[HN Gopher] Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant
___________________________________________________________________
Xiaomi Home Integration for Home Assistant
Author : coherence73
Score : 371 points
Date : 2024-12-16 15:52 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| kwanbix wrote:
| I didn't know what it was, so: https://www.home-assistant.io
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| It's the Land Rover of home automation systems.
|
| (Very capable, but also making programmers out of home owners
| since 2012)
|
| _edit:_ I was referring to a sticker that I've seen often on
| enthusiasts ' forum posts 'Land Rover - Proudly turning owners
| into mechanics since 1948'.
|
| The old school Defender is a very capable off road vehicle, but
| its need for regular unscheduled maintenance is legendary.
|
| Greetings from a Toyota HZJ80 driver :)
| w0m wrote:
| Are Land Rovers extra hackable? Will be in need of a new car
| in a few years and that would help o.0
| 654wak654 wrote:
| I think they were referring more to Land Rovers making
| mechanics out of car owners (Due to their famously bad
| reliability), but I may have misunderstood the joke.
| jajko wrote:
| Definitely, I heard som many bad jokes like you need to
| buy 2 evoque models to be able to drive at least 1 etc.
| Really bad reliability despite good design.
| slowmotiony wrote:
| He meant shit keeps breaking and youll be constantly fixing
| it
| goodpoint wrote:
| HA is not hackable, is a massive blob
| Someone1234 wrote:
| What is Land Rover the Land Rover of again? Highest cost per
| repair? Least likely off-road brand to be taken off-road?
| No.1 brand owned by rich land-owners? I legit don't get what
| that reference was going for.
|
| Home Assistant is a free and open source way of cross-
| connecting smart devices. It is incredibly powerful. It can
| easily save you money (e.g. garage door/motion sensor +
| thermostat temp adjustments), or allow you to craft bespoke
| convenience/security features.
|
| It is the central hub of a smart-home. Very reliable in my
| experience.
| mminer237 wrote:
| Closest to the first. He's joking that you can't own a Land
| Rover without being a mechanic and you can't use Home
| Assistant without being a programmer.
|
| I love Home Assistant, and except for the occasional update
| breaking config files it's been very reliable, but there is
| no way 95% of people could get it installed, let alone get
| it set up to do anything useful.
| randomcarbloke wrote:
| >What is Land Rover the Land Rover of again? Highest cost
| per repair? Least likely off-road brand to be taken off-
| road? No.1 brand owned by rich land-owners? I legit don't
| get what that reference was going for.
|
| excepting the recent dross from them with the death of the
| real defender...they can usually be fixed roadside with a
| hammer and some grease, they're easily the most ubiquitous
| off-road vehicle globally (well either landrover or toyota)
| and with 80% of all made still running.
|
| Not sure why your reaction was so emotional, but I think
| you're thinking of Range Rovers, again though, the old ones
| were superb, the new ones are for rappers, footballer, and
| the other assorted nouveau riche.
| pawelduda wrote:
| I have some xiaomi bulbs that used to work until I needed to re-
| pair them to a new wifi and (unofficial) integration kept asking
| me for pairing code - which is nowhere to be found. I probably
| got rid of the boxes where it's supposed to be located. Wonder if
| there's a workaround for that.
| jsheard wrote:
| I think WiFi IoT stuff has a reputation for being janky pretty
| much across the board, the recommendation is usually to use
| Zigbee stuff instead wherever possible. That also has the
| security advantage of keeping the devices on their own little
| network that can't access your LAN or the internet directly.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| I've gone with Zwave instead - older house and hoping to keep
| wifi bands uncongested. It's about $30 per device, with Zooz
| as a big brand. It's been quite solid and the spousal-
| acceptance-factor is high.
| pawelduda wrote:
| Yeah - I bought them before I got into this, so thought it'd
| be nice to make use of them
|
| Defaulting to zigbee for anything new
| maxglute wrote:
| Not familiar with xiaomi bulbs, do they have QR codes on the
| base?
|
| A few years ago Xiaomi started enforcing region locks to reduce
| gray market sales, so a bunch of products stopped pairing when
| app set to wrong region, without indication why. I had to
| repair my vacuum, air purifier, security cameras on profile
| with PRC region, and other stuff on profile with Singapore
| region. Very annoying.
| Havoc wrote:
| There is python code floating around in github somewhere to
| grab the codes
| nevi-me wrote:
| Better late than never, I have 3 of their bulbs in the house, and
| not being able to integrate with HA prevented me from buying more
| (at least before Matter was announced).
|
| I've been using them with Google Home, so the lights weren't
| automated with HA. I'll try the integration out.
| hereonout2 wrote:
| I have bulbs from wiz, which already have HA support.
|
| Being new to all this home automation stuff I was quite
| intrigued how they worked though. They're exposed on the WiFi
| network over a really simple UDP based protocol which led me
| down a rabbit hole of writing a little go client to mess about
| with them, took a few evenings.
|
| Not saying Xiaomi bulbs would be quite as simple to write an
| integration for, but they might have been. It's kind of fun
| seeing how people have reverse engineered all these custom
| protocols.
| Havoc wrote:
| They sold bulbs under various brands. I've got some very old
| ones branded yeelight that work entirely offline with HA.
|
| Tried to rebuy got a different brand and they don't work
| offline properly. Bit of a crapshoot
|
| These days I try to buy preflashed tasmota gear. Things like
| athom.tech
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| I got some of those Yeelight ones (gen 1/gray plastic and gen
| 2/white plastic!) but my experience has been really bad. Even
| if their app allows you to enable local mode it's laggy and
| just... stops working after a while, it also seems to break
| if it can't reach xiaomi servers (pihole). Wondering how you
| got yours to work, mine are just trash at this point and i've
| since switched to proper local devices.
| Havoc wrote:
| Zero lag. If they lose power they revert to cool white. All
| local. Checked home assistant and its direct integration
| (yeelight)...no mqtt.
|
| And looked up my old notes - copied in below though don't
| recall details of what I did. Suspect maybe I used the
| python stuff just to check that lan is enabled rather than
| editing
|
| ------
|
| https://github.com/Squachen/micloud
|
| pip install micloud
|
| miiocli device --ip 192.168.1.88 --token FOOBAR info
|
| miiocli device --ip 192.168.1.88 --token FOOBAR info
|
| On iphone go to yeelight app, select the apps overall
| setting menu and enable lan control
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| Just to confirm, you are using the Yeelight app for this
| setup? On android there's Yeelight Classic (red icon),
| Yeelight (purple icon), Yeelight Pro (black icon) and the
| Xiaomi Home one. I think some of my issue might have been
| that region lock thing that kept changing a few years
| back (someone mentioned in another parent here). I
| remember setting it up on the Yeelight (red) but it
| eventually had me switch to Xiaomi Home (green app) which
| then required re-setting it up on another cloud region,
| which then broke again after a while.
|
| I'll give this python script a try for sure, glad to know
| you got yours to properly work!
| mongol wrote:
| What is MIoT that is mentioned? I know IoT is internet of things.
| H8crilA wrote:
| It stands for Mquantum-blockchain-self-driving-social-cloud
| Internet of Things.
| bhaney wrote:
| Meaningless mashup of Xiaomi's "Mi" product branding and "IoT"
| that they use to refer to arbitrary aspects of their IoT
| products
| Havoc wrote:
| Some sort of auto pairing tech with their own routers I believe
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I include this when considering buying something integrated.
