I am obviously new to both raspberry pi and Home-Assistant, but before I jumped in to Hass.io, I installed a NOOB version of Raspian and found it comfortable, even though I am a Windows user. Then I grabbed new new SD card and followed the directions to install Haas.io.
Q1: Initially, when I looked at the raspberry pi monitor, it showed the Home Assistant logo and there was no other interface. Then after while, the screen went blank. Is this normal? Is Hass.io on RPI supposed to take over the machine and the only user interface is the web browser?
Q2: I tried accessing the Hass.io interface at another computer on the network at āhttp://hassio.local:8123/ā as the instructions indicate, but got āThis site canāt be reachedā page. I did the optional static IP change to the resin-sample/resin.wifi file before putting the SD card into the RPI and turning it on, so i knew the IP address. Itās a good thing too, because the IP address I configured is still not showing up in Fing. So I an access the RPI with āhttp://192.168.1.180:8123/ā. Is this the correct method? The ālocalā URL seems like a good method to connect from a browser on the RPI, but the screen is lank and there is not user interface.
Hi everyone,
Sorry for necroposting (even if not so old, so in fact I donāt think itās really necriposting XD )
I only want to ask everyone one: what if I want to use homeassistant directly from the screen of the raspberry? Anyone never thinked it can be usefull? No future plan to add a direct front-end interface?
so itās a precise choice not have an embedded user interface?
With āuser interfaceā i donāt mean necessarily something different from the web interfaceā¦ maybe it would be enough to have some kind of browser at full screen locked to http://hassbian.local:8123/ just to let you use the webservice directly from mouse, keyboard and screen of the raspberryā¦ no?
Iām not sure if I well understood how this system works, but if iām right: as it is done now, if i want to add a 7" touch screen panel in my living room to control my house i need two raspberry, 1 acting as hub and running home assistant somewhere, and 1 connected to a tft+touch running a browser in my living room, itās right?
Iāve another question: i was looking among the docs for something that explain clearly the difference between using hassio and hassbian. In https://home-assistant.io/hassio/ itās just written some advantages of Hassio, but i really canāt figure out what features I get and what features I lost if use Hassbian instead of Hassio and vice versaā¦ can anyone explain this in few word or link any kind of ācomparisonā ?
no. Like I said if you want this then donāt use Hassio - use Haspbian.
Yes that would be right. Or run Hassbian although even with Hassbian, itās probably raspbian lite so you wonāt have a desktop interface, only command line interface so no web browser - but Iām not certain Hassbian is running lite - youād need to check but Iām almost 100% sure this is the case.
Hassio is like an appliance with very little ability to do anything from a command line. Everything is done via addons and if there is not an addon for what you want to do then someone has to write one. Itās not meant for the user to play around āunder the hoodā at all.
Hassbian is just HA on top of Raspbian so you have full Raspbian functionality and can add other programs for other things etc. I am 99% sure Hassbian does not include the desktop Pixel interface though.
Hassio is great if all you want to run is Home Assistant. Raspbian if you want to add other things but just remember the Pi is probably not going to work as well as you want if you burden it with lots of other apps.
Also, at the moment, python 2.x (?) Is no longer to be supported so if you had a Hassbian install that was based on Jesse instead of stretchā¦ well thereās no easy way to update to stretch so the advice is to backup your configuration, install the latest hassbian and restore configurationā¦ For Hassio - it will just automatically update by itself with no user issues - itās always up to date.
I run 5 Piās - 3 of them 24/7/365 and those are dedicated to one task each. They all run reliable. I suppose I could use my usenet pi to also do mt Apple Time Machine emulation but they Iāll have some issues at some pointā¦ for a $25 single board computer you can run a bunch of them dedicated to 1 task. Iām sure this is why some people say the Pi is unreliable and give up on it and look for other platforms like a NUC etc - but the Pi is brilliant at single task applications IMO.
Ok, got it, thanks.
So in practice that type of interface is not available neither with Hassio nor with Hassbian. But the difference is that with Hassio iāll never get that because iām not supposed to change anything on backend, while with Hassbian I am free to find a way to do that and implement it.
Anyhow itās strongly reccomanded not doing that because raspberry might have performance problemsā¦
In the end do you advice me to start with Hassio and then eventually switch to Hassbian only if i need something more?
Do you think thereās some reason (eg some feaures, etcā¦) why I should begin straighaway using Hassbian instead Hassio?
Itās a personal preference. I started with the all-in-one installation (now depreciated) and went to Hassio. It really depends on you.
Again this is my view and recommendation only and it depends on what extras you want to run. Itās just in my observation a path to grief and problems if people do this but you are free to do whatever you like. You can also run hassio on a RPi Ver1B too but I donāt think youāll like the result of doing that. Itās totally up to you. Note also, I am not any kind of āauthorityā here Iām just a user like you and I speak from my own views and experience. Plenty of people Iām sure will disagree and some people really turn their noses up at Hassio. Again personal preference.
Whatever you do, make sure you get a good quality genuine SD Card and a robust power supply - do those and you will have a good experience whichever route you choose.
Yes, sureā¦ Based on my experience Iām also pretty sure that setting up something that simply let the user use the HomeAssistant interface directly from the raspberry (like a browser o something like that) should run good without many difficultiesā¦
I think that for smaller installation this would be a very usefull solution (imagine that i use only very few devices but I need to control them from the living room or from the bedroom). I think many users would find this usefull, instead forcing them to buy and use a second raspberryā¦
I was shocked and stunned (in italian we say flabbergasted in the negative sense of the term) when i saw that this simple thing wasnāt implemented as simple and default featureā¦ moreover: iāve seen the HA logo appearing in the screen. Then, when hassio downloaded home automation, iāve seen it disappearingā¦ then i thought: "so they already have the necessary functionalities to show something to the display (like the operating system already configured to do this) and they removed this function? really? an empty (only with OS) uSD has a logo while when it becomes (after download) a āfully working homeassistant-hubā it shows absolutely nothing on the screen? wowā¦
Of course. I wasnāt referring to that type of extra use. In any case, the answer is simple - Donāt use Hassio!!! Use Hassbian and install the desktop. Easy.
No one is forced to do anything. If you donāt like the way Hassio works, donāt use it! Use Hassbian.
Just so you know something is happening then you can connect to the web interface.
Hassio runs on Resin-OS, and Docker. Until someone adds support in resinos for that type of thing or until someone adds the ability to do so through docker itself, itās not the home assistant team that will do that.
There is a way of interaction between hassio and browser launched on rpi itself, but I guess it requires either multidocker feature that was recently introduced by resin.io or reworked base image. Base image is probably the best option since it will have the permissions to communicate with the hardware, but it requires the developers spending time on this. I would love to help since I own 7 inch touchscreen and would love to have this feature. So far I am trying to make it work on hassbian. It was working with my setup on Jessie, but not working on Stretch
