Starting Home Assistant (HA) for New Users

[TanKianW]

Quite happy with the result as the presence & luminance data is immediate in realtime as it is wired. It even allows me to take care of one of my partner pain points which is light of dumb ceiling fan which can switch on by itself during daytime. As the illuminance sensor is sensitive and immediate, calculating the difference of illuminance level using pyscript & sensor data automates the irritating light-on away by sending RF command to off the light with pyscript. Big upgrade to the Tuya PIR/presence sensor mentioned which is useful in other use cases (toilet).

The Tuya PIR+presence sensor worked really well for my use case. I have replaced most of my washrooms and rooms with it. With a well-planned ZB setup, it is almost instant. Furthermore, there are no wires, so it can be easily deployed anywhere in the house.​

 

[TanKianW]

Yes I have been reading up on it, likely get the beelink mini pc, still trying to understand proxmox as well, think have to future proof abit since I am starting from a blank sheet.

Beelink makes really good quality mini-PCs, a solid choice.

The advantage of using a hypervisor (like Proxmox) for your HA is that you can run multiple instances of it, and when either server is down, another is still up and running. When you get more serious with keeping your HA up 24/7, you can even set the hypervisor to live migrate the VMs between multiple hosts to achieve high availability. Running on a hypervisor also make it real easy when there is any screw up/hiccups (like breaking changes in updates), where you can just easily revert to a previous snapshot (restore point).

 

[Toiletpaper80]

Anyone using mc2 zip track? It is connected to tohoma.

1. Can i replace the tohoma hub with HA with zwave antenna?

2. It doesn't show me if the ziptrack is up or down.

3. Wanted to make it local, but i couldn't change the hub to developer mode. Maybe solving #1 will solve this..

TIA

 

[TanKianW]

Anyone using mc2 zip track? It is connected to tohoma.

1. Can i replace the tohoma hub with HA with zwave antenna?

2. It doesn't show me if the ziptrack is up or down.

3. Wanted to make it local, but i couldn't change the hub to developer mode. Maybe solving #1 will solve this..

TIA

You probably have more luck checking out the official HA forum. Not a lot of SG users uses Z-wave. I also retired my Z-wave hub (from Silicon labs) 2-3 years back.
​

 

[Toiletpaper80]

You probably have more luck checking out the official HA forum. Not a lot of SG users uses Z-wave. I also retired my Z-wave hub (from Silicon labs) 2-3 years back.
​

Actually i'm not sure which protocol it is using...

I asked the MC2 zip track guy, he only know how to install and setup...
Basically i wanted to bypass the tohoma hub and connect to my HA directly..

 

[TanKianW]

Actually i'm not sure which protocol it is using...

I asked the MC2 zip track guy, he only know how to install and setup...
Basically i wanted to bypass the tohoma hub and connect to my HA directly..

You probably need to research this.​

 

[TanKianW]

**SHARING: Aqara E1 Wireless (ZigBee) Remote Switch**

Great for activating scenes and group actions using a single press of the button (Eg, turning on the A/C, turning on the fan and switching off the lights with a press of the button). This ZB device from Aqara (China) easily integrates with ZB2MQTT on Home Assistant and supports single/double button press actions (exposes) for toggling/activating your daily routines/automations. Since it is wireless, you can install it anywhere, such as just by your bedside, so you can easily activate the pre-set scenes or group actions with a press of the button when going to sleep or waking up.

 

[bucklau]

**SHARING: Aqara E1 Wireless (ZigBee) Remote Switch**

Great for activating scenes and group actions using a single press of the button (Eg, turning on the A/C, turning on the fan and switching off the lights with a press of the button). This ZB device from Aqara (China) easily integrates with ZB2MQTT on Home Assistant and supports single/double button press actions (exposes) for toggling/activating your daily routines/automations. Since it is wireless, you can install it anywhere, such as just by your bedside, so you can easily activate the pre-set scenes or group actions with a press of the button when going to sleep or waking up.

also bought this recently. It also got ‘hold’ action so can handle 3 events in HA. I also want to try the kinetic no battery Tuya button once the 3-gang version is available

 

[TanKianW]

also bought this recently. It also got ‘hold’ action so can handle 3 events in HA. I also want to try the kinetic no battery Tuya button once the 3-gang version is available

Thanks for the "hold" action. Did not know about that!