|
| For example Philips Hue is overpriced, but their Home Assistant
| integration is top tier and ultra-reliable. Contrast that with
| myQ garage door openers (LiftMaster, Chamberlain and Craftsman)
| recently breaking Home Assistant support on purpose, to
| essentially replace it with nothing, and they're dead to me.
|
| So Xiaomi adding support, assuming it is reliable, definitely
| moves them into a better category.
| Filligree wrote:
| Is there a list I could consult to find such companies?
| mankyd wrote:
| https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/
|
| It's worth clicking through and reading details on each one
| before you commit. Most of them are quite complete, but some
| only support a handful of devices or features. You can also
| get a sense if the control is local (i.e. no internet
| connection) or cloud based.
| michaelmior wrote:
| In case anyone using a myQ opener comes across this, I feel the
| need to mention ratgdo which many have found to be a great
| inexpensive upgrade.
|
| https://ratcloud.llc/
| dingnuts wrote:
| It's inexpensive if you discount the cost of your education
| learning how to wire in something like that.
|
| There's an order of magnitude difference in project size
| between setting up the old MyQ integration with home
| assistant and learning how to use.. whatever that thing is.
|
| Sometimes I think clever and educated people forget what it's
| like to be less intelligent or educated.
|
| I want a solution I can download :(
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Perhaps an iSmartGate Pro works?
|
| https://ismartgate.com/ismartgate-pro/
| michaelmior wrote:
| That's a fair point, but it's still likely less expensive
| than replacing your existing opener if you include the cost
| of an electrician doing the wiring for you.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| May I suggest OpenGarage? https://opengarage.io/
| 15155 wrote:
| You only need to reconfigure 4-6 color-coded, low-voltage
| wires in exactly one spot (at the opener.) Clear picture
| instructions are provided.
|
| If you're using Home Assistant _at all_ , you are more than
| capable of installing this device.
|
| The old MyQ HA integration was absolutely more difficult to
| configure and install.
| pininja wrote:
| Can this detect if you're left your garage door open for a
| while and notify me?
| room500 wrote:
| I added ratgdo to my HomeAssistant and have HomeAssisteant
| send notifications if the garage door is open (with a
| button that closes it)
| sedatk wrote:
| As long as it can report open/close status, you can create
| an automation for that. That's what I did.
| eddieroger wrote:
| I installed a pair of these, and haven't looked back. Yes,
| there is a little bit of a curve with rewiring your opener,
| but there is great documentation available, and safety in the
| fact that if you mess up, your door just won't open. If you
| snap a picture ahead of time, it's easy to undo. And from
| there, you can hook it in to Home Assistant or HomeKit and do
| whatever you want, which is amazing. My Home Assistant
| notifies me when the door has been open for 5, 10, 30, 60
| minutes, as well as if the sensor is obstructed for the same
| intervals.
| progman32 wrote:
| Second this product. I wanted an Ethernet version so I made
| my own (it's integrated into esphome and the circuit is
| documented here https://github.com/Kaldek/rat-ratgdo). Apart
| from general usage, I use mine to tilt the garage door a
| small amount if it detects bad air quality in my shop (using
| an IKEA air quality sensor via home assistant).
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| I am looking to install a garage opener and due to meatspace
| constraints I will probably have to use jackshaft. Jackshafts
| are predominantly LiftMaster and Chamberlain => the smarts are
| myQ, which I don't want anywhere near my network. Genie
| jackshafts seem fine, but Genie's reputation is bad to the
| point where garage door companies may refuse to work on them.
|
| These motors also usually come with the ability to hook up a
| hardwired button. There are a couple of pre-made (konnected,
| ratgo) solutions or one could jury rig a z-wave relay.
|
| Alternative is Overhead Garage door company that have separate
| SKUs for the unit, the battery and the smarts so one can pick
| two and use the same relay (my current plan).
|
| There may be _some_ proprietary shenanigans with LM and
| Chamberlain hardwired buttons but Overhead's one really seems
| to just work through bridging two contacts
| asveikau wrote:
| Not sure how it works with a jackshaft vs. the more
| traditional residential opener, but ratgdo can speak the myQ
| protocol and control it from mqtt or home assistant. I have
| it working with my Chamberlain opener as do many others.
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| Besides the questionable rent-seeking behavior from myQ:
|
| * I don't want to use an integration that needs a round-
| trip through the cloud to work. Long-term changes are
| inevitable (company goes out of business, randomly changes
| API, etc.)
|
| * I fundamentally do not like Amazon Key integration. It
| gives someone else control over my security hardware which
| makes me very uncomfortable. I am not sure if it's opt-in
| or out, but the point is that a myQ device that is
| installed _can_ be configured to let arbitrary third party
| to open the door.
|
| If I have a choice, I'd rather set up a system that I
| control from the get-go rather than try to lobotomize a
| system that I can't fully control.
| asveikau wrote:
| Ratgdo doesn't go through the cloud. It's a separate
| board. You wire it into the opener the same way would a
| button, and it speaks the serial protocol that a myQ
| enabled button or console would use. Then it can speak
| MQTT over wifi.
|
| I never paired my opener with any app nor do I have it on
| WiFi.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Why don't you want myQ anywhere near your network? Last I
| saw, 3rd party security analysis has actually been shockingly
| good.
|
| That said they're rent seeking to use their products, eg
| $100/yr or thereabouts for Tesla integration.
| efitz wrote:
| > Why don't you want myQ anywhere near your network?
|
| Precisely because they're rent-seeking. I have a wifi-
| enabled garage door opener that I paid a lot of money for.
| Why should I have to pay MyQ every month to effectively
| just let something other than their app or their
| proprietary switch open the door?
| azinman2 wrote:
| "Near my network" suggested it was a security issue. Are
| there other companies running a cloud-based api for
| garage doors that don't charge? It does cost money to
| keep the servers going.
|
| I personally just took a cheap remote, attached its
| button to an esp32 with a relay, put on mqtt, and
| interfaced it with homebridge. Now it shows up in the
| home app. Works well! iCloud via Apple TV connects it to
| the internet securely.
| efitz wrote:
| Nope, my concern wasn't security, it was corporate greed
| azinman2 wrote:
| I'm curious, do you expect them to run and maintain
| servers for free?
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I didn't realize they were selling garage door openers
| for free.
| azinman2 wrote:
| It's a one time fixed cost. Running a cloud service is
| not. You very rarely buy a new garage door opener.
| antsar wrote:
| A local REST API doesn't require servers.
| azinman2 wrote:
| That I agree with, although real thought needs to be put
| into security for this. This is literally a key to your
| home.
| 15155 wrote:
| Just use a LiftMaster/Chamberlain jackshaft opener, never
| connect it to any network install the ESP32-based ratgdo
| device into the wiring harness, be done with this issue.
|
| Nothing else compares due to the digital integration. ratgdo
| uses the simple serial protocol that the opener button uses,
| so it has access to a lot of information.
| pcl wrote:
| If you've got a spare garage remote control, a raspberry pi or
| Arduino board, a soldering iron, an optocoupler, and a sense of
| adventure, you can easily integrate your existing garage door
| opener into Home Assistant or what have you.
|
| In fact, the Arduino starter kit comes with a few optocouplers
| and instructions for basically exactly this project!
|
| Or you can get a tube of a dozen 4N25 optocouplers for like $8
| on amazon.
|
| https://store.arduino.cc/products/arduino-starter-kit-multi-...
| efitz wrote:
| > If you've got a spare garage remote control, a raspberry pi
| or Arduino board, a soldering iron, an optocoupler, and a
| sense of adventure,
|
| You just excluded 99.9% of smart home product customers.
| pcl wrote:
| Yes, well, but here at HN, hopefully we've got the 0.1% in
| attendance!
