General question Hard/Soft before installing

CedC · December 30, 2019, 1:05pm

Hello World !

I was looking into doing some home automation in my small townhouse and I have a couple of question before purchasing all my planned equipment.
To give you a little background about me, I am located in Paris France, and have always be IT curious. Though I have not studied IT, I am capable of doing some basic system administration (I self-hosted myself for 5 years), and have some basinc programming capacity (in the old days, C & C++, now python).
I though about getting into home automation and I would start by simple project before going further. This includes (in planned order) :

Inside Light control (phillips& ikea mainly)
Integration with google home
Electrical radiator through pilot wire control with a thermostat
Outside light control with detectors
Automatic garden watering

At first, I was planning on going full zigbee as it seems to be the ramping tech today, but it seems there are a lot of product that are not compatible yet (pilot for radiators, gardening). So I guess I will have to add z-wave and maybe other tech as well. I did not see any dongle that are bother zigbee and zwave compatible in EU, so I guess I have to purchase two. For now, I was thinking of conBee II & Everspring SA413 as they seem rather well supported.
Also, I was thinking of using Hass.io with a RP4, but I have a couple of old laptops that could be recycled. Would it be a good idea to start with that ? Think what OS should I install ? I saw that Debian do not natively support the needed python version so maybe ubuntu is a better choice ?
Is it possible to integrated both W-wave and zibe ? That is controlling a zigbee light using a zwave switch through home assistant ?
I saw a lot of automation example, some using a king od graphic interface (I think there is a default one and also Node-RED was mentioned a lot) , other YAML config files. What is (if it exist) today’s standard ? Any recommendation ?
Thanks for you help, I look forward to starting !

tom_l · December 30, 2019, 1:13pm

Old laptops are excellent. They have a built in UPS if the battery is in reasonable condition.

A lot of folks go for ubuntu server LTS, but it’s not that important.

Yes it is. This is one of the main advantages of home assistant. It’s a hub for hubs. Plug in a zwave and zigbee usb stick and you can control one from the other.

Personal choice. I prefer YAML, some prefer NodeRed, some prefer the Automation UI. There’s also appdaemon.

Burningstone · December 30, 2019, 1:14pm

Yes that’s a good idea as you have an inbuilt UPS

There are countless of options if you check the installation docs, there’s no “best” method to install. Hass.io is often used by new users as it is easy to setup, but limited at some points. The “normal” docker method is a bit less limited and installing it in a VENV is “unlimited”.

Yes, you add the devices to home assistant and the automations in home assistant can combine devices from different manufacturers, protocols etc. it doesn’t care if it is a ZigBee Light or Z-Wave or WiFi or whatever.

There’s no standard, most beginners probably use the Home Assistant’s inbuild automations. Node-Red has a graphical approach to automations and is also very famous, but I never used it. Then there’s also AppDaemon, which is I would say for more advanced users and you do all the automations there in Python, I have a lot of experience with it and think it’s awesome once automations get a bit more complex and especially if you want reusable automations.

This is an excellent choice, using it for more than 2 years and had little to no issues.

lddubeau · December 30, 2019, 1:27pm

Where did you see that? Everything I see about minimum Python requirements indicates that HA is fine with Python 3.7. The lastest stable Debian version (Debian 10, aka “Buster”) ships Python 3.7.

CedC · December 30, 2019, 1:38pm

Thank you all for your answers, I guess I will look more into node-red and AppDeamon that looks very interesting.

True, Buster is Out now :-p. I also use Yunohost (an OS for automating some server things like app installation which is still on the previous version of debian). But I guess it will not evolve as fast as HA

Also, did anyone tried out enoceant ? they have a couple of batriless switches and radiator controller that looks neat.

Burningstone · December 30, 2019, 2:04pm

I don’t have any of them, but there is an integration for them EnOcean - Home Assistant

CedC · January 2, 2020, 9:22pm

Hi guys,
As my home server is under Stretch, I though using Docker would be the best option as I will be able to run the latest version without thinking of lib (python) compatibility.

The installation went smoothly and I can access the webapp though the local ip address of the server on port 8123.

Today I received my everspring controler (listed compatible in the HA doc) and found it was mapped om /dev/ttyACM0

I am not familiar with docker (using it for the first time, but learning ) and chose to use docker composer.

