Flagging likely configuration Issues with HomeKit, ZWave and more generally

Feature Requests
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1

Hi,

I propose there should be a component / add-on that analyses your config and suggests improvements, or points out semantic errors. While a lot of things are documented, it would make HA much more approachable for people if they could get information about their set-up, sort of like a compiler offers you warnings to investigate. This would lead to more users and hence a more vibrant HA ecosystem.

Here is why:

My key driver for using HA was the ability to bridge ZWave components to HomeKit. Using an AeoTec USB controller I was able to add my first switch with no difficulty, just by adding the homekit: entry into the configuration.yaml file and defining where my ZWave USB controller was. I was impressed by how easy it was.

However as I added more Homekit nodes it got very unreliable, I can’t count the number of times I deleted the .homekit.state file to try and solve the problem. I nearly gave up and started to look at OpenHab, but then after reading the docs https://www.home-assistant.io/components/homekit/ I understood the importance of the auto_start: false.

So yes I should have read the docs completely first, but realistically a lot of people won’t do this, instead I was frustrated the HA couldn’t warn me somehow. Especially as in one file I had Zwave Enabled and HomeKit, but not auto_start : false

Regards

2

Then realistically they won’t read the analyzer’s report either.

You’ll be pleased to know that Home Assistant already has something that “analyses your config and suggests improvements”. It’s the members of this community forum.

Just ask for help.

3

it’s great this forum can analyse people’s setup, that says a lot of positive things about those here, but it’s not:
a) scalable
b) fast

A warning would have told me in seconds, instead I spent hours on this, and indeed I wouldn’t expect someone to ask questions on this forum before having done some research/troubleshooting of their own.