Starting Home Assistant (HA) for New Users

[simwb90]

you mention separating the LAN networks using VLAN.
do you mean your HA network and IoT live on a separate network from your phones/laptops/PCs?

if so, how do you control them?
wouldn't you have to switch to another VLAN to access them?

would be helpful to share some insights on how your VLANs are set up and the scale of your house (BTO, resale, size?)

also, how is the power consumption with so many IoT running?

Thanks!

 

[firesong]

you mention separating the LAN networks using VLAN.
do you mean your HA network and IoT live on a separate network from your phones/laptops/PCs?

if so, how do you control them?
wouldn't you have to switch to another VLAN to access them?

would be helpful to share some insights on how your VLANs are set up and the scale of your house (BTO, resale, size?)

also, how is the power consumption with so many IoT running?

Thanks!

For VLANs, you need hardware that's capable of virtual LANs (VLANs), including intervlan routing on your router (the cheaper option, but capable routers aren't as cheap - you're not looking at your $100-200 off-the-shelf routers here) or Layer 3 switch - which isn't cheap. If there is no intervlan routing (quite possible, but unlikely), the demands on the router are slightly lessened. Of course, a layer 3 managed switch would help, but those are not cheap. Many VLAN starters are looking at the $50-ish TL-SG108e which is a layer 2 cheap "managed" switch.

Here's a quick primer.
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/quick-primer-to-vlans.6648144/
As for power consumption, it's a simple addition of all devices. If you want to run more IoT devices, you will have a corresponding increase. While simplistic, other users here can perhaps give you a better idea of the total power consumption. Suffice to say, devices are generally always "on", even if in a lower power state, but never fully sleeping as they will be polling for some kind of input. For me, since power is a concern, I don't have a smart home - but I do have VLANs enabled to segregate my network, as explained in the thread.

 

[TanKianW]

you mention separating the LAN networks using VLAN.
do you mean your HA network and IoT live on a separate network from your phones/laptops/PCs?

if so, how do you control them?
wouldn't you have to switch to another VLAN to access them?

would be helpful to share some insights on how your VLANs are set up and the scale of your house (BTO, resale, size?)

also, how is the power consumption with so many IoT running?

Thanks!

Firstly, you need to have a more advanced networking appliance running something like pfsense, Unifi, OpenWRT or MikroTik RouterOS (etc) which allows you to create VLANs, more advanced firewall rules and capable of inter-VLAN routing.

What you meant by "switch to another VLAN to access them" will be inter-VLAN routing and that could be controlled using firewall rules.

Want to know more, can check out the pfSense thread:
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/starting-pfsense-for-new-users.6390714/

I do not know what is your level of understanding on VLANs and firewall rules (Eg. pfsense), maybe you can watch a few videos on the thread above on topics like VLANs and VLANs segmentation before deciding if it was too much for you.

Here is a video from Lawrence Systems that should provide an overview. Concepts are pretty much the same, yet differs from home-to-home setup based on your "risk appetite".​

As for power consumption, I can say my IOT home power consumption comparing with a few of my neighbors' utility bills are pretty on par/sometimes lower (with a/c on families). I don't really monitor since your killer will always be your A/C/water heater/dryer usage anyway. I rather control the AC routine through automation to cut on power consumption. Focus on the major power guzzlers, not the little IOTs that sip power when on sleep. That is why in any commercial energy audit, auditors will first identify the major power consumption elements, scope in and tackle them first.

https://www.howtogeek.com/341872/do-smart-bulbs-use-up-electricity-even-when-they’re-off/​

 

[simwb90]

Firstly, you need to have a more advanced networking appliance running something like pfsense, Unifi, OpenWRT or MikroTik RouterOS (etc) which allows you to create VLANs, more advanced firewall rules and capable of inter-VLAN routing.

What you meant by "switch to another VLAN to access them" will be inter-VLAN routing and that could be controlled using firewall rules.

Want to know more, can check out the pfSense thread:
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/starting-pfsense-for-new-users.6390714/

I do not know what is your level of understanding on VLANs and firewall rules (Eg. pfsense), maybe you can watch a few videos on the thread above on topics like VLANs and VLANs segmentation before deciding if it was too much for you.

