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Home Assistant waters my plants

finnian.io

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Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#101

Post by finniananderson »

aconsult1 wrote: post #75
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've tried using HA a couple years ago and gave up. It was too complicated to run it in a Pi4 - I'm an experienced software engineer, familiar with containers and Linux. I was trying to get some of the IoT I have at home like pool equipment, lights, HVAC, blinds, etc. Some of the setup were an uphill battle looking for more information in forums and trying to figure out what was broken. Recently I decided over the we…

> I've been thinking about writing a blog post with the details of my fun project

I'd love to read more about this!

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#102

Post by KeepFlying »

zikduruqe wrote: post #48
paranoidrobot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 int…

> it will kill the card from IO cycles. It might not. I have a Raspberry Pi 2 that has been running a weather station for over 12 years, and it has been on the original SD card. I have other RPi's doing dumb things around the house and I have never had an SD card failure. YMMV and all that.

Dirty power kills my raspis faster then write cycles. I've been really surprised with the stability once I moved by Pis to my UPS

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#103

Post by finniananderson »

tootie wrote: post #58
butz wrote: post #53

More of this, please. Let's automate all tedious chores.

I'd think most people enjoy watering their plants. Growing a garden or even just some nice indoor plants is a hobby unto itself.

It also makes it easier to lock and leave the place without relying on neighbours :)

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#104

Post by turtlebits »

aconsult1 wrote: post #75
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've tried using HA a couple years ago and gave up. It was too complicated to run it in a Pi4 - I'm an experienced software engineer, familiar with containers and Linux. I was trying to get some of the IoT I have at home like pool equipment, lights, HVAC, blinds, etc. Some of the setup were an uphill battle looking for more information in forums and trying to figure out what was broken. Recently I decided over the we…

"pretty obscure to configure every equipment I have at home"

HA actually makes configuring every piece of equipment and integrating them easy. If I have only 1 thing to control, then yeah, it's probably overkill.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#105

Post by subscribed »

ArchOversight wrote: post #98
MintPaw wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard about "Home Assistant Green". Seems like another step down the slippery slope of "work on my machine". First docker, than a dedicated OS, now dedicated hardware. I wonder why is Home Assistant so complex as to require all this.

It's not that it's that complex to need all of this. It's about ease of use. Home Assistant OS makes life simpler for users (such as myself), it makes it easy to use adding that run as additional docker containers, it makes plugging in USB z-wave/zigbee devices a breeze. While it is technically no longer supported, you can still install the whole kit and caboodle using pip in a Python virtual environment, but why wou…

I think you're talking past each other. You're talking of capabilities, GP is talking about complexity.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#106

Post by allenu »

tootie wrote: post #58
butz wrote: post #53

More of this, please. Let's automate all tedious chores.

I'd think most people enjoy watering their plants. Growing a garden or even just some nice indoor plants is a hobby unto itself.

Watering plants is also super easy once you do it regularly. You get a sense of how much water a plant needs just by looking at it and testing the soil (via moisture meter or just by touch). It's quite rewarding realizing how each plant differs.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#107

Post by baq »

amluto wrote: post #77
aconsult1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried using HA a couple years ago and gave up. It was too complicated to run it in a Pi4 - I'm an experienced software engineer, familiar with containers and Linux. I was trying to get some of the IoT I have at home like pool equipment, lights, HVAC, blinds, etc. Some of the setup were an uphill battle looking for more information in forums and trying to figure out what was broken. Recently I decided over the we…

HA is an absurdly heavyweight pile of Python and Docker. Get it a real computer — a used “thin client” with 8 GB of RAM is probably less expensive than an RPi4 plus case and power supply.

an intel n100/150 minipc is perfect, if you get an old enough build (don't ask) you can install proxmox on it and set up hass as a vm as God intended.

if you have to ask, mine was too new and had to settle for a non-LTS Ubuntu Server. it works, but I can't wait for LTS in a few months.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#108

Post by rickypp »

ArchOversight wrote: post #97
rickypp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problem with them offering a ready-to-run hardware solution for Home Assistant, but I am annoyed that it's probably a motivating factor for why there isn't a self-installing image for HA on BYO hardware...

https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/generic-x86-64/ you mean an image like this? This is what I've been running on my generic x86-64 system for a couple of years now, 0 issues. Even migrated to a newer system recently because I wanted something that was slightly faster for ESPHome compilations.

"self-installing" being the key point. Those instructions require you to use some other piece of software to write the image onto your boot disk. In my case I used an Ubuntu livecd to download and write the image to the machine. It's obviously not a showstopper but it is slightly annoying.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#109

Post by troupo »

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…

> 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.

I just bought Home Assistant Green: https://www.home-assistant.io/green and a z-wave dongle

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#110

Post by troupo »

rickypp wrote: post #108
ArchOversight wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/generic-x86-64/ you mean an image like this? This is what I've been running on my generic x86-64 system for a couple of years now, 0 issues. Even migrated to a newer system recently because I wanted something that was slightly faster for ESPHome compilations.

"self-installing" being the key point. Those instructions require you to use some other piece of software to write the image onto your boot disk. In my case I used an Ubuntu livecd to download and write the image to the machine. It's obviously not a showstopper but it is slightly annoying.

> hose instructions require you to use some other piece of software to write the image onto your boot disk.

I mean... That is how a lot of OSes are distributed: by giving you an ISO that you burn onto a USB dongle to install.

> In my case I used an Ubuntu livecd to download and write the image to the machine.

So... Same thing?

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