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| MyQ are such scum. I love how on my smartphone I can just press
| a button in the MyQ app to open my garage door, but if I want
| to push the button on my Tesla, they want to charge me a
| subscription fee of $100 a year or something like that
| ortusdux wrote:
| I wish FEIT devices were compatible. I've seen their smart
| bulbs at costco for as low as $2.50/ea.
| reaperducer wrote:
| There's a reason Feit is so cheap.
| ortusdux wrote:
| People have had success flashing custom firmware in the
| past, so hardware wise they are compatible.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| Feit are the only LED bulbs that I have had straight up
| die on me inside of a year.
| echoangle wrote:
| Look for Zigbee devices and most stuff just works out of the
| box. And when you're not upgrading firmware, there's no way for
| the manufacturer to break anything.
| bitdivision wrote:
| Zigbee is wonderful, especially alongside things like
| zigbee2mqtt device support [0]. The downside is that its not
| uncommon to see non-compliant devices, or buggy
| implementations which is almost more annoying.
|
| I recently installed a zigbee thermostat in my bathroom,
| which turned out to be flooding the network and causing the
| rest of my network to become unstable
|
| [0]: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/
| mohaine wrote:
| I'll just second to avoid myQ at all costs.
|
| 1. They want to charge for some integrations. I could see this
| if they didn't make local only impossible if you want anything
| beyond the clicker. Why aren't these just bluetooth and or wifi
| so my car and open when I pull up and close when I leave? Hell,
| if they just added an 'open if closed' and 'close if open' it
| would make it way better for the car to controll. IMO they are
| purposely making the non myQ options suck and stuck in the 80s
| just so they can upsell to a monthly subscription.
|
| 2. Their security is a joke. After moving to new phone their
| app would refuse to login yet would still show me notifications
| for door events. The only way to stop the notifications was to
| uninstall the app.
|
| My newer garage door is lacking wifi just so I can add my own
| automation without even bothering with theirs.
| danieldk wrote:
| _For example Philips Hue is overpriced,_
|
| I wouldn't call them overpriced (at least not all products),
| their quality is typically great, you get what you pay for. We
| have had Hue lights for over 10 years (pretty much every light
| in our house is Hue) and never had any issues. I think over
| that period one light broke. And like you said, the integration
| is great. In our house we have it configured to use both
| through the Hue hub and SmartThings.
| tills13 wrote:
| Yup. I paid like $40CAD for a single Hue lightbulb in 2017
| and it's still going. In that time, I've had countless cheap
| Canadian Tire brand (NOMA) & Walmart brand LED bulbs burn out
| and need replacing totaling WAY more than $40.
|
| I just looked and they have gotten like 20% more expensive
| though... that said, their non-smart bulbs are still pretty
| affordable comparatively.
| ashayh wrote:
| Try Konnected for garage doors.
| https://konnected.io/collections/shop-now?filter.p.tag=Smart...
|
| Have 2 of them and work great.
| zamalek wrote:
| > Philips Hue
|
| At the moment you can pair them with any ZigBee controller,
| which I found to be much simpler. This is one firmware update
| away from not working (which is why I mostly relied on Z-Wave)
| so YMMV.
| Carrok wrote:
| I retrofit my 20 year old garage door opener with a $13 Shelly
| switch (Shelly 1 Gen3 ). Now my garage door is smart with zero
| outside dependencies. Blog post I used as reference:
| https://simplyexplained.com/blog/make-garage-door-opener-sma...
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| In my opinion this is not Xiaomi _into_ Home Assistant (HA). To
| me, an integration would mean that I need nothing from Xiaomi,
| all activities are within HA.
|
| from the Github page[0]:
|
| > Xiaomi Home Integration and the affiliated cloud interface is
| provided by Xiaomi officially. You need to use your Xiaomi
| account to login to get your device list. Xiaomi Home Integration
| implements OAuth 2.0 login process, which does not keep your
| account password in the Home Assistant application. However, due
| to the limitation of the Home Assistant platform, the user
| information (including device information, certificates, tokens,
| etc.) of your Xiaomi account will be saved in the Home Assistant
| configuration file in clear text after successful login. You need
| to ensure that your Home Assistant configuration file is properly
| stored. The exposure of your configuration file may result in
| others logging in with your identity.
|
| [0] https://github.com/XiaoMi/ha_xiaomi_home?tab=readme-ov-
| file#...
| asveikau wrote:
| This is how a lot of home assistant integrations work. Sure,
| many HA users (self included) try to avoid dependence on cloud
| services and opt for local only solutions, such as zwave or
| ZigBee or products that work with local-only wifi. But the
| nature of the beast is that some devices out there are built to
| talk only to a cloud service.
|
| Having a company start an upstream project is probably a better
| sign than not having that, however sure, they could pull the
| plug on their access to cloud service, people may have privacy
| and security concerns, etc.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _they could pull the plug on their access to cloud service_
|
| It's happened to me twice.
|
| The first time was about seven years ago, when Fiet Electric
| sent out a software update that deliberately bricked all of
| its home hubs, and consequentially turned all of the
| connected smart light bulbs into dumb light bulbs.
| Speculation on IoT forums at the time was that Fiet failed to
| properly license some piece of code that was critical to its
| system; but that was all speculation. I seem to recall that
| Fiet put out an e-mail long after the fact letting people
| know they could no longer use their "smart" devices.
|
| The second time was earlier this year, when Sylvania ended
| its cloud service, and turned its smart bulbs into merely
| clever bulbs. They'll still work with the stand-alone
| Sylvania app, but new bulbs can no longer be added to Apple
| HomeKit setups. So you need to use two apps (Home and
| Sylvania) to control the devices in your home. That is, until
| the Sylvania app is no longer available in the App Store, or
| compatible with modern devices.
|
| Avoiding Fiet Electric products was easy. But I thought I'd
| be safe with a big name like Sylvania.
|
| The "L" in IoT stands for "Longevity."
| nemomarx wrote:
| what's the state of bulbs that don't use apps? I have some
| from IKEA that get paired to a Bluetooth remote, and it
| seems pretty good for now but I'm kinda nervous about
| relying on a device like that.
| afavour wrote:
| IIRC Ikea bulbs all use Zigbee so should be pretty safe.
| danieldk wrote:
| Philips Hue uses Zigbee and the quality of Hue lights is
| really excellent (both the lights themselves and
| longevity, our oldest lights are over 10 years). A lot of
| Ikea devices also use Zigbee, though it sometimes takes a
| while before they are supported properly by SmartThings,
| Home Assistant, etc.
| mschild wrote:
| IKEA bulbs use mostly Zigbee, can be paired directly with
| their remote so don't require any hub, and connect
| directly with any Home Assistant with a Zigbee dongle
| like Sonoff.
