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Home Assistant waters my plants

finnian.io

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Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#31

Post by randusername »

davemp wrote: post #17

Fun project. Though it’s kind of unreal how complicated it is to set up HA and I literally do this for a living, both embedded sw and backend web dev. Docker compose with a zwave management server, reverse proxies for TLS, vlan isolation for the server, macvlan for HA container so it does see the host network, etc, etc. All to turn on and off a lightbulb with the sun. All the while AI is telling me to configure thing…

I also feel overwhelmed with HA homelab stuff.

HA on my RPI is just not reliable, requiring a reboot 4-6 times a year for reasons I don't understand. Frustration at being in the literal dark doesn't translate to the right mindset to root cause.

What I need is an opinionated guide on minimum viable virtualization, but so much of the resources online are from folks that are homelabing maximalists.

I feel the same temptation as parent to create a spartan solution.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#32

Post by randusername »

davemp wrote: post #18
H8crilA wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run HA on an RPi, but eventually migrated it to a similar NUC. The RPi eventually just wasn't powerful enough (peak compute needs), while the NUCs are still quite cheap. And you can run a surprising amount of Proxmox VMs and LXCs on barely a few cores and gigabytes of RAM.

I use an RPi 4 w/ 4GB of RAM and a 1TB usb 3.2 SSD and it flies through all my workloads. Though I don’t do any video encoding things.

Thanks for sharing, your comment helped me track down that my RPI HA was disk constrained. I didn't think to add a USB.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#33

Post by richardlblair »

PetitPrince wrote: post #3

> I think I need more Zigbee repeaters to get a reliable mesh network, but to date I haven’t found any consumer-grade devices certified for use in NZ. Since many devices are also Zigbee router (it's a mesh network after all), maybe some additional lightbulb for exterior would suffice ?

This - the move is to grab some zigbee smart plugs. Once you have HA up and running there are so many applications for these.

I have a door sensor that monitors my kids bedroom door, and when it opens it turns on a desk lamp in my room. This allows me to get to him before he gets to my partner who's sleeping with the new born.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#34

Post by benmanns »

randusername wrote: post #31
davemp wrote: post #17

Fun project. Though it’s kind of unreal how complicated it is to set up HA and I literally do this for a living, both embedded sw and backend web dev. Docker compose with a zwave management server, reverse proxies for TLS, vlan isolation for the server, macvlan for HA container so it does see the host network, etc, etc. All to turn on and off a lightbulb with the sun. All the while AI is telling me to configure thing…

I also feel overwhelmed with HA homelab stuff. HA on my RPI is just not reliable, requiring a reboot 4-6 times a year for reasons I don't understand. Frustration at being in the literal dark doesn't translate to the right mindset to root cause. What I need is an opinionated guide on minimum viable virtualization, but so much of the resources online are from folks that are homelabing maximalists. I feel the same tempt…

Same. The complexity of HA also leaves my family with a bus factor of one re: keeping the lights on.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#35

Post by _flux »

randusername wrote: post #31
davemp wrote: post #17

Fun project. Though it’s kind of unreal how complicated it is to set up HA and I literally do this for a living, both embedded sw and backend web dev. Docker compose with a zwave management server, reverse proxies for TLS, vlan isolation for the server, macvlan for HA container so it does see the host network, etc, etc. All to turn on and off a lightbulb with the sun. All the while AI is telling me to configure thing…

I also feel overwhelmed with HA homelab stuff. HA on my RPI is just not reliable, requiring a reboot 4-6 times a year for reasons I don't understand. Frustration at being in the literal dark doesn't translate to the right mindset to root cause. What I need is an opinionated guide on minimum viable virtualization, but so much of the resources online are from folks that are homelabing maximalists. I feel the same tempt…

I got myself a NUC. It's been worth it: tiny, has 16 GB of memory and 504 days of uptime.

