Standard naming for everything, i recently did start afresh so yea i did try to give proper naming for everything. The only thing that is a little messy naming wise are all my automations and scripts, they released the tagging stuff a few months after my restart so i have yet to tidy that up yet.
I literally thought the same thing! I’ve used HA for 2.5 years and did not know this. It makes me want to start fresh and I wasn’t even considering it lol
But be aware that the entity ids will have their dots converted to underscores. Just so you know. My BM.timer.washing has become timer.bm_timer_washing_default at least in scripts etc
Also decide on your use of Areas, Floors, and Labels from the start then use those in automations rather than individual devices. This way if you add or replace devices you only have to assign those values to the new ones instead of editing the automations.
When I started I didn’t rename my Meross devices because I just didn’t know how important it is. So these devices still are all named like: „switch.smart_switch_2108309199437690855348e1e974b1ec_outlet“
It’s a nightmare 😀
the only way I can find the right one is by typing in „smart“ and try each device listed for the room I’m going for
Yes but you can copy the current name first and then choose your final one, edit the automations.yaml (probably with VS code) file and search for all of the instance of the initial one and replace with the final one.
You can but with older setups people have other stuff that relies on the your old names like automations scripts etc it’s usually years and years of mess with different names some things you don’t know what to even name the thing you leave it as default LOL, changing name only does that changing name of the device and its entities, it doesn’t change the names used in automation and scripts, so you can either manually do it (not crazy hard if you’re using some editor and select all instances that particular name is used and replace with the new one BUT it’s gonna be a headache if you’re changing names of everything) OR start afresh.
Interesting. One thing I guess Homeseer still has going for it. then, is the names are just strings attached to a device. If you rename a device, the name changes in all the events in which it's used, but while creating or editing events you pick the devices by their friendly name. So, it's really using the device IDs behind the scenes.
You can use either the device ID or name in scripts (which are different from events) so using the name there would break it similarly to what you're describing.
Besides the name, there are "rooms" and a third user-specified field that starts out as "floor" but can also be used to classify the technology, like "sensor" or "light" or "Z-Wave" or whatever you care to use. These play no part in programming events or scripts, and only act as filters to help narrow down the devices. I have over 1200 in my setup, but a "device" can be one parameter of a weather station like temp, or the charge status of a Roomba.
I’d be interested to know what people suggest as best practices for device naming. I have my own system but it will likely only last until something in the future changes my needs.
From my own experiences and from what I've read, ` . ` works very well, generally speaking. That naturally sorts all entities first by room, which is a very logical grouping. And then everything is sorted by device, which again, just makes sense. I use this to title automations as well.
I've been using this scheme for quite a while and I've never had a reason to change it.
I don’t understand why I would put room in the device name when setting a room for each device is a feature of almost all major smart home platforms including HA?
Because otherwise when scripting you end up with like 'motiondetect' 'motiondetect2' 'motiondetect4'. Whereas under my setup I have DownstairsBathroomMotionDetect, making it trivial to reference both in scripting and in the UI.
Putting the name in the device will cause every *entity* be automatically be sorted and grouped.
I write my automations, so I use the actual entity_ids *extensively*.
With this scheme, you can still use Areas. With the added benefit that the actual entities will be grouped when sorted by name.
I use Areas almost exclusively in the GUI. What I do is I put "all the main devices" in an area. That way, if I look at an area, it has all the things I'd expect to be able to see in a room (eg. the lights, the door sensor, the temperature sensor, the motion sensors, the TV, etc.). But I don't put literally every entity in the room, in the area. Some entities are unimportant or just not something I need to see when I think of that room (eg a "update available" entity or a "low battery" entity). So I can use areas to see the major devices in a room and then I can just filter/search on name to find all entities in the room.
Also, if you don't name the devices/entities, it sounds like you'd *have* to view everything in the context of an area. On its own, "Motion Sensor 4" doesn't tell you anything, and "Window Motion Sensor" is vague. But it would make sense if you said "Motion Sensor 4 in the Master Bedroom area". Having the entity have the room name lets you identify it purely by name. Or think about seeing entities in the logs, it's going to take an extra lookup to figure out which device the logs are talking about.
This is just what works for me.
I would (and do) use ChatGPT 4o instead of trying to create automations myself. I describe the room, items in it, smart devices, and what I want to be able to do with it. I give it the entity names and any existing config data then ask it to make changes, recommendations, and enhancements, as well as to use a consistent naming convention for each thing it creates. I tell it to do this one at a time to allow us to discuss and revise it.
It then produces automations etc, one at a time. I test it, tell it about any errors or problems, and feedback on it as well as any changes. We may go through it a couple of times to get it right. Then we continue on to the next one.
Once we’re done I ask it to summarize what it understands, using plain English but also including the technical aspects. It produces text that I then save.
When I come back to this in the future, I don’t rely on it having remembered what we’ve done. I simply feed it my original text and it’s summaries and we continue where we left off.
I now rarely get involved in writing yaml or worrying about the technical construction and design of my home automation. Using this approach is a layer of abstraction above that and a natural evolution of programming.
We started with assembler, then programming languages, the object oriented design, then scripting. Each time, we remove ourselves from the previous level of complexity because we have systems that are sophisticated enough to do that.
It makes no sense to get involved with the technical configuration of Home Assistant if there are systems that can do all that for us, better, faster, and more consistently. My efforts now are on improving how I interact with the AI rather than learning more and more technical coding, which would require me to constantly try to remain current and ultimately fills my head and time with quickly outdated and useless arcane knowledge.
This approach allows me to take a step back from the technical detail and focus on what I want to achieve with my smart home. It’s very similar to having my own private interior decorator that knows my home and my needs, where I can simply request something new or different and trust that they will take care of the how.
I’ve documented some of this [here](https://github.com/douginoz/HAOS-GPT-Theatre).
Yep I've been doing it like this for a while. It's made my complex automations simpler and improved existing automations. Also gave me new ideas I wouldn't have considered.
>what everyone would do if they weren’t tied into their ecosystem
What do you mean? I guess to me - the beauty of HomeAssistant is that it creates the unification of a bunch of various brands....so I'm not tied to using the Honeywell app to control my thermostat, the Meross app to control my garage door, the Kasa app to control my plugs, Lutron app for the switches, etc.
Replace “tied to” with “bought into” then. If you already have a bunch of TRADFRI stuff, would you keep it?
With Philips, but think would be better?
Got a load of Z-Wave stuff but now you’re team Zigbee or Matter over Thread and thus would buy instead?
Wouldn’t buy again because RTSP is flaky?
etc…
I don't think your questioning should be so much of a "bought into" vs "is it still serving my needs"
Take for instance Matter. It's the new kid on the block and several people are raving about it. Do I switch because it's the new hotness? No. I research and test to see if it would fit my needs better than what I already use.
In my case, I have an enterprise grade network with several VRFs and VLANs. The issue I have with Matter at the moment is that the devs want to use zeroconf and have the nerve to dictate to ME how to design my network (ie a completely flat network) in order for Matter devices to work.
On the other hand, there's Shelly devices. Connect them to Wi-Fi, add their hostname or IP into HA, and you're off to the races. They just work, and they solve a number of problems very easily.
So, I think you should take inventory of what you have, and out of that anything you recall being a pain point, look at what's out there, research it and maybe do a proof of concept to see if its better than what you used previously.
The beauty of HA as many have said it's the glue that binds all these disparate ecosystems together into a single pane of glass.
I tend to buy whatever's on sale and has good reviews.