Here is a video from Lawrence Systems that should provide an overview. Concepts are pretty much the same, yet differs from home-to-home setup based on your "risk appetite".​

As for power consumption, I can say my IOT home power consumption comparing with a few of my neighbors' utility bills are pretty on par/sometimes lower (with a/c on families). I don't really monitor since your killer will always be your A/C/water heater/dryer usage anyway. I rather control the AC routine through automation to cut on power consumption. Focus on the major power guzzlers, not the little IOTs that sip power when on sleep. That is why in any commercial energy audit, auditors will first identify the major power consumption elements, scope in and tackle them first.

https://www.howtogeek.com/341872/do-smart-bulbs-use-up-electricity-even-when-they’re-off/​

i do know about networks but never got round to setting up a full one at home other than the typical home LAN.
in theory, i understand VLANs but never tried creating one for my home.

i see your point on the killer items...

assuming i just have a standard asus router + TL managed switch, i should be able to get VLANs and inter-VLAN routing to work, right?

wouldn't VLAN routing defeat the point of separating them into VLANs since an actor can laterally move across the VLANs through the firewall using the routes?

 

[firesong]

i do know about networks but never got round to setting up a full one at home other than the typical home LAN.
in theory, i understand VLANs but never tried creating one for my home.

i see your point on the killer items...

assuming i just have a standard asus router + TL managed switch, i should be able to get VLANs and inter-VLAN routing to work, right?

wouldn't VLAN routing defeat the point of separating them into VLANs since an actor can laterally move across the VLANs through the firewall using the routes?

You need to flash the firmware from Asus default to something like Merlin to support VLANs a bit better. But the less powerful processors will still struggle once a more intense load is placed on them, affecting the entire network performance.

It's not so simple to implement VLANs - careful planning and network design is important. Just because users can separate does not mean they should, since there is a performance penalty. VLANs are about separation of sub-networks for various reasons, but for your sub-networks to access resources in common places (eg, printer, NAS, or other network servers), you will need to do some intervlan routing to enable that. So if I have clients on one VLAN, and Servers on another, already there's one set of access rules defined. The servers are isolated for security reasons, and also if they are somehow compromised (like some NAS systems have recently been hit by ransomware and loss of data), they are kept away from client devices with data.

VLANs are also for network performance reasons - some devices flood the network with packets (eg IGMP from media servers/TVs), so to improve network quality by cutting out all these unnecessary data in your computing devices. There's a performance penalty when devices keep broadcasting to the network. Analogously, your network TVs regularly screaming to all devices "I am here! I am here" while your other devices are trying to use the network for other more important uses like video calls and all - degrades the performance of the network. Try imagining one office clown doing that every second during a meeting.

Some VLANs should never get linked to the internal networks, like the guest, and IoT networks. There would hardly be any intervlan routing for this.

For Surveillance cameras, if they have a dedicated NAS storage on that VLAN, then it's a simpler design. Else, some may link it to the internal servers VLAN for recording storage on the NAS, and to access/manage the recordings internally. Again, it depends on how the network is planned.

This is just a quick overview. There could be other reasons for separation, but for home users, this is the more common use cases.

 

[TanKianW]

i do know about networks but never got round to setting up a full one at home other than the typical home LAN.
in theory, i understand VLANs but never tried creating one for my home.

i see your point on the killer items...

assuming i just have a standard asus router + TL managed switch, i should be able to get VLANs and inter-VLAN routing to work, right?

wouldn't VLAN routing defeat the point of separating them into VLANs since an actor can laterally move across the VLANs through the firewall using the routes?

Well, there is no "perfect network" with "perfect security". Sometimes you give some, sometimes you take some. You allow some to move across, you took some risks in the process. And even in the real world, there will always be a VLAN20 server that needs to talk to a VLAN10 computer. At least you can restrict a selected few of "trusted" computers on VLAN10 to only have access to VLAN20, "not all" is the key.

If you watched the video carefully, Tom actually segmented the IOTs and mobile devices which he classified as "untrusted" on a VLAN away from the backbone infrastructure LAN/VLAN with access to his work/admin computer, switches, firewall and APs admin. And he specifically set rules to prevent/block the "untrusted devices" from talking to the infra LAN/VLAN.

Example of how it looks like in action:

So like you say, even if a threat actor hacked onto your IOTs due to legacy and outdated firmware with security vulnerability, he will not be able to move across the VLAN due to the firewall rules. But if this happens on your standard consumer router, the whole network will be compromised across your (linear) LAN.

