Help us name a Home Assistant installation method (Polls added)

The problem with all-in-one is that there was until a year or so ago an installation method by that name.

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Personally I don’t think there’s an issue with the name “Home Assistant” for the ‘all-in-one product’. To me it gets confusing if I look at all the documentation etc. The naming used isn’t consistent over the product and everything around it. A few examples:

  • Even on the home page there are still references to hass.io.“Learn how hass.io can turn your Raspberry pi…”
  • The images we can download are called ‘hassos-xxx-xxx’
  • The header ‘Supervisor’ on the left has an URI called /hassio

Also, there is no (or at least I couldn’t find) an overview of all the different components that are used. Under normal usage of Home Assistant (former hass.io) this doesn’t matter, but as soon as you go into documentation/forums/etc the phrases are there and it’s not entirely clear what is what.

  • Home Assistant Core
  • Home Assistant Supervisor

I know it’s nitpicking, but if everything is more concise, I think, that at least for new users, everything will become a bit more clear.

You have a point there … same for “Complete”.

Home Assistant OS seems the only choice which is likely to reduce confusion. If that is your objective, most of the options on the list make things worse.

Hmm. I ’d always think “Ah, HA OS is the OS HA runs under”. Don’t you think? Kinda like HassOS …

The more I think about it the more it makes sense to not put everything together. Hass.io is a bundle of HA, HA OS and the supervisor. Why does the bundle have to have one name? Because there is an installation method to install them all at once? The only software I know who have a name for it all don’t have any other install methods. (then again I don’t know that much software :joy:)

One of the reasons to move away from HassOS is that Hass means HATE in German

Gets my vote :+1:

But they are ALL “Home Assistant” we need to differentiate the installation methods.

The analogy is poor but you are going to the doctor because of a problem with your foot, but the only word you are telling him is ‘body’

Well, isn’t that more how we chose to call it from historical reasons?

The ‘applicance’ (former hass.io) is called “Home Assistant”
The ‘software’ is called “Home Assistant Core”

Maybe you’re right, but that’s just how it’s in my head :slight_smile:

“Home Assistant is Home Assistant is Home Assistant.” (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

For me, the thing we look at every day and probably program with YAML and stuff.

It can have different installation methods—these should be clearly named. And probably never much mentioned apart from the installation instructions and supervisor usage docs.

That’s at least how I’d prefer it.

Home Assistant - The Full Monty

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:rofl: Can’t hold myself back, spitting coffee at the screen … a GREAT one!

Excellent point…


I’d like to introduce a slightly different angle on this. Given the direction of making it all easier and so encouraging new users I think we need to not lose sight of the fact that (I guess) most people here discussing this are at least above average in their technical proficiency.

New users, certainly in the future, will probably not be. So, I think it is REALLY important that the naming is not in itself confusing however meaningful it is.

For example, when I came to HA I had never even come across Docker and containers. Those terms meant nothing to me and I was guilty of thinking hassio was Home Assistant.

I think some extra thought needs to be given to newcomers. The Artist Formerly Known As HassioTM @123 absolutely has to have a simple, descriptive and welcoming name that says, “This is what you want”.

The name of all the other install methods whilst still important are way less important because if you are inquisitive enough to look beyond TAFKAHTM @klogg then you are probably technical enough to do your own research and be less concerned about what it is actually called.

And yeah, I know I have not actually contributed here in finding a name…

yeah, I originally was thinking that’s what the hassio should be called but didn’t suggest that in the other thread for just that reason so I settled on suggesting “OS”.

But my thinking on that has evolved a bit.

The old All-in-One installer is completely gone and has been for a long time. It was venv based so not many people had used it even when alive since hassio became the defacto install method.

And I think the most important aspect is that when it was introduced it was to allow users “an easy way to install Home Assistant and get all of the current features without needing to install all of the other things required to have a fully functioning HA experience”. Does that sound familiar?

IOW, the old AIO installation method is the functional equivalent of the current hassio installation method - only updated from a venv install to a docker install.

To me it’s the logical evolution of the name for hassio, especially since the old AIO installer has been gone for so long.

My other two votes are:

Home Assistant Complete - since this is functionally equivalent to AIO but a bit less fully descriptive.
Home Assistant OS

So is that home Assistant Core + OS + supervisor + Lovelace web page card with a picture Robert Carlyle ripping his pants off?

What about: ‘Home Assistant Stack’?

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Wasn’t the experience of installing and configuring Hassio supposed to be simpler? If it is going to renamed again I think it should invoke simplicity in the name.

Home Assistant Easy?
Home Assistant Snap?

Definitely not Home Assistant Snap. Makes me think of those Ubuntu Snap packages you can’t configure.

It’s a sign of a problem when from the very start it’s anticipated that the new name will need an abbreviation. I would advise against using long-winded names, technical slang, acronyms, and abbreviations (they’re cryptic and may even represent words in other languages, like “hass”).

I believe its name should also be up for discussion because it’s virtually identical to the One/AIO/Complete/Full/Whatever. The only difference is that it isn’t distributed with its own operating system. That sole difference isn’t revealed to anyone, not even “techies”, by the name “Supervised”.

Those two installation methods are “siblings” and should have names using a common theme to indicate their familial connection. They are considerably different from the other two installation methods (Core: installed as a python app in a venv; Container: Core as a docker container).

I’m unfamiliar with the term “speaking name”. Can you explain it to me?

The theme common to Full, All-In-One, Complete, etc is that it’s the version with “everything”. It’s not only the Home Assistant application but includes an eco-system of other services (created by the Home Assistant project). Therefore, names like Plus and Extra adhere to that theme by indicating you get more (than just the application).

It’s already used to describe the project’s custom operating system (see the Operating System repo). Recycling this name to mean something else would be the same mistake that was made last January when hass.io was renamed to an existing product: Home Assistant.

Wouldn’t that be Core? It’s the most naked of the four.


I think the community should take this opportunity to not simply choose a new name for old hass.io but to choose a naming theme, or themes, that best represents the four available installation methods. In my opinion, it would be a lost opportunity to end up with, let’s say, Home Assistant Total but still retain Home Assistant Supervised. The two are siblings and their names should reflect that.

Remember, going forward you will be using the new name to described which installation method your instance of Home Assistant is using. You’ll be saying things like “I’m running Plus on an RPI3”, or “It’s Total on a NUC”, or “I’ve got Minus with Debian”, “It’s One in a VM”, “Running Complete on an Odroid”, etc. The key here is that the term clearly differentiates it from one of the other installation methods. That’s something that the name “Home Assistant” (as an installation method) failed to do and why people persisted in referring to it as hass.io (because it was a better differentiator).

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