Like others, with HS charging a subscription for google voice integration, I am considering alternatives. I feel like I’m being nickel and dimed and hate subscriptions. I also don’t find their modernized UI to be that, well, modern or aesthetically attractive. It may be time to move elsewhere.
I was hoping to ask some starting questions…
Is there any kind of migraiton guide for HS4 to HA users? Or what is the best place to look for how I might approach this (or do I just start from scratch)? I feel like I should have a pretty straightforward/typical HS4 install: single home with ~50 devices and various events and utilizing google home running on a Pi4 w/HS Zwave Smartstick G3 (700 series)…
Is HA as reliable? Is upgrading it generally smooth and painless?
I literally just bought a HomeSeer G8 800 series USB zwave stick which I haven’t implemented yet. Before I proceed with HA, should I return it and buy something else? Perhaps the Zooz LR 800?
I just did the same thing with my house, and am in the process (trying to anyway ) of converting 2 other homes I maintain.
First, NO regrets. None. HA is light years ahead of HS and the distance keeps growing. HS will never be able to compare.
Your questions,
1 - no real “guide” but it all depends on what you use in HS. The Z2M and, now, the Zwave JS HS integrations make it simple to transfer both to any other system. I don’t use Zwave in my personal system but the Zigbee transfer was simple. I’ll be doing a Zwave transfer soon and, from what I’ve researched so far, it’ll be even easier.
2 - I’ve had no problems with any part of the system so far. I will say I don’t care much for the amount of updates but that seems to be what most people want these days. I still believe in the “if it ain’t broke” mentality, but I’ve been updating as released and nothing I’ve had has broken yet.
Smooth and painless… wouldn’t say that exactly. But it’s not hard if you do it right. What I mean is you’re gonna have to figure out how to do things in HA as opposed to HS. But once you figure that out, it makes sense and is so much more powerful.
3 - ‘Should’ be fine with either. I don’t think HS has any proprietary features of their hardware and even if they did, they “partnered” with HA about a year ago to make sure their hardware works with HA. I am assuming that goes for controller too.
Welcome aboard! I believe there are a lot of HS refugees here, I know there are refugees from multiple different platforms that got tired of the ongoing subscriptions to, well, everything and sought out a change.
I can tell you that I’ve never looked back, I’ve not found anything I cannot do in HA yet but it takes a bit of time to get up to speed.
Home Assistant is reliable, but it is like anything else, you need to take care when upgrading (my rule of thumb: don’t upgrade to anything .0 for just about any software). Fortunately reverting is very easy if you upgrade and find something that doesn’t quite work right.
HA is pretty compatible with most hardware and Z-Sticks are no different. If it’s me, though, I would get a Sonoff or Zooz, they tend to be favorites.
You also cant beat the support on the forums (and Discord), it blows most any other platform away.
There are many of us HS refugees here, and I haven’t see even one post about anyone disappointed or going back.
This forum has an incredible amount of experience and knowledge - start by doing some searches for the various topics you raised. (Though given how fast HA improves, focus on posts within the past year or so.)
An approach to consider - it worked well for me - is to just download and play with HA a while before you actually starting migrating. That lets you come up to speed with the terminology and slightly different ways of doing things.
HA is very reliable. However, each month with the new release, the forum is typically noisy with folks having issues with some particular integration. This doesn’t represent “unreliability” per se, but is more a reflection of just how many different integrations there are - literally thousands. Not to minimize the frustration when your particular widget doesn’t communicate… but just don’t let the noise of such a complex and large community overwhelm you.
I’ll also put in a good word for the Zooz LR 800. Been rock solid for me, and has all the latest features.
Echoing what everyone else has said, I have no regrets moving from HomeSeer to Home Assistant. If you have a reliable Z-wave network with your existing hardware you can simply connect HA to the existing controller, and it will import all your devices by node number. Print out all the Node information from HomeSeer first.
The regular monthly upgrade cycle of Home Assistant will throw you off at first. As mentioned, don’t be enticed to upgrade immediately. I usually stay a month or so behind.
Also, the documentation is outstanding. Make sure you read it as well. Be especially careful when reading old forum posts, the software has changed radically in the last year or so and many details documented in the forums are outdated. Check the docs first!
If you like video learning, there’s a multitude of YouTube channels dedicated to Home Assistant. Again, be careful of older videos as the information may be outdated.
Thank you for the quick responses everyone. I’ll start reading through the docs and take everyone’s advice to heart. Hoping to try HA out on a new SD card in my Pi4 with a Zooz stick and see how it all goes. Worst case, I can pop the old SD card in and HS stick if I have any issues.