| danieldk wrote:
| I completely agree with the grandparent. This is all
| avoided by using Zigbee or Z-Wave devices. All our smart
| lights are Hue. If they decide to stop supporting it, they
| can be controlled with the Samsung/Aeotec SmartThings Hub,
| Home Assistant, Zigbee2MQTT, or whatever you please.
| Similarly, our smart plugs are also Zigbee and we use a
| couple of Aeotec Z-Wave temperature/humidity sensors.
|
| Best of all, less worries about yet another IoT device with
| probably vulnerable software that we have to put on a
| VLAN/IoT WiFi network. Zigbee and Z-Wave are also much
| simpler than WiFi/Bluetooth, so less likely that they are a
| swiss cheese of vulnerabilities.
| holoduke wrote:
| With hue there is still potential risk of a lockin with
| their hue app. They allow it still, because their sales
| are not really good. But otherwise they might have
| restricted it.
| yurishimo wrote:
| Hue Bulbs use Zigbee. If hue stops supporting the hub or
| older devices, you can reset and pair them to anything.
|
| The Hue bridge is IP based but can be controlled entirely
| over your local network. It's a slim possibility of
| something breaking (the mobile app mostly) and then the
| bulbs are still fine.
| duckworth wrote:
| Yeah, I ditched the Hue Hub last year and paired them all
| directly with Home Assistant via Zigbee
| X-Istence wrote:
| Hue bulbs currently are stock standard Zigbee compatible
| light bulbs. You can pay them into ZHA/Z2M without any
| issues and control them without any Hue hub or app.
|
| If Hue were to suddenly switch to something proprietary
| their existing bulbs will all continue to function
| without their app or hub.
| pkulak wrote:
| > This is how a lot of home assistant integrations work.
|
| And it how the _current_ integration works. So what are we
| gaining here? I certainly don't yet have any option for a
| vacuum that isn't Valetudo.
| brnt wrote:
| Although I bought my Dreame D10 because its on the Valetudo
| compat list, I actually never put it on, because it turns
| out OOB you actually don't need to setup anything for the
| regular mop function to work. It's entirely unconnected,
| which I prefer anyway. I miss out on remote access and
| mopping only parts of the room, but I can live with this
| trade off.
|
| Once they turn them into true IoT shits, then I'll be
| worried.
| sofixa wrote:
| > And it how the _current_ integration works. So what are
| we gaining here
|
| An official integration, supported (for whatever that's
| worth) by Xiaomi instead of random people reverse
| engineering their API until the next breaking change, or
| even worse, them deciding "this is DDoS so we'll ban anyone
| from using our API".
| iamjackg wrote:
| "Integration" is just the term the HA project uses for code
| supporting a specific device/brand/platform. Home Assistant
| shows a label on each integration clarifying whether it's
| entirely local or cloud-based.
| diggan wrote:
| I think (some correct me) you can group most devices into the
| following categories:
|
| 1. Device requires internet for setup, and for usage
|
| 2. Device requires internet for setup, but after that don't
| need it anymore
|
| 3. Device can be fully setup without internet, and used without
| internet
|
| Personally I aim to be fully within 3 as much as I can, but
| some devices are really hard to find at a good price point that
| falls into 3. All my HA devices are within 3, except some real-
| time cameras which I couldn't find below ~300 EUR if I wanted
| them in 3, so those are within group 2 and now isolated after
| the setup.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| I'm not buying any device that's not 3, everything else turns
| into a brick as soon as there's some larger change.
|
| I have some older Google Speakers, and while they seemed to
| be 2, after being powered off for long enough they can't be
| set up again, not even with internet access since their
| firmware was also outdated and the app isn't able to set them
| up again.
| birdman3131 wrote:
| I am ok with devices that default to 2 but can be converted
| to 3.
|
| Don't recall if Shelly's default to 2 or 3 but I like that
| you can flash em to tasmota for a gaurenteed 3.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Most devices are in the category 3, except for BLU that
| are currently in 2. I have almost 1 of everything they
| make and I did set up the BLU ones using 2 with their
| app, I did not test to see if their app works without
| Internet, but I doubt the BLU can be configured without
| their app.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| That's why I'm sticking to Zigbee as much as possible. The
| only place where there's an internet connection is at the
| Home Assistant computer which has a Zigbee USB stick.
| re5i5tor wrote:
| Slightly off topic but I just bought an inexpensive water
| leak monitor set and it uses LoRa -- I've had range
| problems with other bands "Extremely Long Range: Powered
| by LoRa technology, the long-range low-power system
| offers the industry's longest receiving range (1/4 mile).
| Areas such as basements and sheds connect up to 100
| sensors to deliver product information smoothly."
| hathawsh wrote:
| LoRa sounds like a good idea for water sensing in
| particular. Water catches all radio signals at 2.4 GHz
| and turns the waves into heat (that's why microwave ovens
| work, after all), so spread-spectrum transmission seems
| like a good way around that issue. I would test the
| transmission range in a bathtub.
| mrandish wrote:
| > I'm not buying any device that's not 3
|
| Same here. My gold standard for this is hardware that comes
| with the open source Tasmota firmware (or which can be
| flashed to Tasmota). All 75 light switches in our new house
| run Tasmota firmware and to me it's the perfect combination
| of simple, flexible and yet deeply powerful. Devices can be
| controlled via MQTT, web requests, webUI console or serial
| and not only does it avoid any cloud dependency, Tasmota
| devices aren't even dependent on having a router to
| coordinate locally with each other! They can be set so that
| if they don't see a wifi router, they'll form an ad hoc
| mesh network.
|
| To me, this is the ultimate in reliability because even if
| the internet connection is offline, even if the Home
| Assistant Raspberry Pi crashes, even if the wifi router
| crashes - as long as there's power, the lights will still
| always communicate and work together in their device
| groups. When we built the house I just ordered cheap ($15)
| wifi light switches from Amazon, flashed them with Tasmota,
| configured their device groups, labeled where they went,
| and gave them to the general contractor's electrician, who
| knew nothing about home automation. So we didn't pay
| anything extra for special installation, design or
| programming - in fact we got a $5 per switch discount
| because they didn't need to supply the dumb switches.
|
| The only slightly tricky part was convincing the very old-
| school electrician he didn't need to run traveler wires for
| all the three, four and five way switches. Even after I
| explained it to him, he didn't quite believe me that they
| would work so he could test them with just his temporary
| construction power in an unfinished house with no internet,
| wifi or controller hardware. I just told him to start by
| installing the fixtures and switches for a hallway and he
| was amazed when switches along the hallway controlled
| fixtures they weren't connected to - including sharing
| dimming memory and the behavior of the micro-LED strip on
| each light indicating brightness and status!
| jakupovic wrote:
| Hi,
|
| I'm using Kasa switches and not sure they can be flashed?
|
| Can you provide couple links with the switch and the
| firmware you used. Thanks
| mrandish wrote:
| Tasmota runs on hundreds of different devices including
| switches, plugs, buttons, power strips, sensors, IR & RF
| gateways, etc. Tasmota homepage:
| https://tasmota.github.io/docs/. There are over 2800
| devices listed in this user maintained repository:
| https://templates.blakadder.com/.
|
| Three years ago when I was choosing devices I initially
| ordered a Kasa switch to try but after a little research
| quickly realized I didn't want any cloud-locked
| proprietary devices installed in my home's walls. So, I
| sent the Kasa switch back unopened and chose this dimmer
| switch on Amazon because it could be flashed with Tasmota
| firmware: https://www.amazon.com/TASMOTA-Martin-Jerry-
| ESP8266-Assistan... (now $20 each in a three pack).
