Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

jorisroovers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 205 posts

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#131

Post by nouveaux »

enobrev wrote: post #95
turtlebits wrote: post #14

Not sure if I'm just getting older, but the less things/complications in my home, the more peace of mind I have. Been watching the youtube LTT channel on his smart home and I feel all the things going on would drive me crazy. This doesn't apply only to tech, but even for my next house (Looking into passive homes, least possible HVAC footprint, floorplan for minimal plumbing/electrical).

I generally agree with this, although I'm also a fan of home automation. I want all my switches to continue to work (they do), no internet connection between me and my automated devices, no complicated "scenes", and I don't want to mess around with some UI every day. Setup, sure, but that's it. So in the end I have lights that turn on in any room we're in and turn themselves off some time after we've left. My porch l…

How do you do motion detection and presence in your setup? How do you make sure the lights doesn't turn off if you're just sitting in the room?

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#132

Post by bradstewart »

scarby2 wrote: post #56
bradstewart wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just did this, and it's... fun. Particularly account transfers--most devices that are tied to internet accounts (like Nest) don't allow you to transfer them to other accounts. So hard-resetting them is often the only option, which is often a time consuming process in itself (I'm looking at you Insteon) and throws away the configuration. I didn't even attempt to leave the HomeAssistant-based stuff in place.

So for stuff that's not trivial to remove just set up new accounts i.e. 123ExampleRd@gmail.com, tie everything to that e-mail and then just hand over the passwords when you move. Preferably do this when you move in, It also solves the issue of providers with no means to share accounts or devices that tie to google/other auth, this way you share the password with everyone who lives with you without giving out any pers…

Yea, that's definitely what I should have done. But it did not cross my mind when I originally set everything up. Next time!

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#133

Post by jamiepenney »

asveikau wrote: post #99
jaywalk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what your Z-wave setup looks like, but all I've got are GE smart switches and GE smart outlets, controlled with Home Assistant using an Aeotec Z-stick. It works flawlessly with zero noticeable delay, 100% of the time. It sounds like you've either got some bad interference or bad devices.

I've had a lot of issues with battery powered z-wave devices not waking up. Also, IIRC there is a bug in the zwave-js github issue tracker about the 700 series Z-sticks dropping commands. Sometimes I need to reboot for outgoing packets to reach devices from the Z-stick.

I have this bug too. It happened with the old zwave plugin as well, my Aeotec stick just stops delivering packets if it gets bumped and I have to restart the whole system.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#134

Post by gedy »

sanguy wrote: post #33

Home Assistant is great, but it will face huge hurdles as the founder tries to cash in on the popularity. It's already underway. 1) Nabu Casa was founded with a claim that "it will all be transparent and reported" as to income, etc, etc. 2) Then the "private" components happened only for Nabu Casa - like the cloud connection stuff. 3) A few years later when pointed out nothing was transparent yet the response was "We…

I know the HA founder and think you're mischaracterizing him and his motivations. What you call "Cashing in" is attempting to focus full time on a really terrific project. He's certainly not rich off this and could have instead gone for a commercial/closed source vs the open project it is now.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#135

Post by joe_the_user »

nouveaux wrote: post #130
joe_the_user wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying you have a stove that doesn't have an electronic starter? Are you on a digital or analog thermostat? Does your home heater work without electricity? Historically and mostly today, a wood stove is a cast iron container you fill with wood mostly to heat a house. There have been innovations in shape, airflow etc to make them more efficient but they generally haven't used an electric lighter. Electric-ligh…

"Historically and mostly today, a wood stove is a cast iron container you fill with wood mostly to heat a house. There have been innovations in shape, airflow etc to make them more efficient but they generally haven't used an electric lighter. Electric-light gas stoves normally don't need electricity to function - in a outage you can light them with a match or sparker." Does your parent's wood stove work work without…

Does your parent's wood stove work work without electricity? As in, can you light it with a match or sparker?

My parents didn't have a wood stove but the last house I lived had one and it lit only by a match. The Gp's description is literally the only time I have even heard of a wood stove didn't require hand lighting, that's normally how they work.

(Your tense seems to indicate you're confusing me with the original commenter you replied to FYI - who's parents did have an unusual wood stove apparently requiring electricity. It doesn't offend me but I thought I'd note it in case there was some confusion to clear up).

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#136

Post by anderspitman »

The most-requested feature for boringproxy has been WebSockets support (which landed in master just this week), from what I can tell primarily because Home Assistant needs it. I hadn't realized how popular HA is. Their forum is very active:

https://community.home-assistant.io/

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#137

Post by anderspitman »

sanguy wrote: post #33

Home Assistant is great, but it will face huge hurdles as the founder tries to cash in on the popularity. It's already underway. 1) Nabu Casa was founded with a claim that "it will all be transparent and reported" as to income, etc, etc. 2) Then the "private" components happened only for Nabu Casa - like the cloud connection stuff. 3) A few years later when pointed out nothing was transparent yet the response was "We…

Nabu Casa seems like a great model to bring self-hosting to the masses.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#138

Post by nouveaux »

everyone wrote: post #103

All this smarthome stuff like an enormous amount of work. What are any actual concrete benefits over doing things the dumb way? I can't think of anything significant, certainly nothing to justify the cost (not just money, also time, embodied energy etc). Though I have 0 experience with this stuff, so I am asking a genuine question.

Without knowing your home, it's hard to say. I think the biggest benefit right now is sun rise alarm lights and circadian rhythm lights. This should have a noticeable benefit for everyone. The hardest part is figuring out what to do with your physical light switches.

At the end of the day though, the ones that benefit the most from home automation are enthusiasts who enjoy tinkering. If that's not you, get some hue lights and light switches, and call it a day.

Re: My smart home 2021: A Home Assistant love story

#140

Post by nouveaux »

mdoms wrote: post #76

I simply flick a switch to turn on lights. Opening shades is no problem for me, a physically fit human.

How often do you adjust the color temperature and lumens of your light bulbs to optimize for circadian rhythm? I can see why you're so physically fit if you're going around to all your light switches and making these adjustments all the time ;).
Post reply on HN