I plan to build a new house in coming months and I would like to deploy an automation system from scratch. I am a novice in the home automation field but I have experience with linux, networking and python. I would like to have as much freedom and flexibility as possible and that’s why HA seems the best option for me.
My fear is that I plan to deploy a quite big and complex system (at least for me) as I would like to manage lights, power plugs, cameras, windows, doors, proximity sensors, media players…etc. and I am not sure if I will be able to configure HA in a reasonable amount of time and “production grade” as I will do this as hobby and the system will also be used by my family so I would like it to be reasonably stable.
I have talked with a local providers who suggests me to deploy a knx network and the automation platform he uses. I don’t know the details about this automation platform software yet but I guess it won’t be as flexible as HA and I won’t be able to “play” with it as I could with HA. As counterpart I assume it will be more stable and “production grade” and I will need to invest less time.
So my doubt is…if I deploy HA it must be the only automation platform taking control of everything? Or can I combine it with another platform? Could I deploy a “core” system and combine it with HA so I can slowly customize my HA setup in my spare time and move devices slowly to HA? Or manage the different devices from the two platforms? Can the two platforms coexists? Does this makes sense?
thank you very much in advance for any help or suggestion.
Pablo.
p.s. I also have many doubts about what hardware and wired network could work better for my use case but I will create a different post about that in the hardware section in the forum
You can integrate multiple platforms but if not done carefully can add to the complexity and increase latency/slow performance of the overall system.
I currently use indigo on a Mac as it is rock solid at managing all my zwave devices, I then use MQTT to integrate indigo with HASS so that I can control the devices from either platform. This has worked well for me and I cannot remember it ever failing.
In principle my “core” system would be based on KNX so I suppose that it doesn’t support MQTT (as KNX doesn’t use tcp/ip) unless I deploy some kind of MQTT/KNX bridge.
Does anyone has experience configuring HASS to communicate with another home automation software based on KNX?
Or can anyone share other experiences integrating HASS with any other home automation platform?
What matters is whether the hub of the “core” system can talk MQTT, or has any other API that is (or can be) supported. Home Assistant can talk directly to KNX devices, but that might involve replacing the other hub.
In terms of wired vs wireless, wired is always “better”, the same way that a wired network is “better” than WiFi - less (normally no) interference, more stable and predictable speeds, higher bandwidth, etc etc.
TL/DR - you need to find out what the supplier is using.
The solution you’re being recommended could only be considered more stable because you can’t mess with it. HA is only unstable when you mess with it and get something wrong, leave it alone once set up and it’ll just keep going. You won’t be able to leave it alone though and this is both it’s greatest strength and it’s greatest weakness.
Personally, I’d suggest you save your money as a proportion of it will be wasted anyway and you can tailor your final solution as you find out what you really need. What you must do though is ensure your house is wired for as many eventualities as you can possibly think of.
@Tinkerer What matters is whether the hub of the “core” system can talk MQTT, or has any other API that is (or can be) supported. Home Assistant can talk directly to KNX devices2, but that might involve replacing the other hub.
Thanks for this input. This makes more clear that in case I want to integrate two systems my HASS server should be able to “talk” to the hub of the other system either with an API provided by the other hub or by other way. I am open to implement this integration in HASS in case it’s not available yet.
@Tinkerer In terms of wired vs wireless, wired is always “better”, the same way that a wired network is “better” than WiFi - less (normally no) interference, more stable and predictable speeds, higher bandwidth, etc etc.
I agree. As this would be a new construction I plan to use wired connectivity for most devices. What specific wire and protocol is still to be decided but I will open another thread about this in the hardware section.
@Tinkerer TL/DR - you need to find out what the supplier is using.
yes you are totally right I will probably come back again once I have more technical information about this
@Bobby_Nobble The solution you’re being recommended could only be considered more stable because you can’t mess with it. HA is only unstable when you mess with it and get something wrong, leave it alone once set up and it’ll just keep going. You won’t be able to leave it alone though and this is both it’s greatest strength and it’s greatest weakness.
I know that HASS is a rapidly evolving application with a lot of freedom for customization and with very frequent releases. This is what I like about HASS! As what I want is to be able to “play” with HASS while learning that’s why I expect instability. I am not complaining about HASS, it will be me who introduces the instability I am aware of that and that’s why I am trying to plan beforehand what could be the best approach to reduce this…also so my family don’t hate me too much hehe
@Bobby_Nobble Personally, I’d suggest you save your money as a proportion of it will be wasted anyway and you can tailor your final solution as you find out what you really need. What you must do though is ensure your house is wired for as many eventualities as you can possibly think of.
Yeah, I think you are totally right. I think that my approach will be that once I decide what network I will use for the backbone I will make sure to wire everything properly and then I will slowly add new devices.