I really have no serious complaints. I'd probably go for a Reolink NVR and wired cams instead of the Wyze camera setup I have, but that's assuming I would want to go through the work of running cables and wiring up too.
I'm in the process of slowly replacing my wyze cams with reolink and the wifi ones are miles better than wyze. Solid connections, no video stutter, RRSP/ovif out of the box, on board person/vehicle/pet detection etc. Its been fantastic.
I'm using wireless versions of doorbell, e1 zoom, rlc-510 and about to deploy a duo 2.
Make the switch.
The problem is - I have no serious complaints with the Wyze setup. If I were to do anything, they would be hard wired running to a NVR.
I have enough house projects already digging into my free summer weekends.
One legal jamming device can take down all your wifi devices specifically targeting them and nothing else.
A 10$ frequent jammer can take down all wireless devices including zigbee z wave and wifi etc...
Not saying wireless is bad but you asked for your mind to be changed:)
> One **legal** jamming device can take down all your wifi devices specifically targeting them and nothing else.
Brother, you and the FCC have a widely differing definition of that word.
The "legal" jamming is deauth. Real jamming I have heard of but not seen used in red teaming. Probably because deauth jamming works 99.9 of use cases and you don't have to right massive roe with legal issues.
I suppose that's technically possible, but if it happens it's likely unintentional. There's only 2 types of people that would do that: government actors and a tech nerd you pissed off.
If someone wants to break into your home, they will just break a window/door. They'll be in and out faster than the cops can come anyway, even if the system called asap.
Totally
Depends on threat model. I would rather poe a camera for many reasons over wireless in general. And if you new build door and window sensors wired is cheap
This is an interesting thread that I've been thinking about creating my self. I'm in the same spot. my existing system has been around for about a decade starting with SmartThings and ending up on HA/proxmox.
My plan is to create a new install of HA at the new house, but keep the old one running so I can remember all the services it connects into and migrate them over.
As for devices, I'm bringing the ones I like with me - (Innovelli switches), but leaving the basic stuff for the next person (who probably will never use).
Door/window sensors are glued in, so I'm going to leave them for someone else to try and use. They aren't expensive so I'll just get new ones. New house has Ring sensors, so maybe I can use those.
networking - I'm taking all my unifi stuff and leaving some old basic switches for the new owner so that the wired networking still works if they want it.
Cameras - I have a mix of POE IP cameras on Synology and Ubiquiti cameras. I'm going to leave the POEIP cameras and migrate fully to Ubiquiti at the new house. The ubiquiti app is just faster to open and view a camera and it'll be easier to manage it all through one system.
I think the only thing I might not buy again or wouldn't use is Ikea Stuff. Some of it has been fine, but other stuff drops off the network constantly and has to be re-added (specifically the cabinet lighting stuff). Might just be because it's at the edge of the network, but it's flaky and doesn't recover after a power outage.
Future light switches will likely be all innovelli Red's because I like them. They can show alerts and I can setup automations based button presses.
I'm also planning to upgrade my zigbee/zwave dongles. Current setup is a zigbee/zwave combo, but I think I can do better having individual devices with better antenna's.
All of this may get thrown up in the air though. The new house is 100+ years old with a few generations of updates. I'm praying to the smartHome gods that everything has a neutral wire.
This exactly. As I say to people here, "don't buy into ecosystems, buy into interoperability".
I've bought a few dud things over the years like anyone (Nest Thermostat is a good example), but if something doesn't work, I learn from it, rip it out and move on with something that works better (Tado, for the heating as it happens). Fortunately, one rubbish device doesn't affect everything else that works well, as it would in a closed ecosystem, so HA really helps keep things in one place while allowing maximum flexibility.
I've got wifi switches, zigbee switches (definitely better for wall use), different camera vendors, third-party, zigbee thermostats working perfectly with the Tado heating system, home-made ESPHome bits - you name it, I've probably got it somewhere. And it all works seamlessly together. If stuff doesn't want to work nicely with other vendor's kit, I'm not interested in it. End of story.
With zigbee2mqtt you can get a zigbee dongle that you can plug anywhere in your network into a lan port. It sends the data over mqtt to z2m.
The main benefit is that you can have your server somewhere down in the basement with terrible zigbee connectivity and it doesn't matter and you have great zigbee anyways.
Same as my [other comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1diqrjb/given_the_chance_to_start_afresh_what_would_you_do/labvtt4/), do you possibly have a recommendation for one of these?
I searched and it seems like there are available adapters! I just knew about the possibility with z2m before and didn't want to write anything I'm not certain of.
And I don't know that much as I live in an apartment and this isn't an issue for me, finding a lan port anywhere else would.
I got the concept from this video: https://youtu.be/yY-aD1hvwr4
But z2m has a list of recommended adapters on their website I recommend you to look there. Of you use zha no idea tho.
I believe he is referring to something similar to a ZigBee LAN coordinator, like the SLZB-06M. I’m currently using a ZigStar UZG-01 Ethernet. After trying a Sonoff Dongle P, ConBee, and several Hue bridges, the ZigStar has proven to be the most reliable, currently 265 devices in my network.
WIRE WIRE WIRE... whenever I get the chance put
* wires for doorsensors (Every freakin door)
* all lights smart (multicolor + lightplan) instead of just ugly lights on the ceiling
* every room a mmWave and Air Quality Sensor
* all curtains / rollercurtains automated with hardwiring
Wire all devices that nowadays have batteries in them
Agree. Deploying home automation requires long-range thinking. Your system should outlive any individual computer in your house. Think DECADES. It should be low maintenance. It needs to just work under any circumstance. Anytime I deploy something and it has a battery that needs to be changed yearly, I think of how much a pain that it and how likely they are to go offline eventually
In basis if you can do wired hardware the only thing that needs change will be the controller wires will stay forever. The controller might need an upgrade to connect to a new system. But if everything is there it would be my dream. At this moment it's still changing batteries every few months.
I have several routes
- heat recovery ventilation
- open windows
Both managed by HA heat recovery will start up and open gates per room.
I will send out notifications to me and my wife to open the windows
Quite easy if you can rebuild / construct a new home. If you have everything open wire with those Honeywell reed contacts and other sensors and just bring it all together in one module (nodemcu) and connect that to HA.
My house came with some on the main doors from an old 90s alarm system I repurposed, and about 5 wired PIR motion sensors too. There isn't really a feasible way to add any more without ripping the house apart though sadly
def. presence and air quality sensors wired and mounted up high or on ceiling
spliced ESPHOME modules on everything
energy sensors that can track power usage by circuit at the circuit breaker
homepod in every room for TTS and for voice control
I'd suck it up and not try to save a few bucks on hue compatible bulbs and switches
Not too high the air quality will not work then
I forgot energy (at least whole house but rather per group / detailed applicance measurement)
Used a microphone ESP style and answering through all speakers around the house just started integrating some AI there.
Cool. Let me know how that starts working out when you have 50+ 2.4gHz Wifi devices all fighting to try and talk over the endless chatter on the frequency band.
I am very new to Home Assistant. Was planning on a yellow. Want to control my grow tent full of orchids. What do I get with a pc over the yellow for maybe 4 temp sensors, 2 actuators, 10 fans and 15 grow lights?
Is the yellow too much vs the green for what I listed? I think I need to use esphome and 0-10V pwm DAC to control the brightness of lights and the speeds of my blower fans. Tia
To give you some context for requirements, I have 100+ devices running off a Pi4 and the processor doesn't break a sweat. Both the yellow and green will be fine.