The fact is that most home owners when dreaming/planning about their ideal home automation often failed to understand/overlook the importance of network security and how vulnerable their IOTs devices and home router could be. If you have been keeping up with network security news/bulletin, lots of IOTs devices are found with security vulnerabilities, and most of their vulnerabilities are not even patched till this day or already lost software support. Making things worse is most consumer routers out there could not or failed to secure their home network at all. With the growing trend of remote/flexible working, and evergrowing IOTs in our current "smart" homes, the demand for a high availability, reliable and secure internet only has to follow.

NOTE: Just in case this becomes another pfSense, VLANs and network security discussion thread. Feel free to drop by the pfSense thread if you interested to know more.​

 

[simwb90]

Well, there is no "perfect network" with "perfect security". Sometimes you give some, sometimes you take some. You allow some to move across, you took some risks in the process. And even in the real world, there will always be a VLAN20 server that needs to talk to a VLAN10 computer. At least you can restrict a selected few of "trusted" computers on VLAN10 to only have access to VLAN20, "not all" is the key.

If you watched the video carefully, Tom actually segmented the IOTs and mobile devices which he classified as "untrusted" on a VLAN away from the backbone infrastructure LAN/VLAN with access to his work/admin computer, switches, firewall and APs admin. And he specifically set rules to prevent/block the "untrusted devices" from talking to the infra LAN/VLAN.

Example of how it looks like in action:

So like you say, even if a threat actor hacked onto your IOTs due to legacy and outdated firmware with security vulnerability, he will not be able to move across the VLAN due to the firewall rules. But if this happens on your standard consumer router, the whole network will be compromised across your (linear) LAN.

The fact is that most home owners when dreaming/planning about their ideal home automation often failed to understand/overlook the importance of network security and how vulnerable their IOTs devices and home router could be. If you have been keeping up with network security news/bulletin, lots of IOTs devices are found with security vulnerabilities, and most of their vulnerabilities are not even patched till this day or already lost software support. Making things worse is most consumer routers out there could not or failed to secure their home network at all. With the growing trend of remote/flexible working, and evergrowing IOTs in our current "smart" homes, the demand for a high availability, reliable and secure internet only has to follow.

NOTE: Just in case this becomes another pfSense, VLANs and network security discussion thread. Feel free to drop by the pfSense thread if you interested to know more.​

thanks for the sharing
currently there arent any wifi IoT in my house except the TV and vac.
mostly using switchbot for some really mundane automation that runs on a schedule (heater, curtains)
vac lives on a guest network and so does my partner's work laptop.
will need some time to think this through and perhaps seek some opinions on the layout.

 

[Alphas]

Just to add in that I am also running the latest homeassistant on my Raspberry pi 2. Yes, its better to repurpose the old raspberry pi 2 instead of throwing it away in landfills. Even the slow raspberry pi 2 can be used to run the full suite of HA as it do not require heavy compute power. Using it to display climate, automate control my smart lights, switches and sensors. It actually works without any problems.

 

[simwb90]

Just to add in that I am also running the latest homeassistant on my Raspberry pi 2. Yes, its better to repurpose the old raspberry pi 2 instead of throwing it away in landfills. Even the slow raspberry pi 2 can be used to run the full suite of HA as it do not require heavy compute power. Using it to display climate, automate control my smart lights, switches and sensors. It actually works without any problems.

wow this is good to know!
i have quite a few RPi 3B sitting around...thanks for the share!

 

[Shadowlite]

Anyone knows what's a good weather integration to use for HA ? The default met.io doesn't seem to be very accurate for Singapore.

 

[TanKianW]

Anyone knows what's a good weather integration to use for HA ? The default met.io doesn't seem to be very accurate for Singapore.

I am using "OpenWeatherMap". Requires registration and API key though.

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/openweathermap/

 

[TanKianW]

Update on Post #3/#4

**Recommended Add-ons after Initial HA Installation**
Straight after the initial installation, there are a few essential add-ons that I highly recommend to install, in order to unlock more advanced features/integrations of Home Assistant. I will cover some of them here while some could be installed by just clicking on the add-ons installation under the official add-on stores on HA. They are:

• File Editor for yaml confirgurations
• Let's Encrypt + DuckDNS (for users who remote access to their HA server externally)
• MariaDB + System Monitoring Sensor Entities
• HACS (HA Community Store)
• Terminal & SSH

*1. File Editor (Or the Visual Studio Code Editor which works the same) for yaml configurations*
This will be the add-on which you should install immediately after the initial installation since it will allow you to edit the yaml configuration files for customs or even some official integration (Eg. System Monitor, light count functions, lighting groups, etc) You can install the add-on under Settings -> Add-ons -> click on the "Add-on STORE" icon on bottom right corner -> look for "file editor" and install -> restart

**NOTE: Moving on, I will be mostly covering several custom yaml configuration using the file editor add-on. So you are advised to install this.

