Hello Hassio Community!

Installation Home Assistant OS
1

I wanted to introduce myself to you guys and request a little bit of guidance. I’m brand new to Home assistant. I was introduced to HA online when looking at the smart things hub. Someone said if you really want ultimate connectivity buy a Pi and install HA. I was under the impression there would be a learning curve. Most things i’ve read online assured me id pick it up quickly. That hasn’t been my experience. I’m completely lost and have found that the documentation available isn’t basic enough for my experience level. I have managed to:

  • add some components
  • use samba addon w/ lets encrypt (took me 2 hours to figure out how to connect :frowning: )
  • set up configurator

So i was hoping to reach out to some of the more experienced members in the community and see if there is an online class or tutorials that start with bare bone basics of yaml in relation to HA. Or some suggestions on where i should start. I’m most certainly not trying to conquer the world; just want to do some basic automatons and set up alexa connectivity. I’m sure i’ll want to do more as i gain experience. Any assistance would be most appreciated. Thank you for your time

2

The best guidance is to read the forums and ask questions. There’s a lot of docs here in the forums and a lot of people that are very helpful.

When you get lost/stuck reading the official docs then ask a question and someone will answer it.

3

There is definitely a pretty steep learning curve, and yes, most of the documentation seems to assume that you already have some basic knowledge of the underlying technologies, whether that be YAML, Python, JSON, Linux, etc…

I have some friends/family that I think could benefit from using Home Assistant, but quite honestly, I don’t even want to bring it up because I don’t want to have them looking to me to teach them how to use it.

Unfortunately, if anyone ever mentions that the documentation is lacking, the answer you will always see is, “It’s open source. If you have issues with the documentation, feel free to write better documentation…”, or “It’s open source, if you want this feature, add it!” -sigh-

When I just got started, I found that even if you were following a tutorial that you had found online, chances are pretty good that you’d be lead down the wrong rabbit hole, because the tutorial was either for a different OS, or that it relied on an aspect of the software that has changed. For example, looking at older automations that people have written before the automation editor was added to Home Assistant is very confusing because they’re laid out differently. And often, if you do add one of the older style automations to your config, the editor doesn’t recognize it as being valid. It works, but you can’t open it in the editor. Or parts of it… You can set up an automation to trigger at set intervals, but you can’t do this in the editor. Why? This seems like very basic functionality for a Home Automation system… If you have an automation that uses this feature, the time trigger is going to be blank if opened in the editor. Very frustrating!

To answer your question, no, there isn’t an online class that I’m aware of, and for tutorials, just search on YouTube and the web. There are some out there. When I was getting started, Bruh Automation was a channel that I watched a lot, but he doesn’t make videos any more and some of his tutorials are now dated.

4

Thank you for the response. I have been on youtube but once they start opening cmd windows or python windows they completely lose me. I though everything would done in the yaml or UI. Then sometimes i’m watching and its for Hassbian not Hassio? I don’t know. I bet the documentation is great for someone with a little experience so maybe i need to go back and get some basic yaml or json experience first? I will continue to watch tutorials and ask questions. Thank you for the advice.

5

Great. I was looking for some stickies in the forum with basic info, but couldn’t locate anything. That prompted this post. I really appreciate the response.

6

Yeah the documentation can be hard to follow if you’re not used to reading technical docs.

Just try to read through and eventually it’ll make some sense and then ask your questions. It is a learning curve, but that’s part of the fun right? :wink:

7

Agreed! Thanks!

8

I agree with @jeubanks. It will sink in eventually! It just takes some time and experimentation. I’m still trying to digest templating. I can use it at the basic level, but I know I’m lacking finesse. :blush:

Luckily the HA community here on the forum and on Reddit is usually pretty quick with advice if you get stuck.

9

Heck I can code and I’m still getting the hang of the template system in use.

10

I think you need to realize that this software is still very much in a ‘beta’ or fluid development cycle. Nothing is truly set in stone yet, and it is impossible to nail down the nuances and have them not change with next release. It is all a moving target. This software really isn’t intended for Joe User yet. It’s getting there, but still quite a way off.

So, yes, the assumption is that you understand the language, and for what system you are using it on. The assumption is there that you understand the differences, even though they are not lined out in the documentation. This is all a part of the nature of this type of development and project. You kind of have to ‘grow with it’ and use it for a while to understand it.

The sample configs everyone provides really help out to understanding how things can be laid out. The most important thing to remember is: DON’T RUSH IT. Take your time and learn how a config looks, and what parts do what. Read the documentation on ‘COMPONENTS’ and ignore ADD-ONS unless you are using HASSIO. If you have an install on hassbian, docker, or in a python Venv, you cannot use HASSIO ADD-ONS.

Once you have been here for a while, you will get the hang of it. You will pick up on the language, syntax, and vernacular used for the different pieces.

11

Great advice. I’m certainly in this for the long haul and its exciting discovering the world of automation. I’ll just read, read , read and not put too much pressure on trying to get anything up and running yet. Thank you.

12

Hello, and welcome :slight_smile:
You will learn all the time, I am still learning and so do the most of us.
I think I am not talking about just myself, if I say that everything I know about yaml, json etc. is through playing with homeassistant (not that I can that much thou).

That you have enabled some components is a good start, then you already know a little bit.

The problem with youtube as other here is saying, is that many of the videos referring to hassbian or outdated configurations.

For automations I think these links will be useful:

Another way of learning, is looking at other peoples repositories at Github.

And for about every problem you might have, the chances are big that someone else on this forum have had the excact same or similar problem.

One of the most common mistakes at the beginning are spacing when writing in yaml. So pay attention to that when writing :slight_smile:

13

This is a big one! Use a good editor aka IDE (Integrated Development Environment). I have recently grown fond of Visual Studio Code. It has good syntax highlighting and good yaml and python support. I think it is a recommended editor somewhere in the docs. Otherwise I’m generally just a VI guy, but I have grown quite fond of VSC. Oh and another thing, you’ll get used to the acronyms as well :slight_smile:

14

Startet just with Visual Studio Code myself. That is a winner. It shows errors at once if you mess up spacing or many other things :slight_smile:

15

AWESOME. I love links! Thank you

16

First thing I did was download Visual studio. Definitely a nice layout.

17

Just by doing that you have saved yourself for lot of frustration.

18

My only programming experience was ABAP. To no help when diving into HA.

My best advise is to think of HA as a new hobby. Read the forum every day, the issues you can relate to. And slowly you will get the picture. Then use the documentation and the forum for every case you set up.

Within three months you will feel at least that you have a pretty good picture of he system and how to find what you need.

Cheers.

19

Great advice. Thank you so much for responding. I’ve been browsing all morning!

20

I can’t help you but I can encourage you.

Whilst I come form a long IT background I have found HA a totally different experience. I have been using it a couple of weeks and have learnt a lot in that time. As has been already said, the forum here is very friendly and helpful (thanks again to all of you have helped me!). Use it, your questions will help others too.

I echo @Zepixir. I bookmarked those exact pages very early on mainly because whatever the quality of the documentation it took me a while to work out the structure and to be able to find anything again later!

Keep at it. I am, and I think (hope) it will be worth it.