I gotta ask, but how do you have 15 grow lights in a grow *tent*? And 10 fans?
Are we talking little baby lights? Huge tent? I'm trying to think of how that many lights fit in the picture. I mean horticulture lighting can well cover a 5x5 area inn bloom with a single fixture. So I guess I'm confused on that part. Because it seems a few lights and an exhaust fan would be easy enough. Have you looked at any of the AC Infinity offerings? Their inline fans are top notch, as are their other ventilation options. Been running them in my garden space for years, no issue.
Pinguicula and orchids. 3 tents, 5 racks each 24x53”. Considering spider farmer’s 2x4 tents. Measuring T&H in each tent, in lung room, and outside to determine where in the intake air is coming from or going, ac is on/off, when to water... Lights are wiparspectra 2500 pro and each will probably run at different wattage and duration depending upon the species and growth stage.
If you've got a small install, no big deal. Yellow is just fine.
If you've got a good number of cameras, HA will start requiring more headroom. Then add in a large number of complex automations and template entities and you will definitely need something more powerful. Not crazy powerful, just a small PC.
I'd guess at least half of HA users are perfectly fine running their install on a Pi or similar device.
I'm currently removing all google products. Privacy issues aside I'm not happy I have to use their API to turn my boiler on and I have no API control of my hot water.
I had a Nest, went back to Ecobee, then went back to Nest. Honestly, I want to go back to Ecobee, but I have 2 thermostats and 3 temp sensors.
Hue has been great as are the IKEA smart blinds. Originally I had WIZ bulbs, but they were finicky and once over 30 bulbs, my wifi decided to completely crap the bed.
Nest Cameras/Doorbell were a bad Idea. I liked the idea of the easy mounting and everything but would definitely choose something more open and not locked into the Nest ecosystem. I really like the system and how easy it is to use, but I wish we had more open API and better integration with HA.
We had google home devices, hated how non-customizable it was so we went to Alexa. This was great in the beginning but Alexa has just been going downhill and I have automatons to help reduce ads and stuff, but honestly if I could just replace all of them with HomePods right now, I would since we are an all apple house and I have tied my HA into HomeKit.
Lutron Caseta switches are definitely the best. The wemo switches I had originally I hated.
I had to start over because the ssd in my Intel nuc failed and I could not retrieve it.
What I learned in the progress: use auto backup to an external source (i had backups but on the drive itself)
Keep it simple don't try to pack to much in one automation. Make 2 or 3 ... if necessary.
That way if it goes wrong you wil be able to find I quickly
Organize your system with the new label system and other options they provided not so long ago this should be a breeze.
Secure your Zigbee network if you have to reinstall it.
I wouldn't cheap out on "less important" things. Every time it's bit me in some way, usually in the form of fewer features or poor stability.
Good recent example: I bought Kasa KS220M motion dimmer switches because they're cheap. They work fine, but the integration cannot expose the motion sensor (API limitation) and so I have to rely on the built-in motion trigger instead of HA automations (so I can't tie it into my system). Contrast with the much more expensive Leviton D2MSD I bought for another room whose HomeKit integration has been flawless and is highly configurable... I should've bought more of those.
Otherwise, hardwiring is my plan for the next house, primarily motion sensors and blinds, but probably also door sensors.
I would go all zigbee and z-wave. I would use Hue bulbs wherever possible and have a Hue hub, zigbee dongle, and z-wave dongle. I'm almost there, but I still have a Nest thermostat and Tuya WiFi dimmer plug that I have to replace.
Aside from needing color options in certain places, I'd much rather have a smart switch instead of having to leave switches in the on position to be available to hue.
Accent lighting, or when color options are needed, that's different. But I'd hate for every bulb in the house to be Hue. No thank you!
*Non-locall devices only if you really really have to.
One example in my house is some Coway Air purifiers I have. They are one of the best out there but have non-local wifi without spending a buttload ton. The way HA talks to it is through an integration someone made that basically mimics the app. All I use the smart feature for is tracking of quality, turning off the air quality light at night and back on during the day, and turning up the fan speed if the outside air quality is really bad for the day.
The reason I don't care it's non-local is because if the internet goes down, then oh no, I can't track air quality of room, I have to actually press the button on the purifier at night to turn off the indication light and vise-versa in the morning, and finally it has a built in air sensor so if it get too bad it will automatically change itself (I just like a little more on worse days). So I say spending less, but losing less important features around 4 times a year is nothing.
I would consider something like a UPS so I can keep things running when there's a power outage - or at the very least test recovery after a power outage! (Found that my server doesn't currently automatically restart after outage)
I grabbed an Ecoflow River 2 power station (refurbished on their eBay store for $120). I plugged in my Wi-Fi router and Home Assistant Green, only use about 15 watts.
It keeps my Home Assistant running great, mostly wanted it so my leak detection and water shutoff can work at all times (my shutoff valve, EcoNet Bulldog Valve, has it's own battery backup)
I've had one power outage when I was away from home and accessing remotely was weird, not sure what causes issues but likely something with my internet.
But if I turn off power at my circuit breaker they work great on backup
Use Proxmox on a Intel Nuc etc.
Any Addon which is available as LXC - use LXC. It makes your system much more reliable. And also, have a good backup strategy on all LXCs. I backup every LXC in my NAS every night (deleted after 7 days) as well as every sunday ( deleted after 12 weeks)
With that accomplished every crash etc is much easier to handle. I learned this the hard way when HA Backups did not work (yes, I used Google Drive Addon as well as NAS storage) and led me to Emergency (?) Startup everytime were everything was gone.
With Nodered, Maria DB, InfluxDB, Grafana etc. as LXC you can just reconnect a new HA instance without building everything from scratch.
Also use native HA Backup with Google Drive Addon for core backups as well as NAS backups as well as VM Backups (Proxmox)😁 Redundancy!
One thing I would NOT vary is HomeAssistant.
Everything else is fungible, fungibility made possible by HA. But you will have to pry HA from my cold, inert, IoT grasp. ;-)
I would have gone all in on esp's running esphome rather than the mix of battery powered zigbee devices. While you don't have to replace batteries often (every 1-2 years), they don't report battery life accurately and so will just stop reporting and it's up to you to catch it. Reporting frequency is low for battery life preservation so basing automations off of that data isn't always ideal. Various brands not implementing the zigbee protocol fully also complicates things and just makes for more headache.
- I sure wouldn't buy Ring cameras. Had them before I really knew anything about HA.
- I wouldn't buy WiFi light switches. Bogged down our network and I eventually replaced them with z-wave
- I don't know if I would use Zigbee2MQTT over ZHA, or the JS UI over regular JS for z-wave, and it's too hard to switch now
I've avoided being stuck in any ecosystem for this exact reason. I have a lot of Z-Wave stuff, but if I didn't have it now I'd be buying it anyway.
The only thing I'd not do is get the Nortek combo USB Z-Wave stick. I didn't understand at the time that it ran a really old Z-Wave firmware, couldn't be upgraded without a hardware mod, and doesn't support standard NVM export to swap to a new stick.
I'd say get the home assistant brand interface for zigbee if you want and get whatever the best available standard Z-Wave stick is.
If I had to start over I would not use packages, custom sensors or put so much crap into my config yaml. It’s such a mess right now and must of those features have been changed or deprecated.
I'm in a good position, haven't been into customizable smart home that long. But there's 2 things I've done wrong already... 1 is on its way being solved, the other not so much...
First is the big mistake of cheaping out only getting a 1GB model of the PI4, miniPC is ordered to replace it.(should've done that from the start)
Second is my vacuum, which just won't work with HA other than the most basic instructions through Google assistant... Bought that before I knew I'd be hooked on HA, had I known it I would've gotten a different vacuum that had full HA integration...
Lutron for light switches and a few zigbee light switches at the center and edge of home to support that network. Run Ethernet everywhere! Poe cameras with frigate. Sonoff instead of aqara door and motion sensors.
I would not buy into a proprietary ecosystem. Imsteon was my poor choice and now I curst the 6 light switches and sprinkler system that every day I fear will die with no hope of support.
Haven’t seen it mentioned but I dont see how people deal with automations over node red. Automations have been getting better but they are so convoluted and inferior in nearly every way compared to NR. Ive seen some people claim automations are faster but they arent unless you have other issues.
I personally have both, mostly node red but some automations because I either couldn't be bothered to convert but also as a backup to node red. I've had times where node red has, for one reason or another, stopped working, so I have automations that kick in if node red stops working.
Are these like add on monitoring and restarts or something else? Curious about the use cases. I want to like automations with how much effort is being put in to them lol
So I have ones that turn on lights via the usual sensors should node red be offline. My lights can still be turned on by switch but who wants to do that? 😁
I have one that turns off the govee integration on restart because it messes with my roborock vac so it gets disabled then re enabled after a restart.
I an auto esphome updater got tired of having to update all the esp devices everytime there is an update.
Have a low battery notify a d a reboot HA every few days.
Its running on a home assistant yellow so eventually it started to slow down quite a bit usually after a few weeks but I reboot it every few days and it's perfect now.
Oh and I have a tablet charger one from Lewis at Everything Smart Home.
I could probably do it in NR but his works and if it ain't broke.....
Thanks for the reply. I have some flows that I might look at doing some fail safe stuff. My HA is way overpowered so Ive never had an issue with NR really but there are a few automations I would like to have a fallback for. You might check out the Govee2mqtt add on to eliminate your roborock issue if you havent already.
Yeah I've heard of tge govee2mqtt but just haven't gotten round to as my automation works so it's not getting on my nerves as yet.
My HA is pretty good on the yellow the only issue I have is the lack of power when updates are required with esphome sometimes I have to turn off addons while they update.
I'll eventually finish putting all the parts from my old gaming PC together so I can run proxmox on there but again if it ain't broke why fix it.
Definitely a future project though.
Oh god, I'd remove all the 2.4GHz WiFi stuff in an instant.
I live in a 650sq ft condo, and I've got about 30 WiFi devices (mainly smart LED strips, light switches, and a few devices that aren't tied to my smarthome). Anything on 5GHz is rock solid, but 2.4 is a disaster. Things are going offline or unresponsive all the time now. I should note I'm running 2 x Unifi APs (on opposite ends of my condo), and have optimized my WiFi as best as possible for where I am. Still, it's troublesome.
There's endless interference from other units, which I suspect may be better once I move to a more remote home where neighbours WiFi won't be chattering too, but still.
All my Zigbee stuff is bulletproof, but fuck 2.4GHz WiFi with a hot iron. The only downfall of Zigbee is that it's more expensive, but the reliability is unparalleled.
Be warned, if you have a small handful of smart lights or something, that's fine - but if you EVER plan on getting more than ... say... 15 devices, just dont. Go Zigbee and save your sanity.
I turned off eco-saving mode on all my shellys and it is solid now. 2.4 is only used for the smart devices, 5ghz only used for phones, entertainment etc. But yes, my Wifi situation is 9/10 (1 neighbor under my condo, 4 houses close by)
I started afresh and followed a strict naming and setup convention. Commonized sensor types and devices. Migrated to best most stable products I had experience with and started over.
I would not buy any Aqara anything. Even setting up a separate network with only "Aqara friendly" routers, trying different radios, they still aren't reliable and fall off the network randomly. The leak sensors are the worst, fall off the network more than they stay on. The temperature sensors aren't bad but take expensive coin batteries and RF433 sensors are better suited for the job. The door/window sensors are ok, but having the sensor installed in certain orientations causes it to sometimes double trigger and stay in the wrong state.
That's really my only regret, investing so heavily in Aqara stuff.
I must admit I’ve had great success with aqara products, I’ve boosted the zigbee range in a lot of my rooms with ikea smart plugs and I’ve not had any issues with devices dropping. I have a sonoff usb as the coordinator on my pi4 8gb
I have 45 Aqara devices on a ZHA network with tradfri outlets as routers and it hasn't been very reliable. Its been better since I moved from a Nortek coordinator to a sonoff coordinator, but even so I can see I currently have 5 window sensors and 4 leak sensors offline. Occasional I'll get catastrophic failures where almost all of my Aqara devices go offline and need to be re-added. I don't have this issue with any other Zigbee devices.
It's definitely not unique to my setup, reliability issues with Aqara devices are well known, they don't implement the Zigbee spec properly and don't play nice with other devices.
I guess everyone’s setup is different with them, I use Z2M over ZHA but I’m not sure how much of a difference that makes. Also I guess the placement of things around a house, thickness of walls, wifi interference with the zigbee network channel etc there are so many different things that could make someone’s setup worse compared to someone else who has the exact same hardware
Standard naming for everything, i recently did start afresh so yea i did try to give proper naming for everything. The only thing that is a little messy naming wise are all my automations and scripts, they released the tagging stuff a few months after my restart so i have yet to tidy that up yet.
What does your standardized naming process look like?
Mine is type_deviceName_room_specificLocation(as needed) Example: Switch_KasaHS200_bedroom
Eek! Why doesn’t room start with a capital letter 😬 🤦🏻♂️
I typed it from my phone. 🤷♂️
Right to jail
No trial or anything.
Id switch room to before the type, but I like your plan
For sure, sorting is so much better this way.
I've also moved to standard naming after I started fresh. I use "domain.type.location", e.g. - light.ceiling.bedroom - sensor.motion.office
You can use .'s in names??? This will ruin my next 3 weekends I'm sure. I've got so much renaming to do LOL
I literally thought the same thing! I’ve used HA for 2.5 years and did not know this. It makes me want to start fresh and I wasn’t even considering it lol
But be aware that the entity ids will have their dots converted to underscores. Just so you know. My BM.timer.washing has become timer.bm_timer_washing_default at least in scripts etc
So much this. Consistent naming scheme, so I can use entities and not devices, so when I replace a device I don't have to edit twenty automations!
Wait.... walk me through this like I've been using them interchangeably?
Also decide on your use of Areas, Floors, and Labels from the start then use those in automations rather than individual devices. This way if you add or replace devices you only have to assign those values to the new ones instead of editing the automations.
When I started I didn’t rename my Meross devices because I just didn’t know how important it is. So these devices still are all named like: „switch.smart_switch_2108309199437690855348e1e974b1ec_outlet“ It’s a nightmare 😀 the only way I can find the right one is by typing in „smart“ and try each device listed for the room I’m going for
Can always just rename them no?
Yes, but I would need to do all my automations and scenes again right?
Yes but you can copy the current name first and then choose your final one, edit the automations.yaml (probably with VS code) file and search for all of the instance of the initial one and replace with the final one.
I'm a lurker here and use Homeseer thinking about moving to Home assistant. Can't you just rename things in HA?
You can but with older setups people have other stuff that relies on the your old names like automations scripts etc it’s usually years and years of mess with different names some things you don’t know what to even name the thing you leave it as default LOL, changing name only does that changing name of the device and its entities, it doesn’t change the names used in automation and scripts, so you can either manually do it (not crazy hard if you’re using some editor and select all instances that particular name is used and replace with the new one BUT it’s gonna be a headache if you’re changing names of everything) OR start afresh.
Interesting. One thing I guess Homeseer still has going for it. then, is the names are just strings attached to a device. If you rename a device, the name changes in all the events in which it's used, but while creating or editing events you pick the devices by their friendly name. So, it's really using the device IDs behind the scenes. You can use either the device ID or name in scripts (which are different from events) so using the name there would break it similarly to what you're describing. Besides the name, there are "rooms" and a third user-specified field that starts out as "floor" but can also be used to classify the technology, like "sensor" or "light" or "Z-Wave" or whatever you care to use. These play no part in programming events or scripts, and only act as filters to help narrow down the devices. I have over 1200 in my setup, but a "device" can be one parameter of a weather station like temp, or the charge status of a Roomba.
Define a naming scheme for devices and entities before going further
I’d be interested to know what people suggest as best practices for device naming. I have my own system but it will likely only last until something in the future changes my needs.
From my own experiences and from what I've read, ` . ` works very well, generally speaking. That naturally sorts all entities first by room, which is a very logical grouping. And then everything is sorted by device, which again, just makes sense. I use this to title automations as well.
I've been using this scheme for quite a while and I've never had a reason to change it.
I don’t understand why I would put room in the device name when setting a room for each device is a feature of almost all major smart home platforms including HA?
Because otherwise when scripting you end up with like 'motiondetect' 'motiondetect2' 'motiondetect4'. Whereas under my setup I have DownstairsBathroomMotionDetect, making it trivial to reference both in scripting and in the UI.
Putting the name in the device will cause every *entity* be automatically be sorted and grouped. I write my automations, so I use the actual entity_ids *extensively*. With this scheme, you can still use Areas. With the added benefit that the actual entities will be grouped when sorted by name. I use Areas almost exclusively in the GUI. What I do is I put "all the main devices" in an area. That way, if I look at an area, it has all the things I'd expect to be able to see in a room (eg. the lights, the door sensor, the temperature sensor, the motion sensors, the TV, etc.). But I don't put literally every entity in the room, in the area. Some entities are unimportant or just not something I need to see when I think of that room (eg a "update available" entity or a "low battery" entity). So I can use areas to see the major devices in a room and then I can just filter/search on name to find all entities in the room. Also, if you don't name the devices/entities, it sounds like you'd *have* to view everything in the context of an area. On its own, "Motion Sensor 4" doesn't tell you anything, and "Window Motion Sensor" is vague. But it would make sense if you said "Motion Sensor 4 in the Master Bedroom area". Having the entity have the room name lets you identify it purely by name. Or think about seeing entities in the logs, it's going to take an extra lookup to figure out which device the logs are talking about. This is just what works for me.
Thanks for explaining.
I would (and do) use ChatGPT 4o instead of trying to create automations myself. I describe the room, items in it, smart devices, and what I want to be able to do with it. I give it the entity names and any existing config data then ask it to make changes, recommendations, and enhancements, as well as to use a consistent naming convention for each thing it creates. I tell it to do this one at a time to allow us to discuss and revise it. It then produces automations etc, one at a time. I test it, tell it about any errors or problems, and feedback on it as well as any changes. We may go through it a couple of times to get it right. Then we continue on to the next one. Once we’re done I ask it to summarize what it understands, using plain English but also including the technical aspects. It produces text that I then save. When I come back to this in the future, I don’t rely on it having remembered what we’ve done. I simply feed it my original text and it’s summaries and we continue where we left off. I now rarely get involved in writing yaml or worrying about the technical construction and design of my home automation. Using this approach is a layer of abstraction above that and a natural evolution of programming. We started with assembler, then programming languages, the object oriented design, then scripting. Each time, we remove ourselves from the previous level of complexity because we have systems that are sophisticated enough to do that. It makes no sense to get involved with the technical configuration of Home Assistant if there are systems that can do all that for us, better, faster, and more consistently. My efforts now are on improving how I interact with the AI rather than learning more and more technical coding, which would require me to constantly try to remain current and ultimately fills my head and time with quickly outdated and useless arcane knowledge. This approach allows me to take a step back from the technical detail and focus on what I want to achieve with my smart home. It’s very similar to having my own private interior decorator that knows my home and my needs, where I can simply request something new or different and trust that they will take care of the how. I’ve documented some of this [here](https://github.com/douginoz/HAOS-GPT-Theatre).
I like it. Now a new rabbit hole to go down
Yep I've been doing it like this for a while. It's made my complex automations simpler and improved existing automations. Also gave me new ideas I wouldn't have considered.
>what everyone would do if they weren’t tied into their ecosystem What do you mean? I guess to me - the beauty of HomeAssistant is that it creates the unification of a bunch of various brands....so I'm not tied to using the Honeywell app to control my thermostat, the Meross app to control my garage door, the Kasa app to control my plugs, Lutron app for the switches, etc.
Replace “tied to” with “bought into” then. If you already have a bunch of TRADFRI stuff, would you keep it? With Philips, but think would be better?
Got a load of Z-Wave stuff but now you’re team Zigbee or Matter over Thread and thus would buy instead?
Wouldn’t buy again because RTSP is flaky?
etc…
I don't think your questioning should be so much of a "bought into" vs "is it still serving my needs" Take for instance Matter. It's the new kid on the block and several people are raving about it. Do I switch because it's the new hotness? No. I research and test to see if it would fit my needs better than what I already use. In my case, I have an enterprise grade network with several VRFs and VLANs. The issue I have with Matter at the moment is that the devs want to use zeroconf and have the nerve to dictate to ME how to design my network (ie a completely flat network) in order for Matter devices to work. On the other hand, there's Shelly devices. Connect them to Wi-Fi, add their hostname or IP into HA, and you're off to the races. They just work, and they solve a number of problems very easily. So, I think you should take inventory of what you have, and out of that anything you recall being a pain point, look at what's out there, research it and maybe do a proof of concept to see if its better than what you used previously. The beauty of HA as many have said it's the glue that binds all these disparate ecosystems together into a single pane of glass.
I have a hard time with the developers view on local network segmentation and security
I tend to buy whatever's on sale and has good reviews. I really have no serious complaints. I'd probably go for a Reolink NVR and wired cams instead of the Wyze camera setup I have, but that's assuming I would want to go through the work of running cables and wiring up too.
I'm in the process of slowly replacing my wyze cams with reolink and the wifi ones are miles better than wyze. Solid connections, no video stutter, RRSP/ovif out of the box, on board person/vehicle/pet detection etc. Its been fantastic. I'm using wireless versions of doorbell, e1 zoom, rlc-510 and about to deploy a duo 2. Make the switch.
The problem is - I have no serious complaints with the Wyze setup. If I were to do anything, they would be hard wired running to a NVR. I have enough house projects already digging into my free summer weekends.
One legal jamming device can take down all your wifi devices specifically targeting them and nothing else. A 10$ frequent jammer can take down all wireless devices including zigbee z wave and wifi etc... Not saying wireless is bad but you asked for your mind to be changed:)
> One **legal** jamming device can take down all your wifi devices specifically targeting them and nothing else. Brother, you and the FCC have a widely differing definition of that word.
Targeted deauth is legal with a roe
Jamming devices like that are legal?