You can watch this too:



*2. Let's Encrypt + DuckDNS (Remote Access for HA)*
For those who want the convienience of access their HA server externally, without the hassle of using a VPN, this is the add-ons that you should install. I have also included the video tutorial below.







Alternatively, you could access HA over VPN (Eg. Wireguard/OpenVPN) or spin up a proxy server with TLS/SSL certificates to access over https using a more advanced network firewall solution like pfsense. For anything with remote access,

NOTE: I will recommend setting up 2FA log in for your HA and set up a properly configured VLAN to separate the internal/external LAN network just in case it was compromised. If you need constant logon to your HA server without the need to sign in every time, you can create a long term token under Profile -> Create Long-Lived Access Tokens

VPN setup on pfsense:
Link: https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/starting-pfsense-for-new-users.6390714/#post-130207493

HAproxy on pfsense:
Link: https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/starting-pfsense-for-new-users.6390714/#post-130207504

You can even remote access your very own HA dashboard from your car's HUD to check if anyone has left their a/c or lights on.

*3. Installing MariaDB as the default SQL database server + System Monitor Sensor Entities*
MariaDB is highly recommended if you want more responsive "History and Logbook" pages on your HA as compared to the default database used by the HAOS.

History & Logbook Page:

You can find this add-on under:
"Settings -> Add-ons -> click on the "Add-on STORE" icon on bottom right corner -> look for "MariaDB" and install -> Turn on start on boot and watchdog under the setting of the MariaDB after restart -> head over to Configuration -> set a UN and password -> Save -> Hit Start -> Head to Logs -> Hit refresh -> See it load and you are DONE."

recorder:
  db_url: mysql://username:password@core-mariadb/homeassistant?charset=utf8mb4

Copy the configuration url from the documentation or just cut and paste the configuration file shown above and paste into the "/config/configuration.yaml" folder using the file editor add-on. You will need to input the username and password which you have set in the MariaDB configuration earlier. Then Restart.

NOTE: If you are using a more powerful system (at least a RasPi 4 + SSDs) the restart will be pretty snappy. If not, your restart, update and installation will take quite while. For reference, my x86-64 HA can restart and load all integration in less than a min.

**For System Monitor sensors, just simply cut and paste the yaml configuration shown below into the "/config/configuration.yaml" folder using the file editor add-on and restart your HA. Do follow the format below closely if not, it might not load. You can always test your configuration under "Developer Tools -> YAML tab-> Check configuration -> if ok, hit Restart on the right"

sensor:
  - platform: systemmonitor
    resources:
      - type: disk_use_percent
        arg: /config
      - type: memory_free
      - type: processor_temperature
      - type: processor_use
      - type: memory_use_percent
      - type: memory_use
      - type: memory_free
      - type: disk_use_percent
        arg: /
      - type: disk_use
        arg: /
      - type: disk_free
        arg: /
      - type: ipv4_address
        arg: enp2s0   <-*this will be your network adaptor id. Eg. igb01, em01)

**NOTE: I provided some of the more useful sensor entities as shown above. But you could select the sensor configuration that best suits your need by going through the documentation here:
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/systemmonitor/

After the restart, you should be able to find the sensor entities under "Developer Tools -> STATES". You can then choose these new entities to be included into your lovelace dashboard/card (example below).

**Just in case you are lost. You can watch and follow the video tutorial here:

 

[TanKianW]

Update on Post #4

**(Cont'd) Recommended Add-ons after Initial HA Installation**

Continuing our recommended setup for HA in the previous update, I will be covering one of the most important add-ons, and that will be the "Home Assistant Community Store" (HACS). One of the main reasons of using HACS is to integrate some of the IOT devices that are not fully supported by HA but yet supported by the community through Github. And I can say, there are LOTS of community supported integration! In fact, most of the devices you thought of integrating with HA, it has likely been a project taken up by the community.

