Hi, I have recently installed HassOS on an old 7th Gen i7 laptop. I’m preparing to mirgrate over 100 devices from Smartthings to Hass not to mention all the other non smarthings stuff. I have been tinkering with a Pi3 running HassOS for a couple weeks now and I really like it and have decieded to make the switch.
I’m really looking to have a solid plan before I move forward. I’m looking to pay someone to help me plan and get my Hass setup going. I know a lot about home automation buy nothing about Hass.
To be honest I just don’t feel like spending the next year learning via Trial and Error don’t get me wrong that is fun , but I’m sure I can get a much better result paying someone to help that is super familer with the scripting and Hass in general. Once its all setup I would also like someone to help with CSS and Lovelace config. I’m not a complete loss I have been able to get HACS up and going as well as a few custom intergrations and my Lorex Cams via RTSP but all that did was show me the possibilites HASS has to offer.
Thanks
Welcome. Maybe it would help if you tell where you live.
Just my personal opinion, it would be better to learn it yourself, otherwise how are you going to maintain your system? There’s an update every month with breaking changes and sometimes you are forced to update your system as certain integrations may not work anymore because a manufacturer changed their API, then what are you going to do? Pay the guy again?
Good point , northeast usa
I agree like I said I’m very comfortable with home automation and all the fun tinkering that goes along with it. But I respect the fact that there are some seriously talented people here that have been using Hass you years why would I not want the benefit of that even if I pay for it. Thanks for your concern
I came over from Smartthings (started about a year ago) and hopefully you had a chance to take a look at the thread posted by @nickrout above.
Like I mentioned on that thread, I think the key for me was using the Smartthings to Home-assistant Integration early on
I know learning and moving to a new system seems daunting at first, but using this integration gave me plenty of time to gradually over several months learn Home-assistant and run a dual Smartthings setup. I slowly moved things over bit by bit. Eventually I had everything working and pulled the plug on Smartthings.
The sooner you start the better though. Who knows how much longer things will work as is at Smartthings.
Also, I wouldn’t consider paying someone myself. Most questions are answered already somewhere in this forum, the official documentation, or in YouTube videos. Just be wary of older posts and advice as things may have been updated since then. Unlike Smartthings, the official Home-assistant documentation is very well maintained.
This has been asked many times and I doubt that anyone has ever been successful at it.
The issue is that even tho it’s growing, HA is such a niche thing and it’s just a hobby for the vast majority of users. Not very many advanced users want to be a traveling technician in addition to their day jobs. Unless you can find an advanced user very local to your location then I doubt it will be an option.
I’ve given (free) help over the phone to a user before but it’s pretty painful if the person on the other end of the line doesn’t have some of the basic skills needed. I even tried a remote connection to their PC but it felt way weird. And after literally several hours of trying to explain things I don’t think we made much progress at all. The medium just doesn’t lend itself to working things like this out.
And in person visits are potentially even more problematic (and expensive) given the state of the world right now.
Really, just take the time to learn it yourself. It will benefit you way more in the long run.
I really do appreciate what everyone is saying here, but I feel my point is being missed. I have been involved in this hobby since 2006 back in the good old insteon days. I used an ISY for years before going all ST and is still a flexible hub. I’ve been using Pis for various bridges over the years. I have already setup Hass environment on a Pi3 and have it fully integrated with Smartthings my Lorex NVR and home entertainment system utilizing many of the custom integrations on HACS. I’m more then comfortable working through issues and troubleshooting, its what makes this hobby fun. Also, I’ve been an IT professional for 15 years. So to be more clear what I was looking for was someone to discuss and plan my setup to be sure I start on a solid base an build from there. Questions include picking the best naming convention for my devices and choosing the best setup paths based on that persons experience. Its is not often I consider the migration of over 150 different devices spanning multiple platforms to an entirely new platform. So I just thought rather then burning a bunch of time reading through posts why not Pay someone to pass their knowledge on to me so that I can more quickly and accurately achieve my goal?
If you lived in my neighborhood I would do it for free. Always happy to make new friends with common interests. But I’m not going to fly to the US 
Job posting contains several spelling errors, including:
Assitant
Assitance
decieded
mirgrate
familer
intergrations
Employers are wary of applicants who overlook to spell check; applicants are equally wary of employers who overlook to spell check.
Not to mention that if you are configuring computers, you need to spell stuff right.
Sorry, I wasn’t trying to put you in The “not having basic skills” camp. It was more of a generalized statement on the knowledge of a “new” HA user.
I was saying that having direct one-on-one time with an advanced user is going to be almost impossible even with an offer to pay for the time.
So far you have the attention of at least 5 “advanced” users right now in this thread.
Ask away…
Naming conventions are complicated because they’re based on what makes sense in a persons head and their particular situation.
I personally name devices based on the location as much as possible.
For scripts and automations I name them on their functions and/or which package they are included in.
For example all of my fish tank automations start with “tank_”. All of the lighting automations start with “lc_” (for “light control”), the security related ones start with “as_” (*for “alarm system”), etc. so I know which package/function they are associated with.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. Since you already have HA set up I assume you have already decided which HA set up best meets your needs?
All good It was really a failing of a poorly written post on my part. Someone has responded , the offer for money is really just an instentive as mostly I’m impatient and paying someone to bounce stuff off of and get a quicker more focused education. But if the offer to ask questions still stands : Right now I’m a Pi3 in my test enviroment and I’m planning on using a 7th Gen i7 laptop with Hass OS installed directy and usb zigbee/zwave radios. Should I consider a different Hardware plattform for any reasons I’m not thinking of?
The laptop will serve you well. Its battery will protect against short power outages. The i7 processor provides far more performance than is needed by Home Assistant but does provide headroom in the event you wish to use it as an NVR (Network Video Recorder).
FWIW, I have been using a eleven year-old laptop for over a year without any performance problems. The installation method I chose is Home Assistant Supervised on Debian. See the table in the documentation for a comparison of the installation methods.
Awesome thanks , so much. So in your case do have a full GUI install of Debian ? It would be cool to use the Screen as a Dashboard in my basement where all my gear is mounted . Checking out that link now, Linux general knowlege is definitly my weak point but there is so much documentation I manage.
I do but I don’t normally use the laptop’s GUI. The laptop resides in the basement (lid closed) and I manage it from another, more conveniently located, laptop.
I run my HA via the HA Container on a NUC i3 with 16gb ram running Debian 9 as the OS.
I also run about 25 other containers on the same system (including a test install of HA Supervised and another HA Container install for playing with to not impact my production system as much) along with a Kodi media server and My CPU runs about 20-25%.
An i7 will be fine.
As far as the GUI version of Debian, yes, but it won’t make any difference really except that it allows you to run a browser to access HA. That’s the only benefit since you can’t directly access the HA UI from the UI on the HA machine. But any machine with a browser will work just as well. I only ever use my desktop on the NUC to interface with Kodi.
you just need Debian with SSH and samba setup. Linux Windows needed if you want to do a lot of work/programming via that device. Other than that HA will not needed and like finity explain you will only need browser.