Any tutorials on how to run Homeseer & HA in parallel for migration purposes?
thx for the help!
I’ve never tried HA. I have an extensive HS3 system:
455 events
70 Zwave devices
40 Insteon devices (ISY is the controller, no logic)
30 Zigbee devices (Conbee 1 / Deconz)
50 virtual devices that track multi-device status (composite devices), house modes, occupancy, event triggers / alerts / settings, etc
3rd party integrations
I’d like to ‘connect’ my the existing Zwave network, ISY, Deconz (Conbee 1) systems to HA but have Homeseer (HS3) still run the house. Any hardware changes would be reflected in both systems… This will allow me to do a a new HA install for learning / testing and creating the events in HA. I need to migrate all the events before cutting over to HA… I rely on them for security, occupancy, house modes, etc… just so many things I cant be learning/testing in a live system.
Also, interested in advice on Events…
Many of my events are so complex and interdependant that I’m thinking I may want to just use Node-Red (I also need to learn this) not do any event building in HA’s native system.
For instance… in HS3, my House Mode Security events check all doors/windows/garages statuses ( open/closed, locked/unlocked, errors, etc). If they are not correct based on the House Mode set, it will attempt to correcte them and check everything again – then set the House / Security Mode. All while sending me alerts (pushover msgs) about the status at each point.
My events for House Mode Occupancy is even more complex.
HS4 user here, I’m just in the beginning (2-3 weeks of actual use; 1 month of reading before that) of prospecting HA for a complete switchover.
Not knowing where you are at in your migration, I will highlight some of my base observations so far.
HA is extremely flexible in it’s Automation.
HA is far more “Modern” in both it’s automation engine and UI.
The path to success, even for very basic functions can be extremely resistive (filled with possible problems and pitfalls with time consuming configuration setups).
Examples:
I cannot get simple TTS working with any of my Chromecast Device.
I cannot easily mount a (that persists updates) windows network path to HA’s media folder (where all streaming begins inside of HA) (using VirtualBox on a Windows 10 machine)
As for migrating you’re Z-Wave devices… Oh man… I have not even begun to tackle that space. I think most are running parallel HS and HA system for their Z-Wave devices because of HA issues with Z-Wave.
FWIW, I originally used Premise Home Control to automate my home (started in 2007). In 2018, I began to slowly migrate to Home Assistant by moving functionality over, piece by piece.
The two systems communicate via MQTT. In Home Assistant I initially modeled all devices (lights, locks, sensors, binary_sensors, etc) as MQTT-based entities. Turning on a light in Home Assistant published an MQTT command to Premise which, in turn, actually turned on the chosen light (and reported its new status back to Home Assistant). In other words, initially I used Home Assistant as a “remote control” for Premise. Over time I migrated the actual control of devices to Home Assistant, as well as all automations I had created in Premise.
I still use both to automate my home because Premise continues to control “legacy” devices for which Home Assistant has no integration (and probably never will).
Welcome Ltek. For Z-Wave, Mark Coombe’s HomeSeer custom integration is great for allow you to run HS and HA in parallel with HS managing the Z-Wave network. I also use MQTT (mcsMQTT on HS) extensively to pass data back and forth between the two systems. As RJ mentioned, I too run HA in a VirtualBox VM under Windows 10 (the same system that runs HS4).
I still sometimes struggle with the entity vs. device paradigm as well as customizing the UI, but I continue to push forward with it.
The Thread RJ referenced is the one I started when I got so frustrated with HS4 that I was ready to throw it all away. Mark’s integration was a god send as it allows one to ease into the migration process.
I went from HS3 to HA about 2 years ago - right when HS4 was coming out. Had 89 Z-wave devices, many VB scripts, 6 3rd party integrations. What I found was that many of my scripts were handled by integrations. Support for wifi and other devices is built-in. I also had ~100 automations. The UI was a breeze compared to HSTouch Designer. I ran on linux and .net was painful.
I jumped in feet first and just started converting devices. I created a VM, installed home assistant and started converting. It took me about a day. I was using OZW but when Z-Wave js came out, I switched immediately. I went brute force and stupidity on a lot of the automations. One to turn on a light and another to turn off a light. It helped with the WAF. Finding the built-in integrations took a little while only because of my ignorance. There were some thing that were easy in HS and more difficult in HA. The reverse was true also. The support on the HA forum is incredible and the people very knowledgeable - @123 is one of them.
However you decide to do it, IMHO you will not regret it. Not saying HS3/4 is bad, I just think Home Assistant is better.
A physical light switch can be modeled simply as a switch entity (on/off) or light entity (on/off/brightness/color,/etc). An entity has (optional) attributes so the physical item’s characteristics can be represented in the entity’s attributes.
Alternately, it can be modeled as a device with multiple entities where each entity represents one of the physical item’s characteristics. For example, an Ecobee Switch+ switch is modeled as a device containing a switch entity and several sensor entities because it’s able to detect motion, occupancy, light level, and temperature.
Thx guys. I’ll look at Mark C’s Homseer integration.
– does this allow the devices to persist and link directly to the Zwave Controller (ZStick+) when we complete the migration and are ready to switch off Homeseer?
Can HA create ‘Composite’ (my word for it) virtual devices that represent a status multiple devices? Easy Trigger does this, and I wrote a custom script for HS that does more. This is nice to simply watch (or get status) from a single ‘Composite Device’ instead of writing logic to watch 5 or 10 devices.
Wish there ws a “Migrating from Homeseer FAQ” that we could all contribute to as we learn how to do things different/better in HA.
Start with my post that ServiceXP referenced earlier. There’s a wealth of info in that thread. I’ll see what I can do about setting up an FAQ somewhere. It will need to be moderated so that it doesn’t contain a bunch of discussion, only the FAQs.
As a start, I suggest the Community Guides section. It operates like a wiki.
I’m not aware of any facility in this community forum that behaves that way (unless one has moderator privileges). I suggest you contact one of the moderators and ask what’s possible.
I only have about 50 zwave devices, and I did run Fibaro HC2 in parallel for some time. However, it is not the same as running zwave devices on HA (I use ZwaveJS2MQTT). I tried moving over few devices first, problem starts if you start tearing down your zwave mesh. You will quickly figure out that it is better just to move everything over.
I am no programmer, I had hard times automating some things in Fibaro HC2 (both LUA and UI), but I must say that HA’s way of creating automations is far more evolved, and it is very intuitive.
Also, so far everyhing I needed on HA I was able to find. I don’t regret moving away from Fibaro at all.
