Hey
Can someone tell me what is the difference between hassio and home assistant .
Also can we control devices without having hassio . (I am using Ubuntu 16.01)
Home Assistant is a python program that can run on any platform that supports Python.
hassio is a method of installing home assistant using resin-io. It was originally for a Pi only, but I believe you can use it to install on other machines now. I never use hassio so I’m not an expert.
Yes. Home Assistant is the program. hassio is just one way of getting it running. There are other installation methods which may be more approriate to your situation.
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@gpbenton - you should do like a mini faq we can copy and paste for this. You’re far better at explaining it than me.
Thanks, but I think the official documentation should really be a bit clearer.
I can understand trying to push people towards hassio, because it will probably be appropriate for most people, but they still need to know what they are actually doing - installing a python program.
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I think the main problem is detailed brilliantly in your post though @fabaff - you typed hassio in to the post, the forum converted it to a link, the link takes you to the homeassistant website (not any of the hassio pages), and anyone who doesn’t already know the difference immediately thinks they are interchangeable words for the same thing.
IMO the url hass.io should resolve to this page…
… And that page should start with a clear explanation of the differences.
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The link takes you to the main page. I’m not sure if should redirect it to the Hass.io documentation. We started to use hass.io before Hass.io was created and it could make things even worse because we don’t know who is using that URL to link back to us.
… for homeassistant.
It is a daily problem that somebody misses the distinction between the two, and I don’t think having the url hass.io resolving to the main page for homeassistant helps.
Short of making a bit of a mess of the homepage itself to explain the differences I’m out of suggestions, but something needs to be done to negate the confusion IMO.
Maybe a prominent link to an FAQ on the main page?
Also, the current faq doesn’t have any reference to hassio in it…
I think another problem is the getting started page talks almost exclusively from the beginning about hass.io The link to alternatives is quite hard to distinguish as important - especially for someone like this poster who doesn’t have a Pi.
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Something like that link on the getting started page would be good, but personally I think it should also include using docker.
I have been using HASSIO for about a month now and for the most part I am happy with it. I feel that I know the difference between HA and HASSIO (after much reading). A lot of individuals do not understand the difference. The blog that @Romkabouter mentioned is a good start.
But now I find that sometimes I want to access the files that are not presented for viewing in HASSIO, such as when an error says some component.py not found or an error is shown and I want to try to find the cause by looking at the code (such as amcrest camera that I still can’t make work). The Terminal addon may help in this quest.
Is there an easy way to have the New Topic button have you select what system and platform you are asking a question about? When I search for answers before I ask a question it is difficult to determine which platform the existing answers where for and if the answer is still valid for current versions.
i think your right.
i think this is absolutly confusing for newbies:
Install Home Assistant
The goal of this getting started guide is to install Hass.io on a Raspberry Pi 3. Hass.io is our own all in one solution that turns your Raspberry Pi into the ultimate home automation hub.
i think the install home assistant page should have the goal to install home assistant and not hassio on a RPI3
it should list or link to the different possibilities to install homeassistant and there should hassio be 1 of the options. (and that could be noted as the easy way if you have a RPI3 and no experience)
not only that but that hardware requirementslist on the page called “install homeassistant” is completely wrong.
so or
- the title from the page is completely wrong or
- the page is completely wrong or
- the goal from home assistant is to just have users that use hassio on a RPI3
my thoughts are that the “getting started” link should go to this link:
and the title from the “install homeassistant” page should be like “install hassio (including home assistant)”
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Exactly there was lot of confusion in documentation… Finally I understood that hassio is just an another option. I want to use the option to install home assistant in python virtual environment. Hassio is not required then on web UI. In fact is starts automatically with home assistant.
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I have made an attempt at modifying the text of the Getting Started page to something that I think would help. Is it worth making this into a PR?
https://github.com/gpbenton/home-assistant.github.io/blob/next/source/getting-started/index.markdown
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Yes this will work fine .
Kudos !!
Well I tried, but the change has been rejected.
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I think that was a great way to explain it and I think it’s silly it was rejected.
I really don’t understand why the devs don’t acknowledge this as the massive problem that it clearly is 
head in the sand.
I don’t think they actually spend much time on the forums, reddit, or discord dealing with the repetition, like some of us. 
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i dont think that, i am sure of it.
i am on the forum on daily basis and i rarely saw any comment from balloob on the forum in all those time.
would be nice if he took his head out of the ‘cloud’ once in a while to see that just a simple text chanche or even a change in a title from a page could make all the difference for a lot of confused newbys.
but his remarks show that the big load of contributors that now about python and have made HA as great as it is, are not the biggest priority anymore.