I have servers for running VMs and containers but I felt like it would be nice to have this one as a separate device. It's also easy to plug in radio devices.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#36

Post by IncreasePosts »

davemp wrote: post #17

Fun project. Though it’s kind of unreal how complicated it is to set up HA and I literally do this for a living, both embedded sw and backend web dev. Docker compose with a zwave management server, reverse proxies for TLS, vlan isolation for the server, macvlan for HA container so it does see the host network, etc, etc. All to turn on and off a lightbulb with the sun. All the while AI is telling me to configure thing…

Hate to be that guy, but I've had a lot of luck promoting gemini-cli to implement whatever I want in home assistant, and it's pretty good

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#37

Post by paranoidrobot »

davemp wrote: post #17

Fun project. Though it’s kind of unreal how complicated it is to set up HA and I literally do this for a living, both embedded sw and backend web dev. Docker compose with a zwave management server, reverse proxies for TLS, vlan isolation for the server, macvlan for HA container so it does see the host network, etc, etc. All to turn on and off a lightbulb with the sun. All the while AI is telling me to configure thing…

While you can run HA as a container. I think it's a mistake - Its more complicated and has reduced features.

I would instead recommend people use HAOS instead - either running on dedicated hardware OR as a VM. Just dont run it from an SD card if you go down the Raspberry Pi/SBC route - it will kill the card from IO cycles.

I have an IOT VLAN on my network that all the IOT bits sit in, including WIFI devices. What internet access it gets (if any) depends on the device profile.

I tried splitting things up into multiple VLANs but a whole lot of things assume just a flat network, so things stop working if you get too fancy.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#38

Post by theshrike79 »

squigz wrote: post #9
calgoo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! I prefer the small power plugs that lets me control fans and other power systems as relays. Family has a habit if switching of light bulbs using light switches and i have not gotten the change approval to disable the physical switches in the house :)

It seems like quite the hassle to have to pull out one's phone every time one enters or leaves a room just to turn on lights? Let's hope you don't have to get to the bathroom quickly late at night...

The only rooms without a fully automated light on/off systems in our house are the bedrooms + living room.

And even the living room automatically adjusts lights based on the playing status of the AppleTV (playing = dim, pause = brighten up a bit).

Oh and the staircase, haven't found the motivation/courage to climb up 10m to the ceiling to switch out the ye olde light in there :D Maybe this year?

The Living room would need two presence sensors that talk to each other in a smart way (a big room, one isn't enough) and I haven't yet found the semi-manual way of adjusting the lights via phone/Siri to be too cumbersome to bother.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#39

Post by jrmg »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #20
H8crilA wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run HA on an RPi, but eventually migrated it to a similar NUC. The RPi eventually just wasn't powerful enough (peak compute needs), while the NUCs are still quite cheap. And you can run a surprising amount of Proxmox VMs and LXCs on barely a few cores and gigabytes of RAM.

Wow, not sure how to interpret your experience that a RPi wasn't powerful enough to manage watering a few plants. I can only suspect the overall software setup is massively bloated.

Home Assistant is indeed a massive pile of software, mostly Python. I couldn’t get it to work reliably (or, at least, usably - the web interface was painful to use) on a Pi Zero because of memory requirements and disk access speed.

…having said that, as the other poster alludes to, it’s peak requirements that are problematic. If your device can handle them, it’s not a massive power suck because idle requirmements are low.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#40

Post by globular-toast »

liam_krewer wrote: post #10
calgoo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! I prefer the small power plugs that lets me control fans and other power systems as relays. Family has a habit if switching of light bulbs using light switches and i have not gotten the change approval to disable the physical switches in the house :)

I can recommend Shelly for light switches over smart bulbs. It's a relay that fits inside the wall switch with zigbee to sit between the light and the switch.

They're not mutually exclusive. I have Shelly relays in my light fittings (not the switches) and use smart bulbs. When everything is working the wall switches just control stuff in HA. When HA is not working the switches control the relays in the Shelly directly, without HA.

This is the only solution I'm aware of that gets you all of:

* dimmable,

* colour temp and RGB control,

* regular switches that work as expected,

* no "forbidden" switches,

* lights always available for automations,

* lights go on and off with the switch when HA is down.

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