HACS automations - how-to?

I’m playing with automations, located in HACS section, but have no luck. I’m searching a few hours now, but i didn’t find any “usable” information, so i hope for your help.

I installed automation “simple door bell automation”. If i understand correct this should send a notification (say, to my mobile) when a certain button entity is pressed.
I have appdaemon enabled i HACS.
If i understand correctly: i have to create a file apps.yaml in appdaemon/apps folder. That’s what i did. I also entered necesarry info there (as said in github example) and restarted HA. But nothing…

  • what am i missing here?
  • what’s the difference between HA automations and HACS automations anyway?

I don’t think that’s right. According to the instructions I see, the manual installation would be to copy the simple_door_bell directory into your local apps directory (the appdaemon/apps folder). You could also simply tap the “Install this repository in HACS” to have that done for you.
Then, you have to add a section to your configuration.yaml file like this:

door_bell:
  module: simple_door_bell
  class: DoorBell
  sensor: binary_sensor.doorbell_button
  notify:
  - notify.petro

Do you have the AppDaemon add-on installed?

@apop :Hmm… i didn’t know that there’s an additional add-on in HACS store. All instructions that i found just say that i must go to settings -->integrations → HACS module–> configuration and check “enable appdaemon” and “enable netdaemon” option, which i did.
Ok, my bad…i found appdaemon 4 add-on, installed it, still doesn’t work.

@qoheleth : if i put that content into configuration.yaml check says there’s no integration doorbell found, so it’s not correct location…

As much as i like HA and all, i just hate the fact that there’s tons of guides online, but all are more or less useless for a beginner … they all suppose that a user know a bunch of stuff already. An example: all instructions for HACS automations always say that you just copy this and that into configuration. Sure, ok… but WHERE is that configuration? Even official HACS site has “help” section for automations, which is totally useless. It contains two examples, which i don’t have a clue where to put them…

All I can say is, if you want an appdaemon program to work, you need to install appdaemon. It may not appear obvious, but once you know that, it probably makes more sense.

Also you obviously need to put your configuration in configuration.yaml. This is dealt with in the simple doorbell github page.

Also do you have a notify: integration set up?

Also do you have a notify: integration set up?

If you mean if i can send notifications, yes, i have set-up a number of them, say, when temperature in my garage drops below certain level i get a notification to my phone, so that part works.

And, again: sadly putting above lines in configuration.yaml results an error and HA refuses to restart.
OK, i can create a “normal” automation for this doorbell example, but i’d like to understand what this is and if it can be of use for me…

Well as a result of your post I am trying HACS based appdaemon automations for the first time.

I found this in ,y appdaemon log, maybe there is something wrong with the implementation

021-05-23 10:11:27.331450 INFO AppDaemon: Adding /config/appdaemon/apps/ad_simple_door_bell to module import path
2021-05-23 10:11:27.335040 INFO AppDaemon: Loading App Module: /config/appdaemon/apps/hello.py
2021-05-23 10:11:27.503091 WARNING AppDaemon: No app description found for: /config/appdaemon/apps/ad_simple_door_bell/simple_door_bell.py - ignoring

Yeah, i finally came to that, too. I opened a log from AppDaemon and it contained errors, so i deleted appdaemon folder and reinstalled whole thing: restarted appdaemon and reinstalled doorbell. Now i have same warning as you. AppDaemon web site says doorbell is loaded, but i still don’t get notification…
i keep “tinkering” and hoping for the best…

And I am off to bed, so sort it out by the morning and educate me :slight_smile:

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Well, good night, then… it’s around midday here, however…
Back to subject: IT WORKS!
Things i did:

  • FIRST install AppDaemon 4 add-on from Supervisor add-on store. WARNING! DO NOT install ANY of HACS automations before that, because in this case AppDaemon won’t start - it complains that folder appdaemon already exists! (that was my case!)
  • after AppDaemon is running THEN you can install automations from HACS -->automations.
  • open file editor → appdaemon → apps. There’s a file “apps.yaml”. You insert needed code there (as described in github of that automation). You can also create a separate “apps.yaml” file for each automation in each subfolder of each automation - it also works.
  • open AppDaemon web page (goto supervisor addons, AppDaemon, open webui). If it doesn’t open then you must either enter your local IP address of HA, or create a forward rule of port 5050 in your router.
  • on AppDaemon web page it must say “door_bell” and “idle”. It CAN happen that it says “terminated”. This can obviously happen if you tinker too much with configuration - in this case just delete content of apps.yaml of that automation (CTRL+X), save, reinsert content (CTRL+V), save and you’re a winner. You’ll see when/if automation is activated on this page: observe Apps → state which changes from “idle” to something else for a moment. You can also check logs on that page, if anything goes wrong.

It’s worthed to mention that notifications may not work if you restart HA and you don’t open your HA app in your mobile phone - it seems that in this case HA thinks that you’re not “connected”…

That much for now. Comments / corrections are very welcome!

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Seems to be working, thanks!

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Indeed it works for me as well. Great job!

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