Thanks everyone of the input. I really appreciate it. This helped me a lot to get an overall overview. Still many doubts but I hope I will slowly clarify those
That is exactly the right approach - that allows you to build as you go and change your mind as you gain more experience with it. What seems critical now might actually not be needed once you have worked with your smart home for a while. And it allows you to learn and better understand what is possible.
Yesterday I had a discussion with the KNX integrator (who is a good friend of mine) to get more technical details about KNX in general an his control software in particular so I add here some extra information in case it’s useful for anyone else.
After discussing with him I realized that my previous sentence “in case I want to integrate two systems my HASS server should be able to communicate with the hub of the other system either with an API provided by the other hub or by other way” is wrong for KNX but it’s NOT wrong for other automation technologies.
Because of how KNX works you can have multiple “KNX control panels” coexisting independently without problem. Let me explain:
All the KNX devices work independently. There is not central hub or gateway which controls all the devices like happens with other automation platforms. All the KNX devices connect to a shared KNX bus and each of the devices publish in this bus their status. e.g. a light would publish in the KNX bus if it’s on or off and the intensity. It would also publish in the bus the “addresses” to turn on and turn off this light. This means that I can have a “main control panel” which manages all the knx devices (which is independent of HASS) and in parallel I can also have a second control panel which is my HASS server which communicates with the KNX bus using a “knx to ip interface” like the Weinzierl 730.
This means that if I turn on a light from the main control panel (which is totally independent of HASS) the light will publish the new status to the KNX bus and HASS will notice the status change. Also the other way around, when I modify any KNX device from HASS the main control panel would also detect the new status.
So my initial fear is solved I will deploy the KNX network and a basic control panel with a tft screen which allows me and my family to manage all the devices in a “friendly way” for non techie end users. In parallel to this I will attach my HASS server to the KNX bus to do all the play and test I want and also integrate non-knx devices.
I hope this helps others with the same doubts than me
I am also going to start building a house this year. I had initial fears and thought issues regarding this as well. My current route I’m taking:
I am going the same way as you are, I will be deploying a basic KNX system in house, to control the lights, blinds, and wall plugs. These should all nicely integrate with HA.
For the rest, I will use all wired connections (unless I did not plan for something off course).
My home theater (Sonos) and alarm system, camera’s etc, will not be connected to KNX (although all cabling will be done to 1 central location, so still possible if I want to), but I will integrate it with HA.
I might not go for a KNX touch panel, but rather ensure all devices can be controlled with physical wall switches, the reason for this, is these panels are rather expensive, I just plan to have some tablets mounted to the wall, displaying the HA interface by default. This gives the added value of being able to use the tablets for other stuff as well. When HA should go down for some reason, I also still have the wall switches to manage the KNX system (or possibly a KNX web page if that exists). This way I have the same functionality (wall mounted screen for easy access), yet a lot more versatility.
@tmatheussen I might not go for a KNX touch panel, but rather ensure all devices can be controlled with physical wall switches, the reason for this, is these panels are rather expensive, I just plan to have some tablets mounted to the wall, displaying the HA interface by default. This gives the added value of being able to use the tablets for other stuff as well. When HA should go down for some reason, I also still have the wall switches to manage the KNX system (or possibly a KNX web page if that exists). This way I have the same functionality (wall mounted screen for easy access), yet a lot more versatility.
I also plan to install some physical wall switches to turn on/off lights as usual. This way if HASS is down I can still manage the lights and also my parents or anyone “non techie” can manage the lights as it’s usually done in any house.
What I don’t like about using a tablet is that to turn on a light you need to do few clicks. I want to be able to turn on/off the lights in a single click. I have also seen some small tft panels which give you full control of lights/climatization/blinds… etc but also allows to program some “gestures”. e.g. you can program these gestures:
slide left to right >> lights on
slide right to left >> lights off
slide up to down >> blinds down
slide down to up >> blinds up
This way you have quick access to most common actions but if you click on the panel you get the full featured controls. Anyway I am still not 100% convinced. I am still thinking about how to do this and the costs.
Hi,
I’m also running Indigo and was looking for a way to integrate Indigo with Home Assistant and stumbled upon your post. How did you set it up? I have looked for a solution and it seams like you found one.
The only way I got it working in the end was via Mqtt. I have subsequently moved everything over to home assistant. Back when I did it there was a couple of options
there is a Mqtt indigo plugin that is worth playing around with to see if it gives you what you need
install the mosquito client tools and call scripts on state changes etc.
I will probably come back again once I have more technical information about this
I am aware of that and that’s why I am trying to plan beforehand what could be the best approach to reduce this…also so my family don’t hate me too much hehe