, you don't need to buy anything.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#27

Post by ChrisRR »

Toutouxc wrote: post #7

Hass is the kind of software that has a lot of rough edges, but you use it anyway because there's very little direct competition. And every release feels like so much stuff has been finally polished, but then you deploy the new version and there's still a lot of stuff that feels or looks weird (the part-bad-UI-part-YAML automation). I have been using it for a couple of years now and I still haven't decided whether I…

It's one of those pieces of software that was clearly designed by programmers for programmers. It's not user friendly in the slightest, there's no onboarding process, and it changes so quickly that half of the information you find is already out of date. It's very useful, but my god is it clunky

(And apparently destroys SD cards by design, but even that information may be out of date)

I compare it to something like RetroArch or Eclipse. Does everything you could ever need, but has 50 different menus to try and find it

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#28

Post by oakesm9 »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #24
yoavm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where all the frustration with HA is coming from. I've only started with it last year and so far the experience is amazing. Not only that everything just works with it, it's also so simple to create fun automations, and recently I've even built a little watering system with a Pi Pico, and integrating it with HA to show graphs and controls was a breeze. Also, literally can't recall one time I had to updat…

I've only recently (less than a month ago) started to use HA and I have polar opposite impression from you. I gave up on updating because the 2 times i updated the HA Core package and the OS most of my integrations broke. The first time i bothered changing the config. The second time I decided to rollback and keep everything as is.

Maybe the issue is that you used the "Core" installation method which isn't a fully managed installation and only really there for "advanced" use cases. It has this warning above the installation steps:

> This is an advanced installation process, and some steps might differ on your system. Considering the nature of this installation type, we assume you can handle subtle differences between this document and the system configuration you are using. When in doubt, please consider one of the other installation methods, as they might be a better fit instead.

I use the container installation method and it's usually as simple as updating the version number in Docker Compose and restarting. I'd imagine the full OS image is even easier and more stable.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#29

Post by liendolucas »

Toutouxc wrote: post #7

Hass is the kind of software that has a lot of rough edges, but you use it anyway because there's very little direct competition. And every release feels like so much stuff has been finally polished, but then you deploy the new version and there's still a lot of stuff that feels or looks weird (the part-bad-UI-part-YAML automation). I have been using it for a couple of years now and I still haven't decided whether I…

> Hass is the kind of software that has a lot of rough edges

If you ever adventure yourself on robotics there's ROS. Without haven't ever used Hass I can guarantee you that ROS can make your hair turn green.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#30

Post by gempir »

PennRobotics wrote: post #12

There's a decent amount of friction for a European resident trying to use HA. The landing page has two products with pricing in dollars and nothing else w.r.t. hardware. Click "Getting started" and there's still no sign of what to buy. Click "Installation" and then there are 9+ platforms (and multiple subplatforms) but no quick and realistic comparison of features or pricing. Is a NUC12WSHi3 a better deal, more energ…

That's a feature not a problem. It's free software you can run it anywhere you like. And they give you some advice and "ads" which stuff to buy which it runs best one.
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