Home Assistant

mudabi · 09-11-2016 12:33am #1

Anyone here using Home Assistant?

Its very good. Its an open source, python based hub for all of your home automation. It runs on multiple operating systems (I have mine on a Raspberry Pi 3).

At the moment I have enabled:

Phone presence detection using snmp Phillips Hue Nest Rfxtrx tranceiver and Lightwave RF RF sockets for lamps Owl Energy Monitor Oregon Weather Station PiHole Monitor Plex Samsung TV Cameras
You can use it to script and automate just about anything, check it out.

beanian · 09-11-2016 11:03am

Yeah i've been using it for several months now. It's quite involved in setting up and configuring compared to the likes of homeseer but if you are tech savvy its grand.
I have to run separate apps for proper Sonos integration and also Harmony integration (via MQTT) which should really be out of the box at this stage.

The Z-Wave library it uses (openzwwave) can be a bit flaky. I've had issues with powered Z-Wave nodes that I as of yet have not been able to resolve.
I will be deploying circa 15+ powered Z-wave nodes in the coming months so if I cant iron out the zwave issues i'll have to jump ship to Homeseer which had no issues with my powered nodes.

Roen · 09-11-2016 11:22am

Yes,

So far integrated:
Security cams
Philips Hue
Temp sensor
Lux sensor
Travel times via Google maps API
Local weather from yr.no
Presence and location tracking via Owntracks/MQTT

To do:
Nest protect smoke alarm (got it today)
More Nest smoke alarms
More Philips Hue stuff
Motion sensor
Door/window/gate sensors
Door bell
Smart controls for heating
Local weather station (Davis Vantage or Netatmo)

paulbok · 09-03-2017 3:44pm

Finally got off my ass and have started getting this setup.

Installed on a PI, first one of those I've got my hands on,some piece of kit for what you pay.

Currently picked up:
weather ty.no,
Honeywell heating controls - Already gives far more information back than the actual Honeywell Evohome app, eg graph of temperature during the day.
Plex server-
Philips Hue - but intend to re-setup using the emulated Hue bridge component so can create custom voice commands via Alexa.

To do;
Nest protect
Samsung Smartthings devices -not looking forward to that from having a look at what is involved.
presence detection
Hue sensors
z-wave switches

I want to get all installed before setting up any automation, bit of work to do before getting to that stage.

bittihuduga · 09-03-2017 7:01pm

i have a pi, xiaomi bulb, sensor, switch, gateway.
is there anything i can do with this HA on pi?

Wossack · 10-03-2017 12:19am

Bit of a proof of concept project for me at the mo, running;

SmartThings starter kit
Nest thermostat
Owntracks via cloudmqtt
Weather via darksky
Openelec instance
Etc

Hosted as a docker instance on my unraid server in the attic

Would like to get some automations down, but not had a chance to learn how just yet. The yaml nuances take a bit of getting used to..

Roen · 10-03-2017 11:12am

I plugged away on this over the last while.

So far integrated:
Security cams
Loads of Philips Hue lights
Travel times via Google maps API
Presence and location tracking via Owntracks/MQTT
3 x Nest Protect alarms
Monitoring temp and light level in 4 rooms
Monitoring temp, light level, humidity, CO2 levels and sound levels in one room.
Outside wind speed and direction as well as temp, pressure, rainfall and humidity via the Netatmo weather station.
Kodi

I briefly had all the Zwave stuff I have also shipped in via the Smartthings to HA bridge but found it too flaky so dropped it.

To Do:

Synology Nas (although I usually set this to auto off so maybe no point)
Hive heating

Still undecided to go get a zwave stick for the NUC that HA runs on or just go fully Smartthings.

Metric Tensor · 10-03-2017 11:16am

I'm considering purchasing a little starter kit of a Raspberry Pi, ZWave stick and PIR (that also has temp and light monitoring).

Nest Protect is on the medium term purchase plan - what sort of data are you getting from the Nest Protect alarms with HASS?

Edit: Also where did you buy your Nest Protect alarms from - they are very saucy on the pocket!!

Thanks!

Soccarboy11 · 10-03-2017 11:18am

I got my first part of my new upgrade recently, google home while I was in the US. Impressed! Next is hue lights!!

matrim · 10-03-2017 11:53am

I have it set up with a good few sensors (weather, presence on wifi, dublin bus, TV) but don't actually have any automations yet.

One thing I'm struggling with is how the naming of your hue lights is done? I can control them via the UI but I'm not sure how to add them to an automation configuration

Roen · 10-03-2017 1:10pm

Metric Tensor wrote: »

I'm considering purchasing a little starter kit of a Raspberry Pi, ZWave stick and PIR (that also has temp and light monitoring).

