Hi,
I’m sort-of restarting with HA, and am looking for some general advice on getting re-organized. I had a HA setup running some years back, but the Pi failed and the project stalled for a while. I just installed a new PV system and that is driving my renewed desire for HA.
My devices all report to a local MQTT server. I have several categories of devices - stand-alone WiFi (Sonoff) type devices, some ESP32 devices, the RS-485 to WiFi box I built for the Sol-Arks (Nano 33 IoT), and a custom cable junction board (CJB) that interfaces to hard-wired security switches, temp, and proximity sensors (RasPi Zero). That stuff is all pretty much up and running - I’m monitoring it with MQTT Explorer.
I’ve allocated an old faithful I5 laptop and installed Debian 11, Mosquitto and HA, that’s all working. I am struggling now with getting HA to recognize my devices. Things have changed since my previous HA setup and the MQTT interface I had used no longer works. I’m not sure this is the right place to get into those specifics though.
So, besides just saying hi, I’m looking for advice on building the UI for this system. It seems to be a fluid thing, but is there some sort of ‘current best practices’ doc or something available? Given a clean sheet for the UI, what could it look like?
Best,
Bill