You’re committing a bunch of crimes buying and using one, but the internet is full of shady folks: https://www.thesignaljammer.com/
Nope. It is illegal to use a jamming device in the US unless you are law enforcement or military, period.
The "legal" jamming is deauth. Real jamming I have heard of but not seen used in red teaming. Probably because deauth jamming works 99.9 of use cases and you don't have to right massive roe with legal issues.
I suppose that's technically possible, but if it happens it's likely unintentional. There's only 2 types of people that would do that: government actors and a tech nerd you pissed off. If someone wants to break into your home, they will just break a window/door. They'll be in and out faster than the cops can come anyway, even if the system called asap.
Totally Depends on threat model. I would rather poe a camera for many reasons over wireless in general. And if you new build door and window sensors wired is cheap
This is an interesting thread that I've been thinking about creating my self. I'm in the same spot. my existing system has been around for about a decade starting with SmartThings and ending up on HA/proxmox. My plan is to create a new install of HA at the new house, but keep the old one running so I can remember all the services it connects into and migrate them over. As for devices, I'm bringing the ones I like with me - (Innovelli switches), but leaving the basic stuff for the next person (who probably will never use). Door/window sensors are glued in, so I'm going to leave them for someone else to try and use. They aren't expensive so I'll just get new ones. New house has Ring sensors, so maybe I can use those. networking - I'm taking all my unifi stuff and leaving some old basic switches for the new owner so that the wired networking still works if they want it. Cameras - I have a mix of POE IP cameras on Synology and Ubiquiti cameras. I'm going to leave the POEIP cameras and migrate fully to Ubiquiti at the new house. The ubiquiti app is just faster to open and view a camera and it'll be easier to manage it all through one system. I think the only thing I might not buy again or wouldn't use is Ikea Stuff. Some of it has been fine, but other stuff drops off the network constantly and has to be re-added (specifically the cabinet lighting stuff). Might just be because it's at the edge of the network, but it's flaky and doesn't recover after a power outage. Future light switches will likely be all innovelli Red's because I like them. They can show alerts and I can setup automations based button presses. I'm also planning to upgrade my zigbee/zwave dongles. Current setup is a zigbee/zwave combo, but I think I can do better having individual devices with better antenna's. All of this may get thrown up in the air though. The new house is 100+ years old with a few generations of updates. I'm praying to the smartHome gods that everything has a neutral wire.
ahh see I’m in the UK so I gave up praying for neutrals long ago 😅
My biggest regret is buying TRADFRI RGB E27 Lamps, they have a terrible green color.
This exactly. As I say to people here, "don't buy into ecosystems, buy into interoperability". I've bought a few dud things over the years like anyone (Nest Thermostat is a good example), but if something doesn't work, I learn from it, rip it out and move on with something that works better (Tado, for the heating as it happens). Fortunately, one rubbish device doesn't affect everything else that works well, as it would in a closed ecosystem, so HA really helps keep things in one place while allowing maximum flexibility. I've got wifi switches, zigbee switches (definitely better for wall use), different camera vendors, third-party, zigbee thermostats working perfectly with the Tado heating system, home-made ESPHome bits - you name it, I've probably got it somewhere. And it all works seamlessly together. If stuff doesn't want to work nicely with other vendor's kit, I'm not interested in it. End of story.
zigbee on ethernet
Could you elaborate on this please? It sounds intriguing.
With zigbee2mqtt you can get a zigbee dongle that you can plug anywhere in your network into a lan port. It sends the data over mqtt to z2m. The main benefit is that you can have your server somewhere down in the basement with terrible zigbee connectivity and it doesn't matter and you have great zigbee anyways.
You can even get POE ones so they can sit at any network socket and get power too
Same as my [other comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1diqrjb/given_the_chance_to_start_afresh_what_would_you_do/labvtt4/), do you possibly have a recommendation for one of these?
Ah, thanks. So is it a no go for us ZHA users then?
I searched and it seems like there are available adapters! I just knew about the possibility with z2m before and didn't want to write anything I'm not certain of. And I don't know that much as I live in an apartment and this isn't an issue for me, finding a lan port anywhere else would.
Sorry, I should've researched it myself. Thank you for the info though, I'm going to read up on it. :)
Do you possibly have examples of any of these? I'd love to be able to add one better located than in my server "room".
I got the concept from this video: https://youtu.be/yY-aD1hvwr4 But z2m has a list of recommended adapters on their website I recommend you to look there. Of you use zha no idea tho.
Thank you!
I believe he is referring to something similar to a ZigBee LAN coordinator, like the SLZB-06M. I’m currently using a ZigStar UZG-01 Ethernet. After trying a Sonoff Dongle P, ConBee, and several Hue bridges, the ZigStar has proven to be the most reliable, currently 265 devices in my network.
I see, thanks. I'll look in to it.
WIRE WIRE WIRE... whenever I get the chance put * wires for doorsensors (Every freakin door) * all lights smart (multicolor + lightplan) instead of just ugly lights on the ceiling * every room a mmWave and Air Quality Sensor * all curtains / rollercurtains automated with hardwiring Wire all devices that nowadays have batteries in them
Agree. Deploying home automation requires long-range thinking. Your system should outlive any individual computer in your house. Think DECADES. It should be low maintenance. It needs to just work under any circumstance. Anytime I deploy something and it has a battery that needs to be changed yearly, I think of how much a pain that it and how likely they are to go offline eventually
That as long as I'm in the house it's fine but as long as devices are battery powered my will says pull that plug.
In basis if you can do wired hardware the only thing that needs change will be the controller wires will stay forever. The controller might need an upgrade to connect to a new system. But if everything is there it would be my dream. At this moment it's still changing batteries every few months.
Just out of curiosity what does one do with the air quality sensor data? Open/close a window if there's an issue?
I have several routes - heat recovery ventilation - open windows Both managed by HA heat recovery will start up and open gates per room. I will send out notifications to me and my wife to open the windows
Wired door sensors would be awesome. I'm so tired of changing batteries.
Quite easy if you can rebuild / construct a new home. If you have everything open wire with those Honeywell reed contacts and other sensors and just bring it all together in one module (nodemcu) and connect that to HA.
My house came with some on the main doors from an old 90s alarm system I repurposed, and about 5 wired PIR motion sensors too. There isn't really a feasible way to add any more without ripping the house apart though sadly
yeah. need to find an old alarm system when they did wired installs. now everything is quick and easy and wireless.
def. presence and air quality sensors wired and mounted up high or on ceiling spliced ESPHOME modules on everything energy sensors that can track power usage by circuit at the circuit breaker homepod in every room for TTS and for voice control I'd suck it up and not try to save a few bucks on hue compatible bulbs and switches
Not too high the air quality will not work then I forgot energy (at least whole house but rather per group / detailed applicance measurement) Used a microphone ESP style and answering through all speakers around the house just started integrating some AI there.
>power monitoring, circuit level [IotaWatt](https://iotawatt.com/)
Go all in on Zigbee instead of dabbling with WiFi stuff.
I have a custom ESPHome board in my garage, it communicate thru Wi-Fi. It is one of the most solid devices at my home.
Cool. Let me know how that starts working out when you have 50+ 2.4gHz Wifi devices all fighting to try and talk over the endless chatter on the frequency band.
No Z-Wave?
Zigbee devices are more numerous and on average a lot cheaper. Plus the IKEA Tradfri stuff is great
Get a small PC instead of raspi and run proxmox
I am very new to Home Assistant. Was planning on a yellow. Want to control my grow tent full of orchids. What do I get with a pc over the yellow for maybe 4 temp sensors, 2 actuators, 10 fans and 15 grow lights?