| https://templates.blakadder.com/martin_jerry_MJ-
| SD01.html. Ultimately, almost all these devices are
| commodity components based on standard reference designs.
| Various off-shore manufacturers will put these in their
| own different plastic designs with slightly differing
| button, light and other features. Kasa just happens to
| only offer their flavor locked to their proprietary app,
| cloud and services. Even if they are benign today, that
| can always change without notice and they won't be in
| business forever.
|
| As you'll see on the user repository, Tasmota supports
| all this different hardware by grouping them into type
| classifications and then within each type using a
| configuration string. The MJ-SD01 switches I bought are
| Type 73 which is a PWM Dimmer. The configuration string
| is listed on the page I linked and specifies which pins
| are used for input, output and what they're connected to
| (buttons, LEDs, dimmer, etc) because this is something
| various manufacturers often do differently. Everything
| needed to make generic Tasmota work on any device listed
| in the repository is in the config string on its
| repository page. Just copy and paste that string into the
| device's Tasmota Config web page and the buttons, lights
| and loads will be mapped to the correct pins.
|
| These Martin Jerry switches now come with Tasmota
| firmware pre-installed but they did not three years ago,
| so we had to open them and temporarily solder three wires
| to the board to upload the firmware using a USB-Serial
| adapter. I used it as an opportunity to give my middle-
| schooler some practical soldering experience. This was a
| one-time requirement because once installed, Tasmota
| firmware then can update itself via wifi. Fortunately,
| lots of devices come with Tasmota pre-installed now.
| Here's a partial list:
| https://templates.blakadder.com/preflashed.html but you
| can just search Amazon, eBay and AliExpress for "Tasmota"
| to find others.
|
| I chose this particular switch because it fit the modern
| style of the house we were building, has three primary
| buttons (plus a tiny reset button just under the rocker)
| and unobtrusive LED indicators. Today there are many
| other similar switches available with different looks and
| features and I might choose differently now. Under
| Tasmota the three buttons and LEDs have sensible defaults
| but can optionally be assigned to any functions you'd
| like on the device, on other devices or to anything else
| under Home Assistant control via press, long press and
| double press. One thing to keep in mind about these (and
| similar) switch devices is that the "front-end" of the
| button controls and LED display are entirely separate
| from the "back-end" of controlling the attached AC power
| load such as a light fixture. By default the buttons are
| mapped to control the device's own load just like a
| normal 'dumb' switch, but this can easily be customized.
| I have some switches whose front buttons control loads
| connected to other switches but _not_ the load connected
| to that switch. And I have some switches that don 't have
| any AC fixture connected to the output. I use those to do
| things like control low voltage landscape lights
| connected through a Tasmota wall power plug in a panel
| outside the house. I suggest keeping it simple when you
| start by sticking to the defaults, just be aware that you
| can later do all kinds of creative and unexpected things
| because Tasmota is so flexible.
| jakupovic wrote:
| Sir, take it from a random person on the internet, you're
| more than kind. Thank you so much for the details and
| bits of your own experience to make it relatable. Even
| though I have many Kasa switches I do want the option 3
| that was raised earlier. Again, many thanks.
| teekert wrote:
| I have Hue lights, they're nice, always just work. But now
| (some time back) they suddenly require an account and I get
| ads in the app. I have always easily moved Hue lamps from
| the Hue bridge to the Home Assistant SkyConnect (now called
| Connect ZBT-1, much better ahum). I sleep better because I
| know I can do this.
| tedivm wrote:
| Yeah I also use Hue lights, but since I don't use a Hue
| bridge and simply use Zigbee directly the lights have no
| internet access and I have no restrictions on usage.
| hermitdev wrote:
| Total stab in the dark here, but it could be the local time
| on the device. Your local clock needs to be relatively
| close to the actual clock. I've run into this more than a
| few times with an old Surface Tablet I seldom use. Powered
| off/battery dead, clock gets out of sync. Power on, cannot
| get online because everything is TLS/SSL now, even clock
| sync. Cannot even sync the clock, because of certificate
| issues. Manually set the time to approximately correct time
| has resolved my issues with long powered off devices. That
| is, assuming of course, the _ability_ to set the time on
| the device.
| rafaelmn wrote:
| When it's cheaper to replace device 2 than get device 3 I
| guess walling it off in a subnet makes sense. These devices
| need to get replaced eventually anyway so unless the
| manufacturer goes under in a year or two of purchase IDK
| really.
|
| Depends on the kind of device though - I'm not so keen on
| changing switches for example and would not compromise
| there. But cameras or robot mops or voice assistant,
| throwaway stuff after warranty expires no matter who the
| source is.
| parineum wrote:
| I'm curious about what you're issue was finding cameras as,
| to me, that's the easiest thing to find cloud free since they
| have a long history of being used in closed networks as POE,
| onvif cameras long before smart homes were really a thing.
| jaktet wrote:
| I can't speak for OP but usually the issue with #3 for me
| is that the other criteria it needs to meet is that it
| works with whatever other integration I want. I remember
| when I looked the TP-Links were a good option but you just
| needed internet to set it up. Afterwards it just went on a
| vlan without internet. The camera needs to support
| Scrypted/Frigate for my use case but depending on needs for
| PTZ, Wi-Fi, resolution, night vision, etc, I may or may not
| be able to find one at a reasonable price that doesn't
| require internet access for setup. TP Link makes good
| cameras at a good price but they require internet access to
| setup, so any camera that falls into #3 will get compared
| to a TP Link in #2
| jillyboel wrote:
| Everything can fit in group 3, but manufacturers want to
| steal your data so they try to pretend otherwise.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| You're giving them the benefit of the doubt here. In my
| experience, not only are they greedy, but they're also
| inept and lazy.
| nomel wrote:
| To steel man a bit, they're also trying to make things as
| easy as possible for the _generic public_ that they want
| to buy their device, who doesn 't know what a hub is, and
| definitely doesn't want to learn, to turn on a lightbulb.
| ahaucnx wrote:
| Not all manufacturers.
|
| At AirGradient, all our air quality monitors can completely
| run local. Our official firmware is on GitHub and people
| could even flash their own (adjusted) version.
|
| We believe this is how IoT devices should be and are very
| vocal about it. So I think there are a few manufacturers
| that think different.
| biotinker wrote:
| And this is exactly why I like to buy AirGradient
| hardware. Your CO2 sensors are some of the best I've
| found for the price point, and I love your outdoor
| monitor as well.
|
| That said; I have started moving towards using SEN5x for
| a lot of my air monitoring. I've noticed the SHT3x temp
| sensors pretty consistently flake out after 2-3 years,
| and the footprint of your current DIY kit is rather
| larger.
|
| Would you consider an updated version with the SEN6x once
| it comes out, with perhaps an ESP32c3, rather than the
| 8266?
| ahaucnx wrote:
| Actually since a year or so, we use the ESP32-C3 and the
| SHT40. You can check our website for the new model [1].
|
| [1] https://www.airgradient.com/documentation/
| hn_user2 wrote:
| If those devices ran off POE they would be divine. Trying
| to keep walls looking clean in our custom build and usb
| power is a drag.
| 05 wrote:
| The keywords you're looking for are 'active PoE
| splitter'.
