Is there a more generic, high level and encompassing overview of HA? I just don’t know where to start and minimising the amount of bad decisions made through lack of awareness would be helpful. Diagrams tend to most useful (to me at least!)
Hubs, gateways, protocols (zigbee, mqtt, z wave, etc)
Devices
What is, and isn’t, required?
What topologies can they be deployed in?
This could lead to recommendations and lessons-learnt, such as brands / products to buy, to avoid, etc.
There are countless youtube channels with beginner tutorials. Unfortunately they go out of date pretty quickly. Watch the more recent ones.
Best advice is to make your way through the getting started documents:
That depends what you want HA to do. At a minimum, a platorm to run it on (e.g. raspberry pi, laptop etc…) and some components.
Here’s a list of supported components.:
Find some that match your requirements. You may already have some without realising it (e.g. is your TV, amp or router supported?)
Again it depends what you pick. Most are either mesh (z-wave, zigbe) or star (wifi, wired).
My personal experience / lessons:
The Raspi is a very capable platform. Just make sure you have a good power supply and SD card.
Backup power for the pi (and maybe router) is seriously worth considering.
Always check your config before restarting HA.
Always read the breaking changes / release notes before upgrading.
Backup your config regularly and copy the snapshots off the SD card to another location.
I’ve had better experiences with wifi devices than zwave. Others may argue differently.
The Raspi GPIO is bad at following input levels. Outputs are fine.
ESPhome DIY devices are excellent.
Only one that I’m aware of: make sure you buy zwave devices with the frequency plan for your region.
Also this: wiring is often to different standards in different countries. Apart from the obvious 120v/240v dichotomy, in some countries a neutral wire in the box is not common, which makes many smart switches difficult to install.
Also the shape of the switches/plugs is different. No point buying a square UK switch or power point and try to install it in a US rectangular box.
These are not really home assistant problems, but they pretty soon impact on your automation programme. In short, don’t buy the first thing that looks cool and cheap on Aliexpress etc.