My YAML config for that is :

version: '3'
services:
homeassistant:
 container_name: home-assistant
 image: homeassistant/home-assistant:stable
 volumes:
   - /opt/Docker_img/HA/:/config
 devices:
   - /dev/ttyACM0:/dev/ttyACM0
 environment:
   - TZ=America/New_York
 restart: always
 network_mode: host

I then tried to add the z-wave integration through the web interface, setting

/dev/ttyACM0

as the usb-path, but got

Z-Wave validation failed. Is the path to the USB stick correct?

as an answer. What could possibly be wrong ? permission for the stick access ? I am not sure where to start looking for an answer…

any help is welcome

flamingm0e · January 3, 2020, 3:11am

Did you run docker-compose up -d after modifying your docker compose file?

Your user needs to be a member of dialout group

CedC · January 3, 2020, 6:26am

It was a simple as that
I had run docker-compose restart but I guess it was no the right comand.

Now that I am here, Is keeping DOCKER containers in /opt is a good idea ? Shout my DOCKER compose file be with the DOCKER image ?

Anyway thanks a lot for helping me debugging my (trivial) problem, apreceate it a lot !

flamingm0e · January 3, 2020, 1:11pm

How did you force your container to be in /opt? It defaults to /var I believe. If you are referring to your config directory, it doesn’t matter.

That seems impossible, but no, you don’t need your compose file to be anywhere near the docker image.

CedC · January 4, 2020, 8:28am

OK, I guess it is the config directory that is there. And then it kindda make sense to keep the docker-compose file close to the cofi directory.
Thanks again for the explanations !

CedC · January 4, 2020, 11:18am

Hi Again !
I did not intend post again this fast but… (I might not doing things properly), I am having trouble finding good documentation for home assistant. Everything seems to be be for HASS.io :-/
I connected my first Zigbee & Z-wave nodes and wanted to go through some basic automation tests.
After giving it a little thought, I was thinking of using node-red as my main automation tool.

but, with vanilla HA, there is no pluggin to install it.
So I went ahead and installed node-red (v 1.0.3) with docker-compose using this config file :

version: "3.7"

services:
  node-red:
    image: nodered/node-red:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/Paris
    ports:
      - "1880:1880"
	  - "9229:9229"
    networks:
      - node-red-net
    volumes:
      - node-red-data

volumes:
  node-red-data:

networks:
  node-red-net:

I do have both containers running :

CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                                 COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                  PORTS                    NAMES
2c5607db61ba        nodered/node-red:latest               "npm start -- --user…"   9 minutes ago       Up 9 minutes            0.0.0.0:1880->1880/tcp   node_r_node-red_1
5290a804caaf        homeassistant/home-assistant:stable   "/bin/entry.sh pytho…"   29 hours ago        Up 3 hours                                       home-assistant
eb8778a63570        hello-world

Now I have tzo problem. I tied updating the docker compose file for changing the TimeZone (TZ) but I have this message :

$ docker-compose up -d
Recreating 2c5607db61ba_node_r_node-red_1 ... error

ERROR: for 2c5607db61ba_node_r_node-red_1  Cannot create container for service node-red: invalid volume specification: '518bf848cf997c34c4f8722c60a9ee1e6a643fa3e3126af466f2a1458e5bbb1e:node-red-data:rw': invalid mount config for type "volume": invalid mount path: 'node-red-data' mount path must be absolute

ERROR: for node-red  Cannot create container for service node-red: invalid volume specification: '518bf848cf997c34c4f8722c60a9ee1e6a643fa3e3126af466f2a1458e5bbb1e:node-red-data:rw': invalid mount config for type "volume": invalid mount path: 'node-red-data' mount path must be absolute
ERROR: Encountered errors while bringing up the project.

And, for the few seconds node was running, I could not see it in HA, is there a way to link them, I cannot find anything about it ?

EDIT : additional points :

I would prefer having the Volume (so I guess , the configuration) in the /opt/Docker/Node_R, but as there are two Volumes in the docker-compose file, I left the default config.
I saw in a forum post that to connect NR and HA, I need to install the HA palet in NR. And also allow a kind of iframe in HA (but I don’t know yet how to do this one).

CedC · January 4, 2020, 12:36pm

I am going forward, I succeded on restarting my node red container and installink the long life tocken home assistant palet.

Now I would like tree things :

Secure my node red access (according to the doc I need to edit the setting.js file which is in my persistent volume
start some automation
get node red in the HA interface

1. Secure node red

i think my file in in my persistent volume that is weirdly called node_r_node-red-data

$ docker volume ls
DRIVER              VOLUME NAME
local               299e9bbdc9d32b5cef7c0f998b4bf0c14811ea9b459b192bebb4bde26ca66208
local               518bf848cf997c34c4f8722c60a9ee1e6a643fa3e3126af466f2a1458e5bbb1e
local               node_r_node-red-data

How to access it ? I found online that it should be in the /var/lib/docker/volumes/node_r_node-red-data folder but this one contains just a _data folder that is empty… how should I go forward ?