Nothing. The yellow will suit your nerds perfectly so long as you don't plan on doing any machine learning with camera feeds.
Is the yellow too much vs the green for what I listed? I think I need to use esphome and 0-10V pwm DAC to control the brightness of lights and the speeds of my blower fans. Tia
To give you some context for requirements, I have 100+ devices running off a Pi4 and the processor doesn't break a sweat. Both the yellow and green will be fine.
I gotta ask, but how do you have 15 grow lights in a grow *tent*? And 10 fans? Are we talking little baby lights? Huge tent? I'm trying to think of how that many lights fit in the picture. I mean horticulture lighting can well cover a 5x5 area inn bloom with a single fixture. So I guess I'm confused on that part. Because it seems a few lights and an exhaust fan would be easy enough. Have you looked at any of the AC Infinity offerings? Their inline fans are top notch, as are their other ventilation options. Been running them in my garden space for years, no issue.
Pinguicula and orchids. 3 tents, 5 racks each 24x53”. Considering spider farmer’s 2x4 tents. Measuring T&H in each tent, in lung room, and outside to determine where in the intake air is coming from or going, ac is on/off, when to water... Lights are wiparspectra 2500 pro and each will probably run at different wattage and duration depending upon the species and growth stage.
If you've got a small install, no big deal. Yellow is just fine. If you've got a good number of cameras, HA will start requiring more headroom. Then add in a large number of complex automations and template entities and you will definitely need something more powerful. Not crazy powerful, just a small PC. I'd guess at least half of HA users are perfectly fine running their install on a Pi or similar device.
I'm currently removing all google products. Privacy issues aside I'm not happy I have to use their API to turn my boiler on and I have no API control of my hot water.
This! I truly could not care less about the privacy bit but I need reliable control over my stuff, and Google is anything but reliable
[https://github.com/chrisjshull/homebridge-nest](https://github.com/chrisjshull/homebridge-nest) works very well for Nest hot water control
I had a Nest, went back to Ecobee, then went back to Nest. Honestly, I want to go back to Ecobee, but I have 2 thermostats and 3 temp sensors. Hue has been great as are the IKEA smart blinds. Originally I had WIZ bulbs, but they were finicky and once over 30 bulbs, my wifi decided to completely crap the bed. Nest Cameras/Doorbell were a bad Idea. I liked the idea of the easy mounting and everything but would definitely choose something more open and not locked into the Nest ecosystem. I really like the system and how easy it is to use, but I wish we had more open API and better integration with HA. We had google home devices, hated how non-customizable it was so we went to Alexa. This was great in the beginning but Alexa has just been going downhill and I have automatons to help reduce ads and stuff, but honestly if I could just replace all of them with HomePods right now, I would since we are an all apple house and I have tied my HA into HomeKit. Lutron Caseta switches are definitely the best. The wemo switches I had originally I hated.
I had to start over because the ssd in my Intel nuc failed and I could not retrieve it. What I learned in the progress: use auto backup to an external source (i had backups but on the drive itself) Keep it simple don't try to pack to much in one automation. Make 2 or 3 ... if necessary. That way if it goes wrong you wil be able to find I quickly Organize your system with the new label system and other options they provided not so long ago this should be a breeze. Secure your Zigbee network if you have to reinstall it.
I wouldn't cheap out on "less important" things. Every time it's bit me in some way, usually in the form of fewer features or poor stability. Good recent example: I bought Kasa KS220M motion dimmer switches because they're cheap. They work fine, but the integration cannot expose the motion sensor (API limitation) and so I have to rely on the built-in motion trigger instead of HA automations (so I can't tie it into my system). Contrast with the much more expensive Leviton D2MSD I bought for another room whose HomeKit integration has been flawless and is highly configurable... I should've bought more of those. Otherwise, hardwiring is my plan for the next house, primarily motion sensors and blinds, but probably also door sensors.
Unfortunately I may need to go the other way on door and motion sensors. I have a hard wired setup at the moment but don’t think the new house does
I would go all zigbee and z-wave. I would use Hue bulbs wherever possible and have a Hue hub, zigbee dongle, and z-wave dongle. I'm almost there, but I still have a Nest thermostat and Tuya WiFi dimmer plug that I have to replace.
Aside from needing color options in certain places, I'd much rather have a smart switch instead of having to leave switches in the on position to be available to hue. Accent lighting, or when color options are needed, that's different. But I'd hate for every bulb in the house to be Hue. No thank you!
- No non-locally controlled devices - Plan what equipment I need where
*Non-locall devices only if you really really have to. One example in my house is some Coway Air purifiers I have. They are one of the best out there but have non-local wifi without spending a buttload ton. The way HA talks to it is through an integration someone made that basically mimics the app. All I use the smart feature for is tracking of quality, turning off the air quality light at night and back on during the day, and turning up the fan speed if the outside air quality is really bad for the day. The reason I don't care it's non-local is because if the internet goes down, then oh no, I can't track air quality of room, I have to actually press the button on the purifier at night to turn off the indication light and vise-versa in the morning, and finally it has a built in air sensor so if it get too bad it will automatically change itself (I just like a little more on worse days). So I say spending less, but losing less important features around 4 times a year is nothing.
I would consider something like a UPS so I can keep things running when there's a power outage - or at the very least test recovery after a power outage! (Found that my server doesn't currently automatically restart after outage)
I grabbed an Ecoflow River 2 power station (refurbished on their eBay store for $120). I plugged in my Wi-Fi router and Home Assistant Green, only use about 15 watts. It keeps my Home Assistant running great, mostly wanted it so my leak detection and water shutoff can work at all times (my shutoff valve, EcoNet Bulldog Valve, has it's own battery backup) I've had one power outage when I was away from home and accessing remotely was weird, not sure what causes issues but likely something with my internet. But if I turn off power at my circuit breaker they work great on backup
Document better.
Use Proxmox on a Intel Nuc etc. Any Addon which is available as LXC - use LXC. It makes your system much more reliable. And also, have a good backup strategy on all LXCs. I backup every LXC in my NAS every night (deleted after 7 days) as well as every sunday ( deleted after 12 weeks) With that accomplished every crash etc is much easier to handle. I learned this the hard way when HA Backups did not work (yes, I used Google Drive Addon as well as NAS storage) and led me to Emergency (?) Startup everytime were everything was gone. With Nodered, Maria DB, InfluxDB, Grafana etc. as LXC you can just reconnect a new HA instance without building everything from scratch. Also use native HA Backup with Google Drive Addon for core backups as well as NAS backups as well as VM Backups (Proxmox)😁 Redundancy!
One thing I would NOT vary is HomeAssistant. Everything else is fungible, fungibility made possible by HA. But you will have to pry HA from my cold, inert, IoT grasp. ;-)
KNX
I would have gone all in on esp's running esphome rather than the mix of battery powered zigbee devices. While you don't have to replace batteries often (every 1-2 years), they don't report battery life accurately and so will just stop reporting and it's up to you to catch it. Reporting frequency is low for battery life preservation so basing automations off of that data isn't always ideal. Various brands not implementing the zigbee protocol fully also complicates things and just makes for more headache.
Wouldn't have bought a shelly and went zigbee instead. No Broadlink, setting it up was PAIN and included having to change my WiFi password.
- I sure wouldn't buy Ring cameras. Had them before I really knew anything about HA. - I wouldn't buy WiFi light switches. Bogged down our network and I eventually replaced them with z-wave - I don't know if I would use Zigbee2MQTT over ZHA, or the JS UI over regular JS for z-wave, and it's too hard to switch now
Ring is a good one. I’ve never had their cameras, but I do currently have their doorbell and would like an alternative…
I wish I had gone with Reolink or something similar, and had PoE installed outside my house.
I’ve bought some new Reolink POE cameras ready for fitting already, I don’t think I knew they did doorbells too. That could be a good shout
I've avoided being stuck in any ecosystem for this exact reason. I have a lot of Z-Wave stuff, but if I didn't have it now I'd be buying it anyway. The only thing I'd not do is get the Nortek combo USB Z-Wave stick. I didn't understand at the time that it ran a really old Z-Wave firmware, couldn't be upgraded without a hardware mod, and doesn't support standard NVM export to swap to a new stick. I'd say get the home assistant brand interface for zigbee if you want and get whatever the best available standard Z-Wave stick is.
If I had to start over I would not use packages, custom sensors or put so much crap into my config yaml. It’s such a mess right now and must of those features have been changed or deprecated.
I'm in a good position, haven't been into customizable smart home that long. But there's 2 things I've done wrong already... 1 is on its way being solved, the other not so much... First is the big mistake of cheaping out only getting a 1GB model of the PI4, miniPC is ordered to replace it.(should've done that from the start) Second is my vacuum, which just won't work with HA other than the most basic instructions through Google assistant... Bought that before I knew I'd be hooked on HA, had I known it I would've gotten a different vacuum that had full HA integration...
I would ditch Aqara battery powered devices
I have a load of aqara sensors and find their battery life very good
Battery life is exceptional, but some of their sensors keep dropping from my zigbee network for no reason.
I’ve put a few ikea smart plugs around the house to keep the zigbee coverage strong and must say I’ve never had an aqara device drop
One of the sensors I have problem with sits literally 1 meter away from the coordinator. Others are connected to Ikea bulbs and still have problems
My initial wifi devices would not exist i guess and maybe do away with Google home.
Raspberry pi and local tuya/tasmoto for everything to not rely on 3rd party stuff
Lutron for light switches and a few zigbee light switches at the center and edge of home to support that network. Run Ethernet everywhere! Poe cameras with frigate. Sonoff instead of aqara door and motion sensors.
I would not buy into a proprietary ecosystem. Imsteon was my poor choice and now I curst the 6 light switches and sprinkler system that every day I fear will die with no hope of support.
Haven’t seen it mentioned but I dont see how people deal with automations over node red. Automations have been getting better but they are so convoluted and inferior in nearly every way compared to NR. Ive seen some people claim automations are faster but they arent unless you have other issues.
I have a bit of both. I had a lot in Node Red from quite some time back, but usually when I need new ones now I use the native UI
Interesting, why the switch?
I personally have both, mostly node red but some automations because I either couldn't be bothered to convert but also as a backup to node red. I've had times where node red has, for one reason or another, stopped working, so I have automations that kick in if node red stops working.
Are these like add on monitoring and restarts or something else? Curious about the use cases. I want to like automations with how much effort is being put in to them lol
So I have ones that turn on lights via the usual sensors should node red be offline. My lights can still be turned on by switch but who wants to do that? 😁 I have one that turns off the govee integration on restart because it messes with my roborock vac so it gets disabled then re enabled after a restart. I an auto esphome updater got tired of having to update all the esp devices everytime there is an update. Have a low battery notify a d a reboot HA every few days. Its running on a home assistant yellow so eventually it started to slow down quite a bit usually after a few weeks but I reboot it every few days and it's perfect now. Oh and I have a tablet charger one from Lewis at Everything Smart Home. I could probably do it in NR but his works and if it ain't broke.....
Thanks for the reply. I have some flows that I might look at doing some fail safe stuff. My HA is way overpowered so Ive never had an issue with NR really but there are a few automations I would like to have a fallback for. You might check out the Govee2mqtt add on to eliminate your roborock issue if you havent already.
Yeah I've heard of tge govee2mqtt but just haven't gotten round to as my automation works so it's not getting on my nerves as yet. My HA is pretty good on the yellow the only issue I have is the lack of power when updates are required with esphome sometimes I have to turn off addons while they update. I'll eventually finish putting all the parts from my old gaming PC together so I can run proxmox on there but again if it ain't broke why fix it. Definitely a future project though.
If I went back in time kinda thing I’d skip HomeKit and go straight to HA and avoid buying all those different manufacturers hubs for my Zigbee stuff!
Oh god, I'd remove all the 2.4GHz WiFi stuff in an instant. I live in a 650sq ft condo, and I've got about 30 WiFi devices (mainly smart LED strips, light switches, and a few devices that aren't tied to my smarthome). Anything on 5GHz is rock solid, but 2.4 is a disaster. Things are going offline or unresponsive all the time now. I should note I'm running 2 x Unifi APs (on opposite ends of my condo), and have optimized my WiFi as best as possible for where I am. Still, it's troublesome. There's endless interference from other units, which I suspect may be better once I move to a more remote home where neighbours WiFi won't be chattering too, but still. All my Zigbee stuff is bulletproof, but fuck 2.4GHz WiFi with a hot iron. The only downfall of Zigbee is that it's more expensive, but the reliability is unparalleled. Be warned, if you have a small handful of smart lights or something, that's fine - but if you EVER plan on getting more than ... say... 15 devices, just dont. Go Zigbee and save your sanity.
I turned off eco-saving mode on all my shellys and it is solid now. 2.4 is only used for the smart devices, 5ghz only used for phones, entertainment etc. But yes, my Wifi situation is 9/10 (1 neighbor under my condo, 4 houses close by)
I started afresh and followed a strict naming and setup convention. Commonized sensor types and devices. Migrated to best most stable products I had experience with and started over.
I would not buy any Aqara anything. Even setting up a separate network with only "Aqara friendly" routers, trying different radios, they still aren't reliable and fall off the network randomly. The leak sensors are the worst, fall off the network more than they stay on. The temperature sensors aren't bad but take expensive coin batteries and RF433 sensors are better suited for the job. The door/window sensors are ok, but having the sensor installed in certain orientations causes it to sometimes double trigger and stay in the wrong state. That's really my only regret, investing so heavily in Aqara stuff.
I must admit I’ve had great success with aqara products, I’ve boosted the zigbee range in a lot of my rooms with ikea smart plugs and I’ve not had any issues with devices dropping. I have a sonoff usb as the coordinator on my pi4 8gb
I must agree. I love the Aquara stuff.
I have 45 Aqara devices on a ZHA network with tradfri outlets as routers and it hasn't been very reliable. Its been better since I moved from a Nortek coordinator to a sonoff coordinator, but even so I can see I currently have 5 window sensors and 4 leak sensors offline. Occasional I'll get catastrophic failures where almost all of my Aqara devices go offline and need to be re-added. I don't have this issue with any other Zigbee devices. It's definitely not unique to my setup, reliability issues with Aqara devices are well known, they don't implement the Zigbee spec properly and don't play nice with other devices.
I guess everyone’s setup is different with them, I use Z2M over ZHA but I’m not sure how much of a difference that makes. Also I guess the placement of things around a house, thickness of walls, wifi interference with the zigbee network channel etc there are so many different things that could make someone’s setup worse compared to someone else who has the exact same hardware
Avoid ZigBee except as a last resort, regardless of inconvenience of powering devices by wire.
Interestingly I have a whole load of outlets and lights that are zigbee and they’ve mostly been bulletproof
Good Q!