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Home Assistant 2023.11

home-assistant.io

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Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#121

Post by H8crilA »

agloe_dreams wrote: post #58
polivier wrote: post #54

I've never really been into home automation, but when I stumbled upon Philips Hue bulbs on sale for $5 at Home Depot a few years ago, I went ahead a bought a few. It turns out that they are great to wake up the kids on a schedule in the morning. I used the Philips app because it worked well enough that I couldn't be bothered to look for alternatives. Then recently I got a notification saying that the app wouldn't wor…

> The bulbs don't directly work with Home Assistant for protocol reasons They are based on the Zigbee networking standard, that's why you had to buy the stick. It is effectively a networking adapter like a wifi usb adapter. That said, you can buy most other Zigbee devices now as well. Ikea has far cheaper Zigbee switches than Hue or almost anyone and you can configure them to also cross control other HA features.

Wait, do all Philips Hue bulbs come with Zigbee, even the Bluetooth ones? I had to reverse engineer their Bluetooth, and it works, but obviously I'd prefer Zigbee. BTW, the Philips app is garbage in exactly the ways one would expect (requires some account, doesn't work on some phones, requires your phone to be close to the bulb, etc)

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#122

Post by p1nkpineapple »

gaganyaan wrote: post #61

Are they still gallivanting their way around the internet being assholes? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27505277 I still use HA but haven't upgraded in a good while. Partially because of the switch away from YAML, and partially because that link left a pretty sour taste in my mouth.

(2021)

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#123

Post by gregmac »

robertlagrant wrote: post #41
pierregillesl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are making Gladys Assistant ( https://gladysassistant.com/ ), an open-source smart home software. It's less "techy" than HA (no YAML files, no CLI), and UI first. We have way less integrations for now, but are working hard on it. Don't hesitate to try it and make us some feedback.

I do feel like there's no point in making non-UI first home automation technology. It's not as though you'll be rolling it out across multiple environments.

I missed the manual config at first, and being able to quickly fix things, but it turns out it's not so bad, and I think because of:

1 - Most setups are done once

2 - Stability and quality has improved in recent years, and you don't have to fix or mess with it as much

That said, I very much like being able to edit the yaml for automations and the lovelace UI. I like being able to flip back and forth between visual and code from the UI itself. Best of both worlds, especially because there's a lot of automations that are like 60% copied from another one. Being able to use a text editor (that has autocomplete!) to change entity names as opposed to clicking through several layers of UI for each one is awesome.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#124

Post by agloe_dreams »

H8crilA wrote: post #121
agloe_dreams wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bulbs don't directly work with Home Assistant for protocol reasons They are based on the Zigbee networking standard, that's why you had to buy the stick. It is effectively a networking adapter like a wifi usb adapter. That said, you can buy most other Zigbee devices now as well. Ikea has far cheaper Zigbee switches than Hue or almost anyone and you can configure them to also cross control other HA features.

Wait, do all Philips Hue bulbs come with Zigbee, even the Bluetooth ones? I had to reverse engineer their Bluetooth, and it works, but obviously I'd prefer Zigbee. BTW, the Philips app is garbage in exactly the ways one would expect (requires some account, doesn't work on some phones, requires your phone to be close to the bulb, etc)

All "Hue"-branded bulbs are Zigbee, some additionally add BT connectivity. All "Wiz", "Connected by Wiz", and "Phillips smart bulbs" without Hue branding are Wifi based. Incidentally, both are compatible with HA.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#125

Post by agloe_dreams »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #107
agloe_dreams wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bulbs don't directly work with Home Assistant for protocol reasons They are based on the Zigbee networking standard, that's why you had to buy the stick. It is effectively a networking adapter like a wifi usb adapter. That said, you can buy most other Zigbee devices now as well. Ikea has far cheaper Zigbee switches than Hue or almost anyone and you can configure them to also cross control other HA features.