2. automation

I created an event:state node, tries to connect to my home assistant server (providing the IP address with the port and longlife token that was created using the web interface in home assistant)
But I then get the

cannot GET /undefinedhomeassistant/entities

error. I am not sure what is wrong here. I trie the fix that apparently works for HASS (deploying any flow), but it did not work in my case

3. NR in HA interface

I tried to google it but could find any interesting answer. I am not sure how to proceed

Burningstone · January 4, 2020, 2:17pm

Why don’t you add the nodered container to the same docker compose as your home assistant machine?

Something like this:

version: '3'
services:
  homeassistant:
    container_name: home-assistant
    image: homeassistant/home-assistant:stable
    volumes:
      - /opt/Docker_img/HA/:/config
    devices:
      - /dev/ttyACM0:/dev/ttyACM0
    environment:
      - TZ=America/New_York
    restart: always
    network_mode: host
  nodered:
    container_name: node-red
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: nodered/node-red:latest
    depends_on:
      - "homeassistant"
    user: root
    volumes:
      - /opt/Docker_img/Node-Red/:/data
    ports:
      - "1880:1880"

Like this the data from Home Assistant will be in /opt/Docker_img/HA/ and the data from node-red in /opt/Docker_img/Node-Red/. This post from @flamingm0e might be helpful for you.

CedC · January 4, 2020, 2:36pm

thanks for the post.
So I should have installed node-red and home assistant altogether using a single file ?
Is it too late now ? I am so confuse by docker although I guess in understand your config file.

Burningstone · January 4, 2020, 2:41pm

That’s the purpose of docker-compose, to run multiple containers

No, stop your docker containers, remove the node red containers then add the nodered part to the home assistant docker-compose file, start it again and done.

I suggest reading up on docker, docker-compose and then take a look at the post I linked to get a better understanding.

CedC · January 4, 2020, 3:44pm

Thanks, I have been reading a lot about docker (and I am still are) but I cannot help being confused by it.

for instance, I tried what you said :

stopping all containers
deleting node red
change my architecture to :

/opt/Docker# ls 
docker-compose.yml  Home_Assistant  Node_Red

changed my docker-compose file to :

version: '3'
services:
  homeassistant:
    container_name: home-assistant
    image: homeassistant/home-assistant:stable
    volumes:
      - /opt/Docker/Home_Assistant/:/config
    devices:
      - /dev/ttyACM0:/dev/ttyACM0
    environment:
      - TZ=Europe/Paris
    restart: always
    network_mode: host
  nodered:
    container_name: node-red
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: nodered/node-red:latest
    depends_on:
      - "homeassistant"
    user: root
    volumes:
      - /opt/Docker/Node_Red/:/data
    ports:
      - "1880:1880"

so now all persistent data should be in the /opt/Docker/* folders
did a docker-compose up -d but I got a :

/opt/Docker# docker-compose up -d
Creating home-assistant ... error

ERROR: for home-assistant  Cannot create container for service homeassistant: Conflict. The container name "/home-assistant" is already in use by container "5290a804caafa47f4278061d5115f108aab7f9bffdc550807e89440e24164f7d". You have to remove (or rename) that container to be able to reuse that name.

ERROR: for homeassistant  Cannot create container for service homeassistant: Conflict. The container name "/home-assistant" is already in use by container "5290a804caafa47f4278061d5115f108aab7f9bffdc550807e89440e24164f7d". You have to remove (or rename) that container to be able to reuse that name.
ERROR: Encountered errors while bringing up the project.

Of course I already have a homeassistant service from the container I stopped, but why cant I reload it with the new configuration ?
If I just do a

docker start home-assistant

It seems all my data is lost in the container (like if I had just created the container, no admin account yet). I guess it is normal since my directory names chaged a little but… Docker is confusing

Burningstone · January 4, 2020, 3:49pm

Doesn’t look like you stopped the home assistant container. If you stop the docker-compose with docker-compose down and then do docker container ls, there should be no container showing up. Then do docker-compose up -d again.

If you did not configure anything yet in home assistant, I would suggest removing all containers, volumes, images and start from scratch with the docker-compose file you posted.

CedC · January 4, 2020, 5:18pm

This is what I eventually did. (But I would ha like to avoid doing so to understand better what I was doing)
Once done though, since my config files were already used, I recover all my HA as I left it.

Actually, since I did it, I got additional hard shipped, (my zigbee gateway) which… needs an additional container (Deconz) to work.

This time I managed to

stop all containers
modify my docker-compose file
bring it back up

So I am progressing for sure

Next step is to control the lights I have