I am building a new house. Lighting will be controlled by Lutron RadioRa3. For general automation I am contemplating Home Assistant – in part because of the Lutron integration. I basically have two questions before I decide to go that direction and I hope this is the right place to post them.
The first is: What am I likely to need YAML for? I don’t know YAML and, while there are plenty of things I am interested in learning, YAML isn’t one of them. I don’t want home automation to be a hobby (and my wife certainly doesn’t). I want it to be set up and work like an appliance, kind of like my refrigerator. I know there are drop down boxes I can use for quite a bit of “if this and that then do this.” But on the other hand I see a lot of threads like this https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/1iqafl9/it_keeps_getting_better/?post_fullname=t3_1iqafl9&post_index=2
where people are doing things with YAML to create dashboards and stuff, which suggests it can’t be done without YAML.
So, just what am I likely to need YAML for? For example, if I have two sensors in a hallway and want to turn on lights in a room when the sensors are triggered in a particular order (like someone walking down the hallway in one direction and not the other), would I need YAML for that? And what about creating dashboards for controlling things and getting notifications on my phone? Ideally I’d like a GUI where I can drag and drop devices to buttons etc. instead of learning to code.
The second question is hardware related. I am considering a core 3 100U NUC. I know that is overkill just for HA and I could run it on a Raspberry Pi, but the NUC isn’t much more expensive and I want to have cameras with some AI to distinguish between people, cars and animals and I thought the additional processing power would be useful for that and might be snappier for voice control. In addition, I’d like to have a media server and I really don’t want to have multiple pieces of hardware running 24/7 like one for HA, another with windows for Blue Iris, and a separate NAS. I’d like one little low powered box.
Is that doable without getting into virtual machines where I have HA running under one and another OS under a different VM? Is there a media server app that integrates with HA? Again I am looking for simplicity. Any input is appreciated.
Most things for the dashboards can be done without YAML. Things like that thread show what happens when you start being creating and use things like card_mod to change how cards appear/behave.
Nothing requires you to do that, particularly at first.
You could, but most of us will tell you not to if you have better choices. The NUC is a great choice.
Mostly yes. If you’re using Home Assistant OS then you need your media server to be available as an add-on, and you’re limited by the use of a single internal drive (so you can’t put all your media on a second, larger drive).
If you’re happy not to use HAOS and just use Debian + Docker then the sky is the limit.
You don’t necessarily need to understand it, but you will need to use it on occasion…
To exchange information when you run into a problem or want help doing complicated things. There isn’t really a good way to share GUI automations and scripts. Most of us, who volunteer to help other users here, don’t want to spend hours deciphering screenshots, recreating/editing automations, and then taking and sending back screenshots to the OP. That is why you will see YAML all over these and other HA forums… it’s efficient for information exchange and correction.
The same goes for example automations and scripts in the docs. There are a couple visual editor examples, but they take up a lot of space and can be a nightmare to keep updated; as such, most examples you will find are in YAML.
To configure integrations that have not been moved to the GUI.
To access advanced features of some integrations.
No, that can be done in the GUI Automation Editor.
As Tinkerer mentioned there are advanced and custom cards that use YAML, but for the core cards it is optional. There is a Interactive Dashboard Demo available if you want to get a basic feel for using and editing the dashboard.
It’s not likely that you will need YAML, but it really depends on which notification integration you are using, some older/less used ones still require being set up in YAML… the actual automation to send the notification can be done in the GUI Automation editor. A large portion of users just use the companion app for iOS and Android which includes a notification integration and will not require YAML configuration.
This is problematic. It’s definitely common today to run HA with high stability - but not without some level of ongoing tinkering/maintenance. There are frequent updates, and while you rarely need to apply them, at some point it becomes more and more risky to not keep current. While it keeps getting better, in my opinion HA is still a hobbyist system at this point. If you need refrigerator-like levels of maintenance and stability, you need to look at commercial automation systems, not a DIY system like HA.
While the visual editor isn’t terrible to use, you really still need to be able to think like a programmer. If you don’t/can’t you will struggle to accomplish anything beyond the most trivial automations.
And if what you want is an appliance, I dare say Home Assistant is not for you. Save yourself (and us) a lot of frustration and buy a Homey or something.
This stood out to me as as well. In addition to what both posts above this one said…
You have to understand that you will be creating a bespoke, custom home automation system. There is inherent complexity in that. Some times things break. Some times things “just work”, other times you are going down rabbit holes reading and trying to figure things out. However, you are essentially only limited by your imagination, and what you are willing/able (or have time) to learn.
Commercial solution might be more appliance-like, at the cost of more money (probably, much more!) and likely much more limited flexibility. If you don’t care about that, maybe start there, and begin slowly migrating into HA if/when you start bumping into the walls of the garden. But by then you already invested wasted a lot of time and money into a limited solution. You could have just started off with HA from the beginning.
There is no “right” answer, but this is the inherent trade-off, in a nutshell.
Sorry but fully disagree having quite few HA instances installed at some high-end residential customers ! We do updates only once a year and it works like a charm in the meantime
I would for sure avoid at most possible Lutron considering their stupid behaviour regarding third parties integration and be aware that Lutron is doing all they can to break HA integrations among others as they are not official and Lutron considers HA like a hobby thing. I would prefer a lot more go with KNX (also considering you are not tight at one manufacturer