Yup. I got mad at Hue for forcing an account, so I got a $20 USB zigbee hub and spent 2 hours swapping all my Hue stuff over to it with zigbee2mqtt with Home Assistant. I've never felt better about my ability as a consumer to give a vendor the middle finger. I gleefully tweeted them some pics of my Hue hub in the trash. https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/

Bingo. I just used the standard Zigbee plugin to do the same but purely so I could manage everything in one place. A good trick others should know is that if you have any Hue Switches, you can use them to rapidly reset a bump by holding the on and off switches down for like 10 seconds next to a bulb.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#126

Post by hammock »

darkwater wrote: post #33

I want to use this space to instead praise publicly Home Assistant, it's IMO one of the biggest and most-useful opensource project out there, it's very professional and it let you do thing that are simply unthinkable with any other "smart hub" from a proprietary vendor. I can control a wifi device with a zigbee button, use an NFC and scan it with a mobile phone to execute some action in some software that doesn't eve…

Is there a beginner non-coder friendly HA “getting started” guide that someone here could recommend?

I’m interested in investing in an ecosystem of smart switches, blinds, thermostat and music that is future proof and I can take with me as I rent

Have some experience with ecobee and smart switches and trying to get onto Airplay 2 currently

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#127

Post by vorpalhex »

hammock wrote: post #126
darkwater wrote: post #33

I want to use this space to instead praise publicly Home Assistant, it's IMO one of the biggest and most-useful opensource project out there, it's very professional and it let you do thing that are simply unthinkable with any other "smart hub" from a proprietary vendor. I can control a wifi device with a zigbee button, use an NFC and scan it with a mobile phone to execute some action in some software that doesn't eve…

Is there a beginner non-coder friendly HA “getting started” guide that someone here could recommend? I’m interested in investing in an ecosystem of smart switches, blinds, thermostat and music that is future proof and I can take with me as I rent Have some experience with ecobee and smart switches and trying to get onto Airplay 2 currently

HomeAssistants official plug'n play solution is HomeAssistant Green: https://www.home-assistant.io/green

It's basically a mini computer (sbc) with homeassistant preinstalled and ready to go.

Do expect that HA will expect some attention every few months. It's not a "set and forget" thing.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#128

Post by emilecantin »

nunez wrote: post #100

I love HA but hate how manufacturers are going all-in on preventing people from integrating their devices into the platform without an alternative. Chamberlain MyQ did this by turning on CloudFlare Super Bot Fight and 429'ing anything that doesn't look like it came from their app. That's fine and reasonable, but I can't even pay to create an OAuth client, even though I am paying for their Tesla integration, and they…

I'm at the point where I vote with my wallet on something like this. I'm in the process of buying a heat pump / HVAC system, and I've been very clear with the salespeople that _local_ Home Assistant support is a must-have requirement. No clouds, no apps, just Home Assistant.

If we ask for it, especially at the point of sale, companies will catch on at some point.

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#129

Post by pierregillesl »

kkielhofner wrote: post #91
pierregillesl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are making Gladys Assistant ( https://gladysassistant.com/ ), an open-source smart home software. It's less "techy" than HA (no YAML files, no CLI), and UI first. We have way less integrations for now, but are working hard on it. Don't hesitate to try it and make us some feedback.

Very nice! Would you be interesting in integrating with my project Willow[0]? Willow supports Home Assistant, OpenHAB, and generic REST+MQTT endpoints today. With Home Assistant and OpenHAB we benefit from their specific API support for providing speech to text output and processing through things like the HA Assist Pipelines[1]. From our standpoint we handle wake word, VAD+AEC+BSS, STT, TTS, user feedback, etc. All…

Nice! What languages do you support? (for STT & TTS)

Re: Home Assistant 2023.11

#130

Post by chromakode »

nunez wrote: post #100

I love HA but hate how manufacturers are going all-in on preventing people from integrating their devices into the platform without an alternative. Chamberlain MyQ did this by turning on CloudFlare Super Bot Fight and 429'ing anything that doesn't look like it came from their app. That's fine and reasonable, but I can't even pay to create an OAuth client, even though I am paying for their Tesla integration, and they…

Re: MyQ, check out ratgdo [1]. It's a lovely little hardware project that wires into Chamberlain/Liftmaster controllers and provides a local WiFi-only interface. It integrates perfectly with HA and requires no soldering or disassembly to install. It's a shame Chamberlain discontinued their homekit bridge, because it shouldn't be necessary to use a cloud integration to trigger a garage door.

[1]: https://paulwieland.github.io/ratgdo

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