2025.1: Backing Up into 2025!

the old url is still working

https://<my ha address>:8123/hassio/backups

not sure if this is meant to be.

This picture is worth a thousand words and should be part of the official documentation!

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Not an image but text and a table with roughly the same amount of information is part of the official docs for many years already:

Expert

Advanced installation methods

Home Assistant offers four different installation methods. We recommend using Home Assistant Operating System. Other methods are available for experienced users for their specific needs, for example, running Home Assistant in a virtualized environment (e.g. Proxmox), or on top of an existing operating system (e.g. Windows, macOS, Linux):

  • Home Assistant Container: Standalone container-based installation of Home Assistant Core (e.g. Docker).
  • Home Assistant Supervised: Manual installation of the Supervisor.
  • Home Assistant Core: Manual installation using Python virtual environment.

Note that while these installation methods may provide some features for advanced users, they may also have some major limitations. For example, add-ons and other important Home Assistant features may not be available.

1: Names are abbreviated. The full names of the installation methods are:

  • Home Assistant Operating System
  • Home Assistant Container
  • Home Assistant Core
  • Home Assistant Supervised

2: Home Assistant Supervised requires users to maintain their own operating system.

Well, thatā€™s not the same, is it? Like I said, that picture speaks a thousand words and totally deserves to be in the official documentation!

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What information do you miss? Did you ever read that part of the docs (ā€œexpertā€) category?

IMHO the picture contains less information compared to what the docs offer at this very moment :thinking:

But from the mileage in the forum it seems like 99 out of 100 people installing for example HA supervised donā€™t even read the docs upfront - so what change would a picture do?

Reading bad, picture good.

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Different people learn differently. When I provide documentation for my staff, Iā€™ll write quite detailed directions as well as a ā€œshort versionā€ with the minimal steps needed to achieve a task, AND annotated screenshots, AND a video with voiceover directions. Iā€™ve had plenty of feedback that all are appreciated.

Not saying HA has to do all this, just that if I wanted to reach the widest audience, Iā€™d try to meet them where they are rather than making them come to me.

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My bet, even with picture the 99 people that should be interested will not read look at the picture if it ends up in the docsā€¦

No some people just need the information presented differently or from a different perspective to ring for them. That graphic is a pretty good start for the nontech user.

Editā€¦ And yes most still wonā€™t read it.
But for those that will Iā€™m jot against presenting it in many ways.

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Just to clarify once again, Iā€™m talking about the picture, not the text youā€™re referring to. This is my opinion, so Iā€™d appreciate it being respected. On a related note, I think the entire documentation set could be described as ā€œless than idealā€ (subtle) as I mentioned in my WTH.

I very much unterstand and respect that you like the picture. But I still wonder did you ever wander the docs and read this part before? Requesting things to be added to the docs is one (common) thing but too often people use the argument the docs are ā€œtoo fullā€ and hard to navigate as an excuse to post in the forums instead. Pictures do have some downsides as not being searchable and without (good) alternate text not even accessible for some, e.g. braille reader, so they only should additionally be added and not to replace information already written. :writing_hand:

Iā€™ve gone through almost all the official information available, and, to put it politely, thereā€™s plenty of room for improvement. The documentation is a bizarre mix of vague, high-level visuals and texts like ā€œArchitecture Overview,ā€ which are either flat-out wrong or frustratingly shallow.

When it comes to integrations and add-ons, theyā€™re presented with an overload of irrelevant low-level details and absolutely no sensible connection to the overall logicā€”assuming that logic even gets a token mention, buried in a few lines of text as if itā€™s the least important part.

And the Home Assistant code? Totally undocumented. Good luck trying to follow the logic for an integration, the data model (ORM mapping), or pretty much anything else. No wonder people are starting their own documentation blogs. My blood pressureā€™s already rising, so Iā€™ll stop here before I give myself a heart attack! :grin:

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The documentation definitely needs some love and itā€™s something that weā€™re eyeballing as we look to refresh the websites. I super appreciate the feedback on the need for visualizations to better help explain for some users - itā€™s something I have suggested as well. :slight_smile:

As a general update for the thread - weā€™ve got great internal discussions happening about how to improve a couple things. Since nothing is finalized, I really donā€™t have a much more detailed update here - I do apologize if this isnā€™t enough for some of you but I did want to make sure you knew I didnā€™t just calm things and bail on you.

However, I will continue to hop in here when I do have updates. :smiley:

Shoutout to everyone politely listening when asked to let others chime in! Letā€™s keep that up so that itā€™s easier for me to catch up over the weekends. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Side note: At the risk of fanning flames, I did want to clarify a call out towards the roadmap and it not having backup changes on it. We did talk about it in the mid-year update, and in the year-end update. These were not in the graphic but talked about in the post itself. I can see how this could lead to confusion - the graphics are intended to be bigger picture umbrellas but looking at it myself I can understand not knowing where cloud backups would have fallen. Just want to state that I hear yā€™all on that. /sidenote

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Not flames, but feedback: You mean this?

Next priority: Encrypted cloud backup

I think no one interpreted ā€œEncrypted local backupā€ there. :wink:

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You know, I knew someone would say something, thought of putting a callout that it says only cloud, but took it out second guessing myself. :joy:

Yes, that is what is says. I donā€™t really have much more to add other than to acknowledge that it does not say local.

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Correct. And no backup before updates either.

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We need so much more than this.
And your sticking-out-tongue emoji? Why?

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Appreciate the position you are in. But really, it would be so easy for the team to make a concrete demonstration that the got the message. Just revert the partial backup checkbox. This is not ā€œarchitecturalā€ and the code was obviously simple removed so putting it back should not be difficult. It would remove one of the major pain points from this update that cannot be easily worked around. Given that the existing backup solutions for non-encrypted backups still work at this point, that fix or update could be delayed without much pain if folks really believed that the team was listening. You have a low hanging fruit way to make a demonstration of good faith and get some trust back - why is the team not willing to take that at least?

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Thank you!!! Yes, it was starting to sound very quiet around here, at least in regards to the ā€œbigā€ issues of functionality which was removed from the UI.

I was starting to worry that the usersā€™ patience might be interpreted as a lack of interest in these issues. I canā€™t speak for everyone, but I strongly suspect thatā€™s not a correct interpretation.

I apologize for saying this again, but it bears repeating: Functionality was intentionally removed from the UI. That decision is causing a lot of angst among the user community. How hard would it be to say ā€œWeā€™ve heard you. Weā€™re going to restore the functionality which was removed.ā€?

Again, I apologize, but Iā€™ve heard enough corporate double-speak and dancing around issues that Iā€™m probably over-sensitized to it. This lack of a clear statement to the contrary can easily be interpreted as a decision not to restore those functions. Please tell me Iā€™m wrong. Or, tell me Iā€™m right and I just have to deal with it. This shouldnā€™t be difficult. Itā€™s the uncertainty which is causing all the posting of guesses, assumptions and concerns.

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Just in case NC is counting responses, Iā€™ll chime in to agree with most:

  • Encryption for cloud backups: Excellent
  • Optional encryption for local backups: Ok
  • Forced encryption for local backups: Bad
  • Removal of backups before upgrades: Horrible
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