Only needed 2 settings though. One for "Kun", another for "Wake up".

Now I can set the 3rd one for other stuff......like "romantic"

 

[bucklau]

I migrated my home assistant from HA Green to a mini pc (Elitedesk G4 800 Mini) proxmox vm. Other than the usual benefits (more lxcs (Dockge, Nginx proxy, Adguard, Audiobookshelf) to play, faster restarts, more ram) in expense of a little higher kWh, one key use case that I am missing is the Bluetooth connection to my Mi speaker. I am still lazy to get Bluetooth dongle or set up ESP32 Bluetooth proxy. Just nice my mini pc has wifi + bt card so just do a usb-passthrough but unfortunately Xiaomi ble does not work for me. Luckily I found a guy to share steps to use ‘bluetoothctl’ + VLC add-on via GitHub to have my old BT speaker available as a media player to play podcasts & radio

 

[TanKianW]

I migrated my home assistant from HA Green to a mini pc (Elitedesk G4 800 Mini) proxmox vm. Other than the usual benefits (more lxcs (Dockge, Nginx proxy, Adguard, Audiobookshelf) to play, faster restarts, more ram) in expense of a little higher kWh, one key use case that I am missing is the Bluetooth connection to my Mi speaker. I am still lazy to get Bluetooth dongle or set up ESP32 Bluetooth proxy. Just nice my mini pc has wifi + bt card so just do a usb-passthrough but unfortunately Xiaomi ble does not work for me. Luckily I found a guy to share steps to use ‘bluetoothctl’ + VLC add-on via GitHub to have my old BT speaker available as a media player to play podcasts & radio

It is easy to just set up a BT proxy using ESPHome. It only takes a few minutes to flash, especially with the straightforward webflash now.

I even 3D-printed a custom enclosure with attached magnets to house my ESP32 board that just "sticks" to the side of my network rack.​

On top of snapshots and routine backup replication, another strength of running Home Assistant on a hypervisor is the ability to do a "high availability" setup with multiple instances. You can even run the VMs on storage (Eg. NFS on TrueNAS/NAS) and "live" migrate between (3 or more) hosts "on-the-fly" (about 30sec) when either of them is down.

 

[Mecisteus]

Im inside this legendary and amazing thread.

Will try to read and digest some of them.

 

[d3adc3II]

**SHARING: Aqara E1 Wireless (ZigBee) Remote Switch**

Great for activating scenes and group actions using a single press of the button (Eg, turning on the A/C, turning on the fan and switching off the lights with a press of the button). This ZB device from Aqara (China) easily integrates with ZB2MQTT on Home Assistant and supports single/double button press actions (exposes) for toggling/activating your daily routines/automations. Since it is wireless, you can install it anywhere, such as just by your bedside, so you can easily activate the pre-set scenes or group actions with a press of the button when going to sleep or waking up.

this one is good and cheap , even though its abit unstable/dela sometime .

I using it to do few simple actions, like turn on/off aircon, desk lamp lol

 

[merriman]

I have a 2 button Tuya Zigbee wireless scene switch integrated through zigbee2mqtt.

Button 1 single press event is set to toggle a Shelly relay(WiFi local connection).

Button 2 single press event is set to toggle a zigbee LED controller, also integrated through zigbee2mqtt.

For both, there is a noticeable delay of close to 1 sec before the action is triggered.

Is there any possible way I can reduce this delay as close to instantaneous as possible?

 

[TanKianW]

I have a 2 button Tuya Zigbee wireless scene switch integrated through zigbee2mqtt.

Button 1 single press event is set to toggle a Shelly relay(WiFi local connection).

Button 2 single press event is set to toggle a zigbee LED controller, also integrated through zigbee2mqtt.

For both, there is a noticeable delay of close to 1 sec before the action is triggered.

Is there any possible way I can reduce this delay as close to instantaneous as possible?