Nest Protect is on the medium term purchase plan - what sort of data are you getting from the Nest Protect alarms with HASS?

Edit: Also where did you buy your Nest Protect alarms from - they are very saucy on the pocket!!

Thanks!

Not a whole pile. Just that you're not on fire or dying from CO poisoning. But it's all under one roof with the HA install, not split out over half a dozen apps. You can also say shut off certain things or have all your lights come on at a dim red level, or flash your lights etc via any automations you wish set up if the smoke or CO alarms trigger.

Smartthings gives you a bit more.

The Nests are dear, however I had only one smoke alarm in the house and no CO alarms. So I wanted to sort that. If I had dumb ones I probably would have replaced them anyway to be honest. I like gadgets.

I got them from Amazon for £89 each. So they are dear like you say, but that's still cheaper than a funeral or skin grafts. The big thing over a dumb smoke alarm is that you get a push notification as long as you have signal on your phone. So if I get an alert I hop on to my security cams to confirm a fire and call the fire brigade or neighbours and hopefully nip the fire in the bud rather than coming home to a pile of cinders.

Well that's the theory anyways. Nothing to say the fire won't start via wiring and burn out the router/phone cables etc and scupper your connectivity.
That's an argument for another day though

beanian · 10-03-2017 1:42pm

Roen wrote: »

Not a whole pile. Just that you're not on fire or dying from CO poisoning. But it's all under one roof with the HA install, not split out over half a dozen apps. You can also say shut off certain things or have all your lights come on at a dim red level, or flash your lights etc via any automations you wish set up if the smoke or CO alarms trigger.

How are you pulling in Lux & Temp from the Nest Protect? I only get 4 items, Status, Battery, Smoke & CO2

bk · 10-03-2017 3:06pm

Roen wrote: »

Well that's the theory anyways. Nothing to say the fire won't start via wiring and burn out the router/phone cables etc and scupper your connectivity.
That's an argument for another day though

Just to point out, if that happens, the Nest alarm will still go off, so anyone in the house can have time to escape. It will still act like a dumb smoke alarm.

Just that you won't get the notification.

Also, don't you get a notification if it becomes unreachable? I do when my Canary IP Camera goes off line, that would make me immediately suspicious that something is wrong and contact my neighbours.

Roen · 10-03-2017 3:20pm

bk wrote: »

Just to point out, if that happens, the Nest alarm will still go off, so anyone in the house can have time to escape. It will still act like a dumb smoke alarm.

Just that you won't get the notification.

Also, don't you get a notification if it becomes unreachable? I do when my Canary IP Camera goes off line, that would make me immediately suspicious that something is wrong and contact my neighbours.

Ah yes, I had assumed that in my post that I was away. When in the house they'd act as normal fire/CO alarms and alert you that way. I'm not sure if they become unreachable do they alert.

Must yank the router and see later.

beanian wrote:

How are you pulling in Lux & Temp from the Nest Protect? I only get 4 items, Status, Battery, Smoke & CO2

Apologies, I am pulling those from the Philips Hue motion sensors. I just have them all lumped in to the one sensor panel per room.

Metric Tensor · 10-03-2017 3:58pm

So it's just reporting smoke status and CO status from the Nests?

Also ... fair play for managing to sneakily mention that "I've got a bar in my house" .... any opportunity, eh?

Roen · 10-03-2017 5:07pm

Metric Tensor wrote: »

So it's just reporting smoke status and CO status from the Nests?

Yes, they are fairly packed with stuff but don't really expose any of it. Motion sensor, light, speaker, and I reckon a light level sensor as the nightlight thing only comes on below a certain lux.

Metric Tensor wrote:

Also ... fair play for managing to sneakily mention that "I've got a bar in my house" .... any opportunity, eh?

I should have renamed it temporarily to hareem or swimming pool. I wouldn't mind but I very rarely drink, and have only ever had a couple of beers up there

beanian · 10-03-2017 5:42pm

Roen wrote: »

Apologies, I am pulling those from the Philips Hue motion sensors. I just have them all lumped in to the one sensor panel per room.

Ah that makes sense, I thought maybe you came across a way to get at these

THE ALM · 12-03-2017 4:27pm

Something else to add to my 'Dangers of IOT' thread!!!

Just messing around with this set up on a linux pc, yaml doesn't like any extra spaces etc and takes a while to figure out if, like me, you have no code skills. Just as well I'm a stubborn so and so and doesn't like to be beaten, helps that things are quiet here at work. Have it currently running just to show weather, date, time and linked to google calender before I look to set it up at home.