| re5i5tor wrote:
| Nice! Will consider one when my Awair poops out.
| mrandish wrote:
| I like the taxonomy you've outlined. It would be great if the
| Home Assistant org were to formalize something like it into
| levels with logos manufacturers could use in ads and
| packaging. It would help clarify products for users and, most
| importantly, provide an incentive for manufacturers toward
| more local-first interop.
|
| It might be good to invert the order above and name the
| levels with something like Platinum, Gold, Silver to clearly
| signal better and best. Manufacturer's marketing people love
| having external compliance logos, especially manufacturers of
| commodity hardware.
| alexives wrote:
| They have a bit of this with their "IoT classes". All of
| the integrations are denoted as either local or cloud
| based.
|
| https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2016/02/12/classifying-
| th...
| sneak wrote:
| Home Assistant itself falls into category 2, with some
| integrations/utilities in category 1. The amount of stuff it
| pulls from the mothership and GitHub is crazy. I wish it were
| local-only by default.
| antsar wrote:
| Yes. This is frustrating. Notable examples:
|
| Updating an ESPHome device config requires network to
| build/compile the image. [0]
|
| Viewing your Integrations page leaks a list of integrations
| you are using to "brands.home-assistant.io". [1]
|
| [0] https://community.home-assistant.io/t/esphome-
| completely-off...
|
| [1] https://community.home-assistant.io/t/wth-why-are-
| brand-icon...
| stragies wrote:
| Is the certificate for that domain pinned? If not, just
| host it locally. In fact, I'm going to try doing that.
| Have you already checked the Docs? Somebody probably
| already published a gist somewhere with the needed path
| wkat4242 wrote:
| That is nice because the xiaomi stuff is all over the place in
| HA. Some devices (the air cleaner for example) have built in
| support but many of them need custom not really supported
| addons from HACS. Like the WiFi fans, weighing scales, rice
| cooker etc
| gpi wrote:
| Got my hopes up but it's a start. Was hoping to see more local
| support as opposed to Xiaomi cloud
| carlgreene wrote:
| Home Assistant is one of the best open source projects I've come
| across. I've been using it for 5+ years on an older RPi and it's
| been pretty rock solid. Countless updates and everything just
| keeps on chugging.
|
| I've landed on a mixture of MQTT and Zigbee communicating
| devices, the latter being much easier to set up and maintain.
| There's an integration for just about everything I've wanted,
| some better than others, but all in all just a great project.
| diggan wrote:
| > I've landed on a mixture of MQTT and Zigbee communicating
| devices
|
| Almost everything I use is ZigBee, but at first, I used the
| built-in Zigbee support for it, not realizing what I was
| missing out on.
|
| After a move, I setup everything again, but this time via
| ZigBee2MQTT instead and the compatibility is miles ahead of the
| built-in integration.
|
| Just a word of advice to others who are using the built-in
| integration atm, not realizing the big difference between the
| two :)
| 3abiton wrote:
| I second Zigbee2mqtt. Koen's work is legedenary, I also been
| fascinated by Zigbee and been using ever since. No need to
| 3rd part oem vendor lock-in. 99% of the devices I purchased
| currently nearly 52 on my zigbee network, were paird hassle
| free.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I experimented a bit with ZHA (native Zigbee integration) but
| soon realised I needed something better, and Z2M was that
| something.
|
| It had all been working wonderfully, until I had a problem
| recently that meant I had to redo the entire Zigbee setup.
|
| I run HAOS on a VM, with the Zigbee radio being passed
| through from the host. Recently I wanted to play with Thread
| so I added a radio and passed it through to the VM as well.
| All was fine, though I wasn't having a lot of time to
| experiment and the Thread dongle was connected in an awkward
| position so I decided to yank it out. At this point all hell
| broke lose. Z2M wouldn't start, throwing cryptic error
| messages. After a lot of trial and error, I removed both USB
| passthroughs, rebooted the VM, shut it down again, re-plugged
| the Zigbee dongle and re-added the passthrough. At this point
| the hardware side of things was fine but my Zigbee network
| was gone. To make it worse, a new one couldn't be initialised
| because it was trying to use the same ID as the previous one.
| I had to manually change the ID in the config YAML, restart
| everything, then re-pair all devices.
|
| I really feel like this stuff should be more resilient to
| failures. Otherwise, it's pretty good!
| Croftengea wrote:
| > At this point the hardware side of things was fine but my
| Zigbee network was gone.
|
| How come the hardware was ok but the network was gone? Did
| some Z2M config files go wrong because of two dongles? Did
| you try to restore VM from snapshots?
|
| Losing the network and having to re-pair everything would
| be a nightmare for me given the number of Zigbee devices I
| run (~35) and that some of them are mounted in switch boxes
| in the walls.
| mavamaarten wrote:
| I've actually done my migration the other way around. I
| started with zigbee2mqtt, saw that HA now offers ZHA and
| switched to that. It just works with all devices I own, so
| the end result is one less moving part I need to update so
| the choice was easy.
| sedatk wrote:
| Yes, I see all the praises about Z2M, but don't see any
| details how it's better. ZHA works just fine for me?
| diggan wrote:
| For me, a lot more entities from each device was
| correctly detected out-of-the-box. I think the wide
| compatibility is the biggest reason why you'd go with it.
|
| But if you only have Phillips and Ikea devices for
| example, probably won't be much difference with Z2M.
| tills13 wrote:
| The nice part about mqtt is other things can subscribe to
| the same stream. I've also seen people do some really
| interesting things with hosting a copy of HA in the cloud
| -- this is what they connect to while outside their network
| -- and using mqtt to push updates to a local HA.
| mavamaarten wrote:
| Okay but if you have Home Assistant in the center of all
| things, why would other things need to subscribe to that
| same stream?
|
| I use MQTT but for me it's only a tool for getting a
| certain device integrated in HA. I don't see why I would
| want more devices to communicate that way.
|
| Plus, from my development background, I have grown to
| really dislike event buses. And mqtt sure feels like a
| weird big non-strict event bus with some persistence.
| qwertox wrote:
| I've been rolling my own stuff, mostly devices posting to
| custom python servers, storing data into influxdb and mongodb,
| triggering other servers on events, and lately also integrating
| Tasmota devices via MQTT, like the microwave, washing machine,
| computer monitors, small heating fans and the like. I migrated
| all Hue devices to zigbee2mqtt and am happy with the
| flexibility.
|
| Initially (7 years ago?) I refused to use HA because I've all
| too often had the issue that then projects become stale and I
| need to migrate to something else.
|
| But lately I've gotten the feeling that HA is really here to
| stay, with a community big enough for this project not to die
| and maintaining very good hardware support.
|
| What I'm missing out on is an (Android) app, and I think that
| this would be a good reason to think about moving over to HA.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I think the launch of Open Home Foundation [0] is a very good
| sign for the future of Home Assistant.
|
| [0] https://www.openhomefoundation.org/
| zyberzero wrote:
| > What I'm missing out on is an (Android) app, and I think
| that this would be a good reason to think about moving over
| to HA.
|
| There is! The Home assistant companion - it brings you a lot
| of functionality in terms of location, notifications, sensors
| and what not into the HA world.
|
| https://companion.home-assistant.io/
| holoduke wrote:
| There is an app that is basically a wrapper arround the
| mobile version of HA. But it works quite well. The dashboards
| of HA are responsive and there is no need for a native
| version.
| int_19h wrote:
| Unfortunately the UI is very convoluted, with all the advanced
| concepts exposed upfront.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I mean....I guess this is better than _not_ having it, but I 'm
| not personally interested in cloud-only smart integrations. Cloud
| option? Fantastic! Cloud-only? No thank you.
| _flux wrote:
| I don't believe it's completely cloud only, "local control"
| https://github.com/XiaoMi/ha_xiaomi_home#:~:text=Home%20Inte...
| sounds quite a bit like non-cloud control?
|
| Could still be behind cloud authentication, though.
| KAMSPioneer wrote:
| Read a little further down:
|
| > Xiaomi central hub gateway is only available in mainland
| China. In other regions, it is not available.
|
| Nonstarter for many, myself included.
|
| ETA: Yes it does say "partial" local control can be done
| without the gateway software, but is not recommended and does
| not work unless you are on the same local network. Better
| than nothing, but still a nonstarter.
| tetris11 wrote:
| Just use ZigBee or Z-wave devices and then use a bridge to
| connect to HA.
|
| Anything else is just WiFi and vendor lockdown
| cassianoleal wrote:
| The WiFi and BLU Shelly devices are pretty rock solid, and
| couldn't be more compatible with HA.
| mgrandl wrote:
| Some of the best home automation stuff is cloud-less wifi. For
| example Shelly switches with Tasmota are awesome and I much
| prefer those over zigbee bulbs.
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| Personal anecdote but at least for me WiFi devices are
| significantly more reliable and there exists good brands that
| don't have any vendor lockdown, such as Shelly or Sonoff.
| Others can do Tasmota. So you shouldn't go around discarding it
| just because it's wifi. I live in a concrete and metal house.
| My WiFi coverage is spotless with several APs around the house.
|
| Can't really do that with ZigBee. Almost all of my zigbee
| devices just fail to connect every other day. Z-wave offers
| that mesh network promise but man is it out of reach in the
| price range.
|
| WiFi is everywhere/in every house, I seriously think more
| vendors should offer devices that just integrate into it
| instead of trying to build this bespoke network on the same
| band. Specially since 2.4GHz is going into disuse more and more
| as people switch to 5GHz for phones/pcs/etc..
| tetris11 wrote:
| I'm just worried about OTA updates. Shelly and Sonoff are
| playing nice now. They might not always.
|
| Plus, unless you fence off your wifi device from the router,
| it might be phoning home on you. At least a module without a
| WiFi stack can't do that
| darknavi wrote:
| I'll be the one to plug Valetudo in this thread I guess.
| Primitively, it replaces the cloud functionality on-device for
| robot vacuums (see supported models) and replaces it with local
| services that run offline and can connect to Home Assistant
| easily.
|
| I will never buy another robot vacuum without Valetudo support as
| long as that project lives. It's great.
|
| https://valetudo.cloud/
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I've been eyeing Valetudo for a while. I think it's a shame
| that it doesn't and (according to the author) never will
| support multiple maps. I don't want to have to buy a separate
| robot for each floor when I can easily carry it to the next
| floor when it's done.
| morsch wrote:
| Some robots support restoring map snapshots. I wonder what's
| stopping people from using this as a multi floor
| implementation?
| htgb wrote:
| I use a fork [1] of Valetudo and it lets me do just this. I
| save one map per floor, then restore when carrying it
| between floors. One floor gets cleaned much more often, but
| so far I have preferred this over buying two robots.
|
| [1] https://github.com/rand256/valetudo
| nsbk wrote:
| Yeah the author is very set on his ways. I was thinking about
| contributing but he doesn't want any help. I read
| CONTRIBUTING.md and I kind of get it. Respect.
| akudha wrote:
| Mad respect indeed. I am not in the target audience for
| this project, but I just read through the contributing.md
| page. It is very well written, everything he says makes
| sense
|
| _If there 's an issue that affects 3% of users doing
| something arcane which can be fixed by either a large chunk
| of code or just by not doing that arcane thing, the latter
| will be the preferred solution._
| 05 wrote:
| Yeah I almost installed it, ripped apart my vacuum, just to
| realize there are many different roborock S7 versions with
| different SoCs, and my variant wasn't supported. Also roborock
| doesn't even support scheduled cleaning without cloud :(
| nsbk wrote:
| This morning I ran out of coffee at home. While walking to the
| coffee shop I was thinking about building something like this
| for my Roborock. Now that I know it already exists, it is a
| less appealing idea. Video games and books in the holidays it
| is then!
| whalesalad wrote:
| Sidenote: I just installed Home Assistant this weekend for the
| first time. Insanely polished piece of software!
| monkeydust wrote:
| HA is awesome but I have found that over time entropy kicks in if
| you don't maintain it properly (which I haven't done for a year)
| connections fail, switches stop doing what they are supposed
| to...it's on my Xmas list to spend some time sorting it out!
| sedatk wrote:
| My friend has lost 15GB of sensor data because of corrupted
| MariaDB on his HA instance after an upgrade. It's definitely
| not a hands-off system.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Meanwhile MyQ "closed" their API and broke all HA integration
| because it "cost" the company too much. Where in reality, they
| just wanted people to use their app since they started serving
| ads. Say what you want about China and the security implications
| but a lot of their IoT companies are way more opened than our US
| counterparts.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| If you are thinking of deploying Home Assistant (HA), let me give
| you a few tips that _I_ should have known when started. HA
| environment is vast. There are myriads of options, features, and
| functions. There are some gotchas that can be costly down the
| road.
|
| All of the following are "for now, as you start out":
|
| Do not gyrate over which version of HA to run. Run the HAOS
| loaded on RasPi, or a dedicated machine. You can migrate to other
| solution if that does not end up to be the best choice.
|
| Make sure you get the latest Zigbee radio dongle the HA Forum
| recommends. I use in all my HA installs a combination dongle for
| Zigbee & Z-Wave and it works flawlessly (NORTEK Quickstick
| Combo).
|
| Start with a few _cheap_ Zigbee devices. Stay away from WiFi,
| LoRaWAN and other solutions. Z-Wave devices are great, but more
| expensive. You know you do not know if you even want to do this.
|
| Initially, just use the built-in Zigbee (ZHA) integrations. Once
| you are comfortable deploying other ways, like MQTT can be
| established easily.
|
| Do not spend too much on the devices now. I suggest you pick up a
| PIR motion sensors, door & window opening sensors, temperature &
| humidity sensors, smart plugs, and light bulbs. Anything else is
| overkill to try out. Sub-tip: all of these are battery operated,
| so try to consolidate on a standard battery. The ones I listed
| can all run off of 2032 cell batteries. Ikea sells most of these,
| Aqara is well known, and so on. If it is Zigbee (not Matter) you
| will have 96% chance it will work with HA.
|
| Have fun!
| yurishimo wrote:
| Newer ikea devices are standardizing on AAA because they can be
| recharged. The new motion sensors, door sensors, and buttons
| all use AAA batteries.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Thanks for the update. The ones I have are the Remote Control
| N2 using AAA, and the motion sensors use CR2032.