Improve your Wi-Fi and Zigbee network?

To improve the Wi-Fi network, you can read around the forum for your routers/APs.

To improve your Zigbee network, you can wire your (coordinator) hub directly to your network and deploy more "in-between routers". You can read up more on how the ZigBee mesh network works.​

 

[merriman]

Improve your Wi-Fi and Zigbee network?

To improve the Wi-Fi network, you can read around the forum for your routers/APs.

To improve your Zigbee network, you can wire your (coordinator) hub directly to your network and deploy more "in-between routers". You can read up more on how the ZigBee mesh network works.​

My WiFi and zigbee network seems good so far. Another zigbee device at the furthest corner away from zigbee coordinator react instantly from dashboard press and Shelly decoupled mode activation. I have zigbee routers (smart plugs) blanketing throughout the house. All zigbee bulbs and LED controllers are also permanently powered on to act as routers.

It only when activated from wireless scene switches that I felt this delay, which lead to end user feeling the switch is spoilt.

I was thinking is there some delay settings that is embedded within these scene switches that I am unaware of?

I am using built in zigbee radio in HA Yellow as coordinator.

 

[merriman]

Would like some help from experts here. Have bought a new Tuya based ceiling light/fan combo for toilet. Added in Tuya official app, no issue. Fan and light controls all available.

However, in Home Assistant official Tuya integration, only the light entity is available, with only brightness control available but not the colour temperature.

Wanted to setup local tuya integration, but unable to get device "local key" anywhere. Where can I get this?

Or is there other methods I can do make the other entities of this device available?

 

[TanKianW]

Would like some help from experts here. Have bought a new Tuya based ceiling light/fan combo for toilet. Added in Tuya official app, no issue. Fan and light controls all available.

However, in Home Assistant official Tuya integration, only the light entity is available, with only brightness control available but not the colour temperature.

Wanted to setup local tuya integration, but unable to get device "local key" anywhere. Where can I get this?

Or is there other methods I can do make the other entities of this device available?

I've never run local tuya, but I assume your devices runs on wifi?

For local tuya, you will have to rely on their HA integration. You get what you see on the entity support. I presume your smart devices might be "new". You may wanna check out the official HA forum on this or maybe highlight your request/bug to the developer.

If all else does not work, you may need to go the IR/RF blaster route. There might be a likelihood for some devices to run ESP32 underneath (Eg. Haiku fans), the more advanced and DIY way to go is to flash their firmware to ESPHome and integrate straight to HA.​

 

[merriman]

I've never run local tuya, but I assume your devices runs on wifi?

For local tuya, you will have to rely on their HA integration. You get what you see on the entity support. I presume your smart devices might be "new". You may wanna check out the official HA forum on this or maybe highlight your request/bug to the developer.

If all else does not work, you may need to go the IR/RF blaster route. There might be a likelihood for some devices to run ESP32 underneath (Eg. Haiku fans), the more advanced and DIY way to go is to flash their firmware to ESPHome and integrate straight to HA.​

Yes it's WiFi. And yes it's "new". I had the same device but apparently with an older version "v1" controller see in the Tuya app. But this newly bought has "v2" version controller.

I don't mind trying the diy route to flash with ESPHome,but I will need the controller physically on my hand?

Let's see how, will highlight this to the developer first.

 

[TanKianW]

I don't mind trying the diy route to flash with ESPHome,but I will need the controller physically on my hand?

First, you need to ensure (verify) the device actually runs on ESPHome-supported HW, such as an ESP32 (or equivalent) board.

You either need to strip down the main ESP controller or flash it on the spot with ESPhome firmware if you can find the necessary exposed pins. It will be very DIY, and I advise having some knowledge of circuitry before attempting this. You also need to read extensively and do some research beforehand.

Another solution is to replace the (non-ESPHome) controller board with a supported ESP board. This might require some form of soldering. Some solutions may not require soldering (like some Mitsubishi Electric a/c) and make the retrofitting much easier. However, I think this method is not for the faint of heart, more for those smart home DIY enthusiasts.

Examples of such controller boards flashing with ESPHome or 3rd party firmware: