How did you install Home Assistant?

Me to, still paying for nabucasa, but I dont use it. I am donatig for HA use and support. This will change if they deprecate. Have tried VM and I dont like it, it has also big impact on cpu and ram.

I don’t think that’s a fair statement.

I’ve been using HA for over three years and I’m on the forums almost every day if not every single day.

And a lot of that time I spend helping beginners. And that goes for all of the other “power users” (not that I consider myself firmly in that category) who spend lots of their time being the un-official tech support for beginners.

On the other hand I don’t like the trend that seems to be happening where the flexibility and functionality of HA is being eroded solely for the purpose of attracting new users who can’t be bothered to learn to do anything at all other than the same things that other dumbed-down commercial products already do.

If I wanted an “iPhone” version of HA instead of the “Android” version there are already a ton of those types of “home automation” apps.

Now that I can definitely agree with you on.

HA definitely shot themselves in the foot on the name change thing.

As far the different installation methods I think it’s a double-edged sword.

It’s great that it can run on so many different hardware platforms but because of the aforementioned naming fiasco where they tried to wrap the install method up into the naming it just turned it into one big steaming pile of confusion.

If I can run the same “type” of HA (with the supervisor) on multiple install methods but they all involve running on the same ecosystem (docker) they are some how not named the same (“Home Assistant”/“Home Assistant Supervised”). And if I run the other type of HA (without the supervisor) that is also able to be installed in docker but can also be installed in a venv or even directly on the base OS then somehow that is named something else (“Home Assistant Core”), then you get what he have here today in that someone has to come up with a flow chart to figure out “which Home Assistant do I run?”. And even then it’s still confusing to a lot of people - even those who have been around for a long time, too.

8 Likes

Haha love it!

Confusion?

noun*

1. uncertainty about what is happening, intended, or required.
"there seems to be some  **confusion about**  which system does what"

I must admit that does pretty much nail it!
Even though the vulgar term would also have covered it as well!

1 Like

Agreed!

I was just trying to not get hit with the new updated “community guidelines”. :laughing:

1 Like

Stuff it…who cares (re: the “community guidelines”)!
As is already demonstrated, they’ll do exactly what they want despite what 60K users may think!

EDIT: Confusion for the above situation could be like:

the state of being bewildered or unclear in one’s mind about something.
"she looked about her in confusion "

finity
I was perhaps a bit harsh on the die hard users. Maybe this product is too much Open Source. Too many options, lots of developing but hardly a decent piece of documentation. Take for example the official page on how to set up HA on MacOS.


It is in no way leading to result.
A post in the forum by Erik Hendrix worked. Nobody seems te be bothered and change the documentation page. Installing HASS on MacOS (OSX)

I am old skool and I admit it without hesitation. I discussed the topic of documentation quite a few times over the years I worked in IT.
I once had a colleague whow told another coworker new on the job “if you need documentation for this, you are at the wrong spot.”

I don’t want to offend anybody doing a great job but I am puzzled by the simple fact I watch yaml files at github and there is not a single bit on how they set it up. Lots of examples posted in the forum show bits of code but nowhere do I read where to put it.
To someone in HA for over years probably something to giggle about and thinking “if you don’t know where to put it go finad something else to do”
I refuse and I will go on trying to get the things I would like to do working. Therefore with every succes I will put it on my website for others to read and comment on. I have no idea if I can keep it up-to-date with all the changes going on in HA.

I now run HA on a raspberry pi (no idea how to name this installation) and on a python Virtual environment on MacOS.

Installing it is easy compared to the configuring I would like to do.

Adding a simple switch in scripts(??) or in switches.yaml is impossible for me to achieve. So I think most of the die hards are correct. I am too dumb for HA.

Thank you for your answer. You are correct about the some of my statements not being fair. Funny enough I have never been accused of this in the past using other sometimes difficult to set up solutions.

Cheers
Bart

2 Likes

Including you apparently.

Correct! Being here for only a couple of weeks I don’t feel like I am the man to do so.

Don’t you think the man that has known Paris for over 40 years is the better one to draw a map for tourists?

I don’t think that’s fair either.

The person has only been here for two weeks and hasn’t got a handle on the basics yet.

They really can’t be expected to start wring PR’s for the documentation yet.

Cut them some slack.

3 Likes

I agree; I do not expect novices to modify the documentation.

All I do expect is that novices refrain from disparaging the people most likely to come to their assistance. That and to understand that the free resources at their disposal are created by volunteers (who all started as novices).

2 Likes

Hence my reply…

I will give benefit of the doubt and assume they were just joking around tho.

Speaking for myself on this matter I have to ask you to ponder now how many US$ are generated by Nabu Casa subscribers to develop these ‘free reources’.

Would there be 30,000 subscribers? More? Less? I ask because if there are 30,000 subscribers then that would yield US$1,800,000 every 12 months so we are hardly giving away the latest core developments here for free?

I think I’m into my second year of subscribing to that wonderful service but I’m getting more than a little worried my money is not being spent developing the product that I started subscribing to?

The free resources I had referred to represent technical support, documentation, integrations, and some portions of the core software.

The following is how I see the current situation (and may not reflect reality accurately):

A developer who creates an integration is also required to write associated documentation. The same person, or others, fix/enhance the integration and its documentation. The same people, and many others, provide technical support for the integration. All of this is done by volunteers.

The core software’s development is a different story. Since the dawn of Nabu Casa, its paid employees direct the core software’s development. There are many contributions from volunteers, but the product’s direction is largely governed by the Nabu Casa team.

I don’t know Nabu Casa’s revenue but it’s clearly sufficient to sustain its growth to employ four people.

I’m not so naive to believe that Nabu Casa would do things that are detrimental to its growth. New users represent their future growth potential so making the product more appealing to them is in their best interest. However, those changes might not always sit well with long-standing users. Nevertheless, Nabu Casa’s continued growth does mean long-standing users get new functionality. The relationship is a double-edged sword.

2 Likes

YAY!

We have a new name to add to the mix now.

And Generic Linux installer is here to stay apparently.

FYI, to add to the confusion, I am told that my installation is Supervised.

At least they are listening and the naming is getting better.

I still think they missed the mark by keeping the OS version as “Home Assistant” tho.

2 Likes

Completely agree, because it’s too generic.

That sounds logical, but that name is taken already. (As your suggestion was to name it Home Assistant OS).

really? where was that? I didn’t see it in the list of “official names”.

The Home Assistant OS or Home Assistant Operating System:

It is one of the project in the whole Home Assistant org. We have a lot more.

The thing is: Home Assistant uses all our project as one total complete appliance. That is why we refer to it as Home Assistant. It gives you everything, the total package. A combination of all the Home Assistant does.