FOREWORD (PLEASE READ):
Before the installation of HACS, home users will get to register a Github account to gain access to the repository for custom scripts, downloads or online support for the community version of integration you are using on HA. On the whole, I can say HA has come a long way. With the growing HA community, the support for community store has improved a lot in terms of support and stability (bugs and crashes) as compared to the times when HACS just started out. However, home users need to understand that when ever there is a (major) update to HA, there might be a "possibility" for the integration to break or stopped working, though most of the time that could be easily solved by rolling back the updated version (if you do backup before the update) or updating the HACS add-on itself. Do read the "change log" before clicking on any update button. My advice is, if the HACS or add-on update does not concern you or features you are not interested in.....you can choose to NOT UPDATE! Unless if there is important or severe security vulnerability.

For Eg. You can read the changelog of the latest HA core here:
https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2022/06/01/release-20226/

Good Watch: HA Beginner Mistakes to Avoid (Skip to timestamp 5:23)



I also advise users to always do a "full backup" before any major HA update, just in case you need to reinstall and load back all the integration (build through the years) all over again. You can either use "add-ons" to mount a SMB share for easy (drag & drop) back up to your local NAS/PC, or use something like SyncThings to sync your files automatically to a backup node/server. HACS provides a vast library of community supported integrations, frontend/lovelace/custom theme/dashboard/card, custom automation. In my opinion, a HA server without using HACS, users are missing out the majority goodness of what HA bring to the table. The common custom integration (I use), not exhaustive:​

• Mushroom dashboard/themes​
• button-card​
• Arlo (Aarlo) CCTV cameras​
• Ecovac Deebot integration​
• Wyze sensors (recently lost RSTP support for their cameras)​
• Dyson cloud and local for dyson fans/purifiers​
• pfSense and OPNSense firewall integration​
• Frigate integration for your not-so-smart Home CCTVs (with RSTP support) to include object detection and plug-in support for Google Coral TPU. Some good CCTVs system that comes to mind are Reolink and Amcrest.​
• NAS integration like TrueNAS​
• ......and many many MORE!​

Examples of Mushroom Dashboard on mobile and integration with your home firewall:

Custom Mushroom and Button-card Dashboard on your home control for tablets:

Custom CCTV live streaming card to fit your display devices (mobile/tablet)

*4. Installing Home Assistant Community Store (HACS)*

Let's cover some "prerequisites" and requirements before installing HACS on HA. They are:​

• You are running Home Assistant version 2022.4.0 or newer.
• You are running a supported Home Assistant installation.
• You have Access to the filesystem where the Home Assistant configuration files are located.
• You know how to access the Home Assistant log file.
• You are aware that there are no add-ons in HACS.
• You have a stable internet connection with sufficient available data or no data caps

You can simply navigate to https://hacs.xyz/docs/setup/download and follow the installation instruction in there. Take note that I will expect new users to follow the installation using HAOS with supervisor (OS/Supervised). You need to follow the initial installation instruction of installing the SSH add-ons then run the scripts (shown below) to download HACS using the SSH add-on.

wget -O - https://get.hacs.xyz | bash -

Instead of listing down the (cut & paste) steps , I think you could pretty much get through the HACS installation if you follow the instruction (closely) listed in the url link I provided above. I find the HACS step by step instructions to be sufficiently clear and concise. As indicated above, you will have to register for a Github account to link with your HA during the initial installation (if you do not have one already). Take note that it will take a while for new Github account users to be able to download from the repository due to the "recall/download limit" set for new users. It should be ready within a day. Give it a day or two. When you see the message below, you should be ready to go.

Moving on, you can explore more custom integration using the explore tab on the bottom right OR you might sometimes need to use the URL function to download integration from custom repository by clicking the 3-dots on the top right to reveal the window to key in the URL.

If you need video tutorials, check out the ones below. Which ever suit your style
(American/British accent ):



​

 

[TanKianW]

**CASUAL WATCH: Smart Home Set up at LTT's New House**

Do your research, read the forum, read the review, test it out yourself if you could. Never trust the sales man or marketing. Getting the wrong hardware can be maddening especially when you are moving to your new place.

Side note: Jake is using "Z-wave2MQTT" add-on with the Z-wave JS driver on Home Assistant to control Linus's home lights and switches. This video just prove how "legacy" and "outdated" most of these IOT devices are, even for the big brands (GE). Trusting your home network security with these unsecured IOT devices with legacy and outdated firmware? Think again.
​

 

[Shadowlite]

Hi guys, anyone managed to use adguard on HA to block youtube ads on their devices e.g. tv ? Just curious, as i'm thinking of setting up adguard on my HA

 

[CoolRock]

May I know what appliance u using for TrueNAS? Why did you choose TrueNAS over Syno/QNAP/UnRaid/Xpenology? Free or Paid version?

 

[TanKianW]

May I know what appliance u using for TrueNAS? Why did you choose TrueNAS over Syno/QNAP/UnRaid/Xpenology? Free or Paid version?

https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...nas-core-truenas-scale-for-new-users.6480129/

 

[Fallingrain]

Anyone using yeelight smart bulb with HA.
My yeelight will keep online and offline in HA frequently so quite irritating

 

[TanKianW]

*Update on Post #5*

**Basic Overview of the Different Smart Home Platform and Standards**
Initially, I am thinking that I may just have to cover the use of home assistant (HA) for home automation or setting up a smart home. However, some smart home builders feedback to me that they still do not really understand (or confused of) what are the use of different smart home standards and platforms. It could be very confusing for some when starting their DIY home automation and could get easily overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information or misinformation. So I might still have to cover this subject before I move to some configuration of HA. This post will provide a basic overview, not the details.

PART 1:
First I will like to cover on the different (Local, point-to-point) wireless standard which your IOTs/smart home devices communicate to your smart home hub/server (in this case HA). There are 4 main types of wireless protocol, some are more common than the other in some regions of the world. I am getting into the nitty-gritty details of the standards since you can find a lot of such journals and research papers online. If you are interested, please feel free to check it out on your own. They are mainly:​

1. Z-Wave - Works on a mesh network topology which is more closed source. It also has a wider industrial adoption and corporate acceptance since it had been around for many years. Devices supporting Z-wave is commonly found in States and EU. Do take note that Z-Wave devices are not interchangeable outside the region where they are sold. American Z-Wave products will not work with European Z-Wave devices. In terms of product supporting Z-wave, it is quite on par with ZigBee. Z-Wave operates on a low-frequency radio band, 908.4 MHz in the United States. Since it is so low on the frequency spectrum, Z-Wave does not interfere with any Wi-Fi network. It may, however, interfere with some cordless phones as they too work on low-frequency radio bands.​
2. ZigBee - Works on a mesh network topology which is open source. There are a lot of cheaper (of varying quality, some good, some bad, same atrocious) IOT devices and derivatives that support this standard. ZigBee uses the IEEE 802.15.4 radio frequency. It can also use 915 MHz (in NA) but with the limitations on data, 40 kbps maximum, makes it inefficient at this frequency. The 2.4 GHz frequency is also available to ZigBee. Therefore using this frequency may cause interference with Wi-Fi networks.​
3. Wifi (usually 2.4GHz) - I do not need to explain more on this. Everyone should be very "used to" and understand the term Wifi. However, not all wifi Access Points are build equal! Numerous home owners integrating IOTs/smart home devices which uses wifi very often experienced "connection" problem. The connection quality works 2-way. First, the main reasons being that most home owners has sub-optimal wifi and network appliance at home. When it comes to connecting IOTs/smarthome devices, what you need are "consistent or persistant" and "stable" wifi which in my opinion (and field testing), not a strength for most home wireless AIO routers. If you could afford it, go with enterprise class APs. Some of these enterprise APs even comes with build-in ZigBee/BLE, like the new wifi 6 APs (Eg. Ruckus R550, R650, R750) offering from some vendors. Secondly, some IOTs/smart home devices has such low grade or legacy wifi chipset/controller, that it just could not hold on to the wifi network to ensure a stable connection.​
4. BLE - Stands for Bluetooth Low Energy. The protocol is self-explanatory. It is a variation of the Bluetooth wireless standard designed for low power consumption, used in some IOTs/smart devices. It has no remote access, more a point to point connection.​

*NOTE: These 4 are not all! There are other standards (Eg. cellular, LoRa) that are in some specialized area of application and country region. To manage and connect (mesh) wireless ZigBee/Z-wave, you do need a gateway/coordinator/router like a hub/dongle/server/specialized-HW connected to your home LAN network over wireless/wired, integrating onto a platform/cloud/provider (Eg. Tuya, WiZ, HA) to be managed on a dashboard/app or link it to a Voice Assistant.

Example of coordinator, router, end devices on ZigBee network (ZigBee2MQTT):

MY TAKE: So which wireless standards should you choose? Well, since connection works 2-way. If you can ensure good quality connection between end to end, all 4 will work well for its used case. Personally, I use ZigBee for my sensors and lights, wifi for all other of my home appliances.

PART 2:
I will like to explain the different smart home platforms, providers (brands) which you commonly encounter when shopping for a smarthome/IOT device. I will try to keep this as simple as I can, not sure If I will be able to explain this clearly. My apology if it "confuse" you.

Smart Home Cloud/Providers/Platform/Ecosystem (*could not find unified term to use): These will be platforms like Philips Hue, Tuya, Broadlink, WiZ, Smartlife, Bond, Samsung SmartThings (or Aeotec), even Home Assistant (HA). Some of these platforms allow the integration of other platform, Eg. like SmartThings/Home Assistant integrating PhilipsHue/Aqara/Tuya. Some others (have not tested all) will only support their own brands of hardware on their platform (Aqara?). However, some of the (low cost, MIC) IOTs/smarthome product with Eg. "Tuya support" will still work without the Tuya app, so long you have a Zigbee coordinator/router that connect (mesh) the devices together. What they simply do is connect your IOT/smarthome devices to the cloud/server through the internet so that it could be controlled over their app with a dashboard GUI (Eg. Hue App, WiZ app, Tuya app, Smartlife app, etc) or provide the API to work with a third party voice assistant (Eg. Alexa, MiHome, Google Home). Meaning if your devices requires the access to the remote server/cloud to work through the app, it will not be able to work when the servers are down. But for smart home supervisor like HA, it will work locally since it was hosted locally, without the *need of an internet connection (*NOTE: subjected to the type of integration). However, some of these may still work without the app installed, like for Eg. Philips Hue lightings, Home Assistant (subjected to the type of integration with local support).

If you find the security of the cheaper IOTs/smart home devices questionable, which you should (!) I have some explanation (above) on why you should first secure your network, before taking a plunge into the journey of your smart home.

Discussion here:
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/...a-for-new-users.6751695/page-2#post-141824239
More about network security can be found on my pfSense thread:
https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/starting-pfsense-for-new-users.6390714/

Some example different brands/platform/providers of lightings, sensors, curtains, appliances, fans, A/C, firewall, NAS, all integrated into one dashboard on HA:

MY TAKE: If you want an all-in-one dashboard, you will have to find one that could integrate all the different brands/platform/app/server together. I will think Home Assistant is the clear choice for this use case. Aeotec the next in line.

PART 3:
Probably no one (or very few) will go about setting up a smart home without voice assistants. I do not think that I need to explain much on this but to touch on briefly between their relationship with the smart home platforms/cloud/app/providers.

Voice Assistants: The common ones will be MiHome, Apple Homekit, Amazon Alexa and Google Home. I will not say which one is better, since I have only tried Alexa and Google. In my opinion, both has its pros and cons. In the simplest way of understanding, If you want your IOTs/smarthome devices to work with your choice of voice assistant, you need to ensure that your devices are first connected to the provider cloud/server (Eg. Aqara, Nabu Kasa for Home Assistant, Philips Hue, Tuya, Broadlink, Bond, Aeotec or SmartThing etc) which will then "talk" to the voice assistant server (Google Cloud or Amazon AWS) in order for them to work. You will noticed that you will have to request for some authorization from the devices platform before integrating it with the voice assistant platform. These voice assistant will have to be connected wirelessly to your home network and internet connection. Therefore a well optimized home wireless network and a stable home internet connection will be the 2 crucial part of ensuring a swift and responsive smart home experiences, not taking into consideration of the placement and wireless performance of your voice assistant appliances.

Google Home:

Amazon Alexa:

Google Homekit:

MY TAKE: Both Amazon Alexa and Google Home work fine for my use case. I do find Alexa being more responsive (being AWS), but I don't mind that 0.5-2 sec difference which brings me the smarter experiences with Google Home and mobile Android. In the past, I still need to use the Alexa web app to configure the smart home devices if I am not using Android phones, which is a chore. If you are in the Apple ecosystem, then maybe Homekit will work for you. TBH, even I being a Apple user myself, also find the use of Homekit too restrictive.​

 

[batigola]

i do not own any yeelight but apparently Xiaomi disabled local control in a firmware update.
Could be possible why you facing disconnection; Did you try unpairing from HA & using their official app to see if similar problems?

You can read more here and HA forums;
https://alerts.home-assistant.io/#yeelight.markdown