| flmontpetit wrote:
| You probably meant the same by "dedicated machine" but HAOS
| runs great in a VM too. I run mine on Proxmox and it's been
| rock solid.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| I started with HA in a VM and some WiFi devices, added BLU
| later, never had the need for Zigbee. More than a year later
| and over 40 devices in 2 locations (with VPN between, using the
| same HA server), I am more than happy with the results.
|
| Conclusion: people have different needs and go different paths.
| int_19h wrote:
| As far as hardware, you can just get https://www.home-
| assistant.io/green (plus https://www.home-
| assistant.io/connectzbt1/ if you need Zigbee and Matter).
| mrj wrote:
| What I wish I had known: HA is just a python program, it's
| pretty easy to run it manually.
|
| After my Pi's sdcard died, I wanted to use an old laptop (more
| reliable with a built-in backup battery) so I followed the
| deployment recommendations and used the VM image. After that,
| for the first time I started having problems with HA not
| running - because VirtualBox would run only about a month
| before crashing. And I didn't like how much memory a VM locked
| up on the host.
|
| The documentation makes it sound super complicated, but if you
| can make a venv and `pip install`, the setup is that easy. I
| tend to just run `hass` manually but there instructions for
| setting up supervised. I wish the documentation made this
| clearer, it really tries to scare people away from that method
| but running a whole VM is a lot of overhead for my pretty
| simple zwave-js setup.
| 15155 wrote:
| Just use Docker?
| mrj wrote:
| There are a few things you can't do with docker (my case
| was an addon that I wanted). The install docs have a good
| grid of the differences.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I also don't think Docker can do ARP network
| interrogation, though I could be wrong about that. Also
| not sure how it handles mDNS.
| mindwork wrote:
| Does that includes Qingping air monitors?
| erinnh wrote:
| Dont those already work via Bluetooth?
|
| My Air Monitor Lite at least do.
| pammf wrote:
| I love Home Assistant but I now have a pretty strict minimum
| effort rule after years of configuring integrations and building
| dashboards that I would forget about after 2 months:
|
| I only do automations (no dashboards at all), and try to keep
| them as simple as possible. Once I feel I'm reaching diminishing
| returns territory, I stop.
|
| Only use HA if I need to mix different vendors (e.g. turn on the
| hue lights if the tuya sensor switches to on) or if the vendor
| app/service has a limitation that doesn't allow me to do what I
| want. For instance, I have some automations for my Mitsubishi
| airco units cause their app sucks. Otherwise I'll just use the
| default app or service.
|
| Only configure an integration if I'm going to use it in an
| automation; I have a bunch of integrations detected that I don't
| configure.
|
| I decided to follow these rules a couple of years back, and since
| then I could address all my needs with almost 0 maintenance.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| How many apps do you have installed to control everything? And
| how is the stuff integrating if you have equipment from
| different vendor that need to talk to each other, like AC units
| with PV inverter to start and shutdown based on electricity net
| production and real temperature in the rooms (using external
| thermometers, not the one in the AC)? And how do you
| consolidate and monitor power consumption in a single place,
| are you using a different solution for that?
| guerrilla wrote:
| Why do people care about Xiaomi specifically? Tons of stuff is
| supported by HA.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Put Xiaomi devices on my network? That's a no from me dog.
| odiroot wrote:
| Interesting but this one doesn't work with my containerised Home
| Assistant. Xiaomi Miot Auto works on the other hand.
|
| There's also another, a built-in one.
| perdomon wrote:
| Is this the software suggested by my new robot vacuum?
| seanvelasco wrote:
| low-end Chinese phones, including Xiaomi and Huawei, show ads on
| system apps like Settings and Contacts. soon, smart home
| appliances might also display or speak ads. there's nothing
| stopping these Chinese companies from doing so - both
| technologically and ethically.
|
| Xiaomi definitely should not lead the way in smart home
| automation.
| noicebrewery wrote:
| What makes you think this is unique to Chinese tech companies?
| Windows 11 put ads in our start menu.
| dtquad wrote:
| Windows 11 "advertise" Microsoft services for Windows 11.
| It's more like feature announcements.
| evilduck wrote:
| I wish they were that restrained.
|
| While they do include MS services in their advertising it's
| way more than that. They include a bunch of other crap,
| including hardware offerings like trying to sell you XBox
| controllers in popups near the taskbar. They advertise
| Candy Crush, Instagram, Adobe Express, etc, as listed apps
| "preinstalled" in Windows. They push clickbait MSN articles
| (ads) for games, travel, and buying guides in the search
| button of the taskbar that is enabled by default. They then
| push those in a widget popover panel too. They make Edge
| the default browser out of the box (and are relentless
| about getting you to switch if you change it) and Edge
| itself then shoves ads in your face with default bookmarks
| like Ebay and Netflix and Walmart and featured content.
| IIRC even things like their Maps, Weather, and Photos apps
| also had web advertising placements.
|
| There's probably more but I can't bear to use Windows more
| than minimally necessary so I've probably missed a bunch.
| seanvelasco wrote:
| do you mean putting Bing on the start menu? Microsoft just
| made them opt-in by default and hoped that folks won't notice
| or care. you can disable them.
|
| for Chinese devices, there's no way to disable them.
|
| the difference is, for Windows, having Bing on start was a
| feature (although a bad one). for Chinese devices, you just
| get ads - you're stuck with ads while changing your
| brightness.
| RonaldDump wrote:
| >opt-in by default
| noicebrewery wrote:
| No, not just Microsoft services or features (or
| subscription based software), ads for games and apps on
| their store get jammed in the start menu as well.
|
| And as other commenters have pointed out, lots of budget
| phones and hardware jam ads all over the place.
|
| Premium hardware too (hello Smart TVs)
| maxglute wrote:
| You get ads for agreeing to buy a cheap subsidized device, like
| amazon devices. There's lots of guides out there to disable
| ads/msa.
|
| >soon, smart home
|
| How? With what screen or speaker? The half inch oled on my
| smart ricer cooker? Xiaomi has been in the smart home market
| for ~10 years, with 100s of products, except pushing for
| storage subscription in the mi home app, they haven't done
| anything aggregious. My robovacuum, air purifier, air
| conditioner didn't screamed ads in the middle of the night.
| There's nothing stopping any tech company that inputs to a
| screen or speaker from monetizing ads, except for past
| behaviour, and so far Xiaomi home has been very good.
| jwr wrote:
| ...unlike appliances from non-Chinese companies like, say,
| Amazon? :-)
|
| There is nothing "Chinese" about enshittification of the world
| around us. My LG TV insists that my "home screen" is not my
| property, even though I bought the TV, and invents new ways of
| showing ads and tracking me invasively. Amazon devices show ads
| and speak ads. Even Apple devices, even though apple pretends
| they are above this, show ads in app store search results, and
| send you ad notifications.
|
| I won't even honorably mention Windows, where my computer and
| the main UI is basically considered a free-for-all for the
| Microsoft marketing department.
| xbar wrote:
| I might modify your argument to say that there is nothing
| uniquely Chinese about enshitification of the world around
| us.
| GBiT wrote:
| Samsung, and some other major players put a lot of ads and
| bloatware in their phones, TVs, laptops and other appliances.
| Xiaomi doesn't have ads on global versions of TVs and Phones. I
| know the Chinese version does have ads.
|
| As a homeowner, I don't know what is worse. Using stuff where
| the local government can watch and spy on every step or some
| Chinese guy watching your boring life if you are low-level
| person.
| nextworddev wrote:
| No thanks
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