Saw a YouTube video talking about HA and thought I would check it out, I am controlling all my devices with there own apps on my phone without any really complaints. The video was explaining that I could do it all from the one interface. I thought I would give it a shot.
Followed the guide from the HA site, spun up a vm and within a few minutes was up, made a list of the products I use and am surprised and a little disappointed with how many are not “ready to go”. I googled ha and the name of some of the products which yielded some instructions that were not exactly clear.
Can you guys maybe explain how or point me to a step by step to setup an integration that is not “ready to go”?
Here is my list that i was trying to integrate; (maybe you have some insight on them)
As far as integration documentation goes, it’s typical and adequate. Respectfully, you don’t appear to know enough about Home Assistant yet. It’s evident from your next question about the centerpiece of Home Assistant’s configuration:
I highly recommend you read the official documentation to become more familiar with the terminology, features, and available resources.
There’s no official record of this kind of information so any answer would be speculative or anecdotal.
FWIW, if you can’t find an official integration for a device by searching for it using the link tom_I provided (this can be done well in advance of installing Home Assistant), there may be an unofficial one (refered to as a custom component or custom integration). You need to search the forum to determine if one exists for the device.
Personally, I didn’t re-purchase anything but I did buy more (compatible) devices.
Point 3 - I was very exited to spin up HA, then further excited to see it went so smoothly and then i was a little crushed when I got to integrations. I googled Wyze which is basically all the lights in the house and the best I could find was that some people got the cameras up but no luck on the lights. If I can’t do the lights I’ll be at a crossroads, right now i can just ask Alexa to turn on and off lights all over the house, she can put them on schedules when I’m away, all works smooth. Do I just go out a buy a new solution for the lights or stop playing with HA? I had envisioned a tablet on the wall, the wife checking the oil tank level, kicking on the air conditioning, seeing who’s at the front door type of scenario. Still up in the air as it’s early in my playing around.
Anyway that’s the reason for my original question.
I’d be curious what the most popular solution for lights controlled by switches and lamps controlled at the outlet level are in the forum. Feel free to post up.
Don’t know how your lights and sockets work, but if they’re IR/RF controlled you might try a universal remote like the Broadlink Pro - mine covers the whole house. Alternatively, IFTTT might be a way in for some of them (I see Wyze works with IFTTT, though nowadays there’s a subscription).
You can run HA scripts with Alexa voice commands, but not the other way round, unfortunately. Again, there’s a subscription (to Home Assistant cloud) involved there.
HA doesn’t have to do everything. I personally do a lot of scheduling through native apps and use HA for monitoring and integration. Several tablets on the wall!
You’ve got a long road ahead of you - should be fun!
This may be one of your big hurtles. That’s a totally different mindset from HA.
When you buy hardware which requires use of the vendor’s cloud services, you’ll find that set-up is a breeze. Just install their app, give them a user ID, password, maybe some money, possibly your first-born child, and all the information the app can extract from your phone and your network.
Most of these devices are designed to use only the vendor’s cloud for remote access. Some have supported / tolerated use of a local API, but obviously that causes more support headaches for the manufacturer. One (TP-Link) actually pulled support for their API a while ago.
There are devices which work locally. All of my Zigbee devices, for example. And there are some for which a local HA integration has been developed.
But to integrate existing cloud-based devices, you may need to use the vendor’s official API. For example, there is a Honeywell integration for HA which uses their API to communicate with the Honeywell servers. You don’t have local control. If your internet connection goes down or Honeywell changes their API, it won’t work. But I have three Honeywell thermostats and I’ve been controlling them with HA for a couple of years now. Plus, I still have the app for backup.
All of this takes more work than just installing the vendor app and whipping out your credit card. To some of us, it’s worth it. Your call as to whether or not it’s worth it to you.
What do you guys use for lamp control that integrates well with HA? (the style that plugs in to an outlet and the lamp goes into the unit) or maybe a wifi outlet)
If the Wyze does work with IFTTT, is there a doc on how to try/set that up?
It should be immediately added to HA imo, works perfect, it could avoid the headache for the next person, there’s probably some reason it not already i guess but with them being sold by the pallet load at every Home Depot in America, I would thing someone should get on that!
The Document you provided says that it doesn’t work for the smoke detector, i figured i’d try anyway
here’s where i’m at
Followed the instructions
I paid the $5 bucks to google
I got all the pieces info it required
i created and validated the config, restarted and nothing happened.
I did have some trouble with the whole url thing, had to make a .com up to get it to work as .local wasn’t doing it. (i know a little dumb, but desperate to get through the doc!)
Maybe i need to add an integration? like should’ve happened after I completed the config, it just shows up on the dashboard?
Or maybe it just doesn’t work with the detectors!
Example configuration.yaml entry
nest:
client_id: CLIENT_ID ← got this
client_secret: CLIENT_SECRET ← got this
“Project ID” in the Device Access Console
project_id: PROJECT_ID ← got this
Provide the full path exactly as shown under “Subscription name” in Google Cloud Console
subscriber_id: projects/project-label-22ee1/subscriptions/SUBSCRIBER_ID ← got this
How did your journey go? I started with Home Assistant so I could control a school bell then expanded it from there. Totally different starting point from you. I imagine it’s been rough to try and integrate all those devices.
I currently have zigbee door/window sensors,smart plugs, and lights along with zwave lights and thermostats.
I have some that automatically turn on a TV and play a live stream when ever we are live in the auditorium via a Chromecast/smart plug.
I have a google calendar that staff can use to control what days the bell rings. Same for the hourly bell tower that rings by the hour all over campus. It’s been fun so far! I want to integrate the DMX stage lighting system but there isn’t a straight forward path for that one.
