Browet, can you kindly give me a little more information on the programming and scripting aspect of HA.
Is it based on a fairly easy to lean english like scripting syntax ?
I read that HA has been developed using Python but I’d rather leave that to the development community.
You spoke about integration too.
automations and scripts are fairly easy but you need to understand some python basics + jinja.
anything more advanced requires python_script or tools like AppDaemon/NodeRed
Thank you Ahmad, that is extremely useful to know. In all honesty, one of my greatest regrets in life is not pursuing my passion for programming when I was in high school considering the fact that I excelled at it.
I suppose it’s never too late to learn and anything is possible with a bit of dedication and focus.
You seem to know your stuff, please give me further advice, what is the best way to learn ?
Install HA, you can not learn unless you start using it.
I agree Sjee, what hardware would I need ? - Pi4 with SSD hack or a super reliable alternative ?
I suppose a couple of light switches and cameras would help. Any idea where I can find a list of the closely supported devices ?
Thank you for that link, I will go through it.
I suppose I could start-off by automating my own home environment as an experiment and learning excercise.
I would need 3 things automated: Lights, security cams and entertainment room. I can always research whole house music in terms of integration with HA.
could should 
Wow! - that is a pretty serious and diverse range of devices !
I wish the main/best ones were highlighted in each category with a brief description.
What are Covers ? - Controlling a controller ?
How would I control my AV gear ?
The best one is the one which suits your needs.
By checking if your gear is supported, reading the docs and… install HA
No they should not. Development is founded through the Nabu Casa cloud subscription. And as far as I know the developers have no intention to make it a commercial product in any way and it’s good like this.
You keep talking about clients needs and installing HA on clients side, but you didn’t even install HA on your own machine and started using it. If you start using HA and apply stuff in the real world and not just in theory, lots of questions will be answered by themselves, you’ll get a feeling on how much work it is to create and maintain a system.
I was in IT a couple of years ago, and therefore I am used to program but I never programmed in Python, used CSS, html, json, jinja or javascript or even installed Linux before … Nevertheless and frankly at the beginning I was thinking that the programming of HA was very complex (in the meantime, HA now have tools to develop automations but not using them…)… but I started to develop my automation system, with very simple automations (based on the same schema: triggers, conditions and actions) and now, I am thinking that it is quite simple when you have understood the basics… I am even using json, and python (not that I learned them from the books) but just by searching on the HA community… I am curious and when I have a problem or an idea, I try to find the solution by “googleing”… If not finding what I want, I am asking the community (very reactive by the way)… Regarding integration, there are people who are developping those integrations (like Cozytouch, Intesishome, Evohome system, Ring…), you have to install them (sometimes this is not that “easy” to make them work) and follow installation instructions to make it work in HA (HACS (an interface to install modules developped by the community) is very helpful to simplify the installation)… Another point, I am not using Hass.io solution, I have installed HA in a virtual environment on multiple Raspberry Pi Platform… More difficult to install and maintain than probably Hass.io but I prefer to control my environment as my Raspberry Pi is also used to control the network with Nagios (check if all network equipment are up and running) and send notification to HA if a node is down for example or if my Nas requires some maintenance or clean up…
Regarding the complexity and using jinja, json, I started to use them recently and gradually when I tried to improve the interface (by having for example the color and the icon changing with one or multiple entities states). So It came to use those “naturally” when I was becoming confident in my hability to build automations in HA. Programming requires to be disciplined, identation for example is very rigid… Sometimes automations doesn’t work because I have not aligned the code correctly…
I am finding this open source solution very flexible with a lot of possibilities (as I mentionned, the limitation is just your imagination) but sometimes a little bit complex to implement… You will have to find a good balance between complexity and flexibility… Enjoy HA !
“Prolly” is an abbreviation for ‘Probably’
Whole house music is a doddle and quite cheap too.
Set up a pi (Pi2 will do) with an USB stick large enough for your music collection. $40
Load it with max2play or picore player to set up a Logitech Media Server (LMS)
Set up a player on the same device but no speakers (this is so you can keep the player running 24/7)
Then for speakers, another pi (‘probably’ a 3 for the WiFi if not wired lan) with a USB dac or specialist dac $40-50, plug in a set of powered speakers from an old pc or similar.
Or feed it into your hifi spare input
So $350 buys you 5 pi’s with power supplies and 4 speakers to place around the house.
They can either all be sync’d or all run different playlists. Use squeezer to control them or use the lms integration. Cheap and as @tmjpugh intimates earlier, replaceable, at no great loss at some point in the future.
I went a bit further building the pi’s into a speaker box with a 50w amp, the pi’s run picore player (run in memory so I can pull the plug at any time AND DO, as I have a remote switch in each box to turn them off, they also act as alarm clocks when they come on an specific times in the morning) so I have 4 off (sort of sonos 5 equivalents) for about 1/5 the cost.
And I’ll ‘probably’ adapt them as the technology moves on.
In the US we have a service called “HomeAdvisor”.
This thread is really sounding like some of their commercials:
I think the gist of this thread is that you need to dig into the docs on the HA site so you have some idea of what you are in for. Install it on your own machine in your own house so you can figure out what it (or you) can do.
If you have specific questions about something that you don’t get or is giving you trouble then come on back here and ask. But be prepared to answer the inevitable “what have you tried and what are the log errors?” questions.
Right now it doesn’t seem like you’ve put much effort into researching and are expecting us to teach you. Kind of like that commercial… 
@Samazar I think you may be confusing home control and home automation. Home Assistant is more geared to automation.
Read this and you’ll know more about the HA philosophy.
A couple of tips
IMHO sonos has a growing reputation for shafting their customers. Avoid.
covers are things that move so as to cover something. Better explained by examples - garage doors, shutters, curtains.
a raspberry pi 4 with ssd will get you started, many of us use a regular pcs, like a nuc. Don’'t bother with installing on a mac or on windows.
LMS is a great whole home audio system, and totally open source.
One more thing, the UI is entirely up to the end user. (Or the installer).
I have a mate that I’m trying to persuade to use Home Assistant, but he is an Apple fanboy prisoner. He has mentioned issues with Python errors or something, but what else will get in the way? (I’m trying to convince him to use a non-prison platform)
I tried in the past, if I remember correctly there were some integrations which didn’t work. I run HA in virtualbox on a Mac Mini, which works perfectly fine ofcourse.
Thanks, I’ll let him know to try that. Is that running a Linux OS in the VM?