So having bought the Hive heating, sensor, plug and 2 bulbs, cat 6 cable and tools for additional wiring in the house plus a network switch, I am now looking at another rpi to add to the collection, z-wave adapter and various z-wave switches, sensors etc.

I really should just block this thread!!!

Roen · 12-03-2017 6:10pm

bk wrote: »

Just to point out, if that happens, the Nest alarm will still go off, so anyone in the house can have time to escape. It will still act like a dumb smoke alarm.

Just that you won't get the notification.

Also, don't you get a notification if it becomes unreachable? I do when my Canary IP Camera goes off line, that would make me immediately suspicious that something is wrong and contact my neighbours.

OK so yanked the power to upstairs to replace a pattress box that was broken. That takes the router offline. No notifications for anything.
The smartthings hub did alert when it came back online.
So the Nest cloud service doesn't notify on loss of connectivity.

Soccarboy11 · 12-03-2017 6:24pm

Can i ask where you guys got your hue stuff? Did you pay full price for them or get em on offer?

Roen · 12-03-2017 9:30pm

Soccarboy11 wrote: »

Can i ask where you guys got your hue stuff? Did you pay full price for them or get em on offer?

Wait for Amazon to go on special offer in my case. Use camelcamelcamel.com to set up alerts.

Soccarboy11 · 12-03-2017 10:14pm

Roen wrote: »

Wait for Amazon to go on special offer in my case. Use camelcamelcamel.com to set up alerts.

Oh great! Could i ask what bulbs you use? there are so many o.o

Roen · 12-03-2017 10:27pm

Soccarboy11 wrote: »

Oh great! Could i ask what bulbs you use? there are so many o.o

The majority are the White Ambiance. Then the rest are made up of the Richer Colours and about 7M of lightstrips. It's a bit over whelming alright but the Hue FAQ in this forum is a mine of info.

Emparedados · 13-03-2017 10:04am

Does anyone know how to install this on windows 10, I already have Python 3.5 installed.

paulbok · 13-03-2017 10:44am

There is a great tutorial on how to install on a windows machine on the home assistant website,
https://home-assistant.io/docs/installation/python/

reni10 · 13-03-2017 11:01am

Is there a good demo video of Home Assistant showing what is needed to have all IoT devices setup etc.?

I have the following in terms of IoT and use different apps for each so would be great to unify them all into 1 app:

- Hue Lightbulbs
- Xiaomi Lightbulbs
- Ring Doorbell
- Hikvision Security Camera's
- Nest Protect
- Netatmo Thermometer
- TP Link Wifi Plug
- Logitech Harmony Remote and Hub
- Amazon Echo Dot
- Withings Scale

Would like to also add the following IoT:
- Automatic Blinds
- WiFi light and Plug switches
- Smart Lock

matrim · 13-03-2017 11:08am

Got back to doing my setup on this at the weekend.

I now have automations setup so that when I turn on my XBox in the spare room the lights dim. Next up is to do some more around having the hall lights on when I get home from work, and have the utility room light automatically turn off after 5 minutes.

Also disappointed to realise that it doesn't hook up to Google Home anymore. When I was reading about it a few weeks ago, people were saying it would work by emulating a hue bridge, but it looks like in the latest update Google requires you to logon through the hue website so you can no longer use an emulated hue bridge

Hopefully the direct actions api is released fully soon and can be used for this

THE ALM · 13-03-2017 11:14am

paulbok wrote: »

There is a great tutorial on how to install on a windows machine on the home assistant website,
https://home-assistant.io/docs/installation/python/

I found that the command 'hass --open-ui' doesn't work when trying to launch from win 10 although if you follow the link on that page to the youtube page- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X27eVvuqwnY then there are different commands which worked for me.

Wossack · 13-03-2017 12:45pm

have found the documentation on the website to be pretty poor alright

Black_Knight · 13-03-2017 4:12pm

What version of HA are people using? I've mine running on my Raspberry Pi, but the out of the box Hasspian isn't exactly out of the box. I've to manually start Hass in the background rather than just resetting the Pi and it loading automatically.

Nice bit of kit otherwise. Documentation can be pretty awful at times, but persistence has shone through.
Working:

My location (and commute times)
Hue lights and rooms setup
Power switch setup
Automatically putting on the hall light after sunset if im home setup (I hope, i'll find out this evening)

Not working:

Plex - It didnt pick it up, or at least I dont see it working
nmap - Again, i've put the code in the yaml file, but I dont see anything in the UI

matrim · 13-03-2017 4:36pm

Black_Knight wrote: »

What version of HA are people using? I've mine running on my Raspberry Pi, but the out of the box Hasspian isn't exactly out of the box. I've to manually start Hass in the background rather than just resetting the Pi and it loading automatically.

Nice bit of kit otherwise. Documentation can be pretty awful at times, but persistence has shone through.
Working:
My location (and commute times)

Hue lights and rooms setup

Power switch setup

Automatically putting on the hall light after sunset if im home setup (I hope, i'll find out this evening)

Not working:
Plex - It didnt pick it up, or at least I dont see it working

nmap - Again, i've put the code in the yaml file, but I dont see anything in the UI

I use the hasbian image and have automatic startup using systemd. However I had to modify the unit file in order to get this to work correctly with the python virtualenv.

I've also found that everytime I do a pip upgrade of homeassistant, I have to check the systemctl status after startup to see what python modules have been updated and manually update them myself in the virtualenv.

niallb · 13-03-2017 9:59pm

I had lots of troubles earlier today setting this up for the first time.
I'd installed all the packages I needed and could see them from the shell.
I had to edit the python environment file before homeassistant would use them:

home = /usr/bin
include-system-site-packages = true
version = 3.4.2

the include variable was set to false by default.

The function that wasn't working for me was z-wave support.

matrim · 14-03-2017 12:54am

niallb wrote: »

I had lots of troubles earlier today setting this up for the first time.
I'd installed all the packages I needed and could see them from the shell.
I had to edit the python environment file before homeassistant would use them:

the include variable was set to false by default.

The function that wasn't working for me was z-wave support.

You probably didn't activate the virtualenv before installing the packages.

Typically you would do something like

$ virtualenv /path/to/envname

This creates the virtual env under the folder /path/to/envname

$ source /path/to/envname/bin/activate
(envname) $ pip install package

This activates the virtualenv in your shell and in the second command the brackets show what env you are using to run your commands. The packages would install under /path/to/envname/lib/site-packages

If you didn't activate the virtualenv before running pip the packages would have been installed to your local python environment and you would need include-system-site-packages to find them

Black_Knight · 17-03-2017 5:07pm

I'll have to fix up my HA env at some stage. For now i've hacked it to work and im ok with that... until I update HA and everything breaks. I'll still have my config files though.

Black_Knight · 24-04-2017 10:45pm

Upgraded HA to 0.43.0 just now and I can't access it at all now. Seems to start up fine, no errors, but not getting anything in the browser, and the log file has nothing in it (Seriously, just 2 lines)

EDIT: Fixed it. Not sure what did it.

THE ALM · 25-04-2017 9:42am

Playing around with it the last few weeks and some of it takes a while for me to get my head around, patience is key.

Working currently:

Hive Heating
Chromecast Audio
Kodi
Enigma2 combi receiver
Weather Underground
Google Calenders

Have these grouped and under three tabs for location, media and heating. Hoping that there will be a way to add the hive bulbs, plugs and sensors in the future. Have 0.43 running at home on an old laptop running linux lite but will get another rpi3 to run it on and also have it on a work pc running windows 10.

Anybody running any location apps on android phones and have them mapped on home assistant, how have you found it?

Metric Tensor · 25-04-2017 10:28am

I had a nightmare of a job using the all in one installer for HA on my new Raspberry Pi. It just would not run. In the end I had to reinstall the virtual environment and after some pricking around got it to start.

But then I lost it again when I was making changes to the config file so I had to start from scratch and the second time I ended up having to do it the non all in one way. This is about three weeks ago to the all in one installer might be changed since.

Nothing running on it at the moment though - ran out of free time!!

Roen · 25-04-2017 11:49am

THE ALM wrote: »

Playing around with it the last few weeks and some of it takes a while for me to get my head around, patience is key.

Working currently:

Hive Heating
Chromecast Audio
Kodi
Enigma2 combi receiver
Weather Underground
Google Calenders

Have these grouped and under three tabs for location, media and heating. Hoping that there will be a way to add the hive bulbs, plugs and sensors in the future. Have 0.43 running at home on an old laptop running linux lite but will get another rpi3 to run it on and also have it on a work pc running windows 10.

Anybody running any location apps on android phones and have them mapped on home assistant, how have you found it?

I'm running an MQTT server on the same NUC as HA. I'm using an iPhone OwnTracks client though rather than an Android. Oddly enough it was far easier to set up OwnTracks on iPhone than on the missus's Android (think it was a self signed cert issue at the time).

Maps integration was the first thing I got working on HA. OwnTracks > MQTT > HA hasn't skipped a beat.

I recently set up Let's Encrypt signed certs too as the iPhone HA app stopped working as I was using a self signed cert. Another little victory

Roen · 25-04-2017 11:53am

THE ALM wrote: »

Playing around with it the last few weeks and some of it takes a while for me to get my head around, patience is key.

Working currently:

Hive Heating

Actually The Alm, was this how you got Hive shipped into HA?
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/hive-heating-uk/3178/6

THE ALM · 25-04-2017 2:44pm

Roen wrote: »

Actually The Alm, was this how you got Hive shipped into HA?
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/hive-heating-uk/3178/6

That's is the one Roen, downloaded the three files and set up as described, worked straight off.

Off to stand in a river now for a bit of ðŸŽ£

the merchant · 29-04-2017 8:25pm

Hi guys,

I'm pretty new to all of this but here is mine...

Sensors are Dublin Bus, Yahoo Weather, and a ping to a client's server.

I have Kodi, LG WebOS TV, Bedroom Lamp which is a relay contolled by the PI's GPIO, and an Ikea Tradfri as the main bedroom light (this works really well)

Does anyone know how I rename the tradfri light?

Cheers.

Roen · 29-04-2017 11:35pm

I use a customize.yaml to change the names of everything into friendly stuff.
Can explain further when I get to the laptop.

On another note. I shipped Spotify in to HA today. Have the component in both the kitchen and bar as that's where I have the echoes.
Also only noticed you can do random and looped colours with hue now!

Roen · 30-04-2017 9:40am

Under your initial homeassistant block at the top of configuration.yaml stick this
[HTML]customize: !include customize.yaml[/HTML]

Then create the customize.yaml in the same directory as your configuration.yaml file.

Edit the customize file to your hearts content.

Sample:

[HTML]sensor.living_room_nest_protect_co_status:
friendly_name: Living Room CO Status
icon: mdi:heart-pulse[/HTML]

As ever indentation is all important with yaml.

the merchant · 30-04-2017 10:46am

Thanks a million Roen but I'm a bit confused about the breakdown of the fisrt line.

For instance here is my tradfri entry

tradfri:
host: 192.168.1.###
api_key: #################

How should this be added to the customize.yaml file?

Cheers again.

lawred2 · 30-04-2017 10:47am

mudabi wrote: »

Anyone here using Home Assistant?

Its very good. Its an open source, python based hub for all of your home automation. It runs on multiple operating systems (I have mine on a Raspberry Pi 3).

At the moment I have enabled:
Phone presence detection using snmp Phillips Hue Nest Rfxtrx tranceiver and Lightwave RF RF sockets for lamps Owl Energy Monitor Oregon Weather Station PiHole Monitor Plex Samsung TV Cameras

You can use it to script and automate just about anything, check it out.

Thanks. I was looking for an RPI project.

matrim · 30-04-2017 10:57am

the merchant wrote: »

Thanks a million Roen but I'm a bit confused about the breakdown of the fisrt line.

For instance here is my tradfri entry

tradfri:
host: 192.168.1.###
api_key: #################

How should this be added to the customize.yaml file?

Cheers again.

You don't add the tradfri details to your customize.yaml, you add each light you want a nice name for e.g.

light.tradfri_bulb_e27_opal_1000
  friendly_name: Living Room

Roen · 30-04-2017 11:10am

the merchant wrote: »

Thanks a million Roen but I'm a bit confused about the breakdown of the fisrt line.

For instance here is my tradfri entry

tradfri:
host: 192.168.1.###
api_key: #################

How should this be added to the customize.yaml file?

Cheers again.

Right. So that bit shouldn't be added.

What you need to do is go to the gui and look for the <> symbol under the developer tools. That lists everything that HA is aware of. This then gives you the ID for the gadget you want to customise.
The <> might be hidden and you'll need to click on the burger menu to see it. That's the three horizontal lines under one an other. Should be top left.

Edit. What Matrim said ^^

the merchant · 30-04-2017 1:12pm

Success!

Thanks guys - It took me a while to realise that there needs to be a colon on the end of the first line.

light.tradfri_bulb_e27_opal_1000lm: 
  friendly_name: "Main Bedroom Light"
  icon: "mdi:lightbulb"

Roen · 06-05-2017 11:49am

I decided to ship some HA data into Influxdb and from there back out into Grafana for visualisation.
Only messing about with Grafana at the mo but once you get the hang of it it's easy enough to cobble together something useful.

Here I just added a few graphs from the Netatmo weather station's indoor and outdoor modules.

THE ALM · 21-05-2017 1:37pm

For those with hive bulbs along with the heating, currently testing these in HA and so far so good. Hoping plugs and sensors will be added soon.

THE ALM · 27-05-2017 11:34am

For those interested, the new Hive integration files are now available here.

Home Assistant

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