How to discover and add my devices?

Configuration
1

Sorry for newbie question, all discussions I checked were very advanced, exceeding my knowledge.

I installed hass.io and able to login to web UI.
I couldn’t figure out how to discover my devices from that UI such as Lifx Bulb, Netatmo Thermostat, Danalock V3, Yamaha AV Receiver, Apple TV and Kodi on RaspberryPi ?

2

Hi,

Each compatible device will have its own separate configuration options.

Head over to https://home-assistant.io/components/ search for your devices and this will explain what you need to do.

3

Hi Sramsay,

Thanks for your response. So basically, I need to edit configuration file and add each of my components manually right? I thought that hass.io or homebridge was able to discovery my devices automatically on the network.

4

Hi, I’m new at configuring my HA server too.

I have a similar feeling so far - I have discovery on but so far I haven’t seen it detect and add devices by itself from scratch. I’ve had to configure everything manually using each component instructions.

So, I dont feel like discovery will actually add anything to my configuration.yaml, rather it might be just helping discover devices after you have that device type in your configuration file to finish off some configuration? I’m not sure on this yet

5

hi baseline, did you manage to add/discover some devices now?

6

Taken from the discover component description page…

Discovery

Home Assistant can discover and automatically configure zeroconf/mDNS and uPnP devices on your network. Currently the discovery component can detect:

Google Chromecast
Belkin WeMo switches
Philips Hue
Netgear routers
Plex media server
Panasonic Viera
Roku media player
Sonos Speakers
Yamaha media player
Logitech media server (Squeezebox)
DirecTV
Apple TV
Yeelight Sunflower Bulb
Flux Led/MagicLight
Linn / Openhome
Denon Network Receivers
Bose Soundtouch speakers
Axis Communications security devices
IKEA Trådfri (Tradfri)
Harmony Hub

It will be able to add Google Chromecasts and Belkin WeMo switches automatically, for Philips Hue it will require some configuration from the user.

7

Thanks sramsay, I need to dig it some more to understand how it works and how to configure.
Definitely some settings must be enabled on the component settings as well. (such as home sharing on Apple TV, or some other setting on my Yamaha Receiver…)

8

Just as a tip

Entities (your devices) will show in states page (indicated by <> in developer tools) when added.

9

Yes, I added many devices now but each only after I added the required configuration tag inside the configuration.yaml – for example, i had to tell it to look for my plex server and then it found it. before I added a sensor for plex it didn’t find it.

10

Hi, sorry for late response. I did the same and it worked.

But I wonder about sramsay’s post, it says Home Assistant can discover and automatically configure zeroconf/mDNS and uPnP devices on your network.

So in our case, why it doesn’t discover automatically but we have to add them manually? Is there something wrong.

I also would like to learn the difference of adding devices via home assistant and homebridge?
There seems to be 2 different methods and would like to learn the differences.

Adding a device to hass.io:
https://home-assistant.io/components/media_player.yamaha/

Adding a device to homebridge installed on hass.io:
https://github.com/hassio-addons/addon-homebridge#option-plugins

11

Depending on what devices you have working in Hass.io, you may not need anything more than the homeautomation plugin in Homebridge, which makes most of the Hass.io devices visible to Apple Home. There are “two different methods” because they are two different platforms.

Hass works by loading “components” to support various platforms and devices. Auto-discovery seems to be more about seeing one of those platforms or devices, and automatically including that “component” without you having to specify it. But, I’ve also found in most cases devices require, or work better, with additional manual configuration. Often these are security keys, customizing names, identifying IP addresses, etc. Unfortunately, it does get a little in to computer coding and technical details.

tl:dr

For clarity, (hopefully), Homebridge is a separate system from Home-Assistant intended to make non-HomeKit devices visible in the Apple Home app (“HomeKit support for the impatient”). I installed and was using Homebridge on my Pi long before I discovered Home-Automation and Hass.io. As a separate system, you must learn how to configure Homebridge separately (it uses a config.json file and has its own qwerks and issues). In these Hass.io forums, if you ask about Homebridge (other than the add-on itself), you’ll get pointed over to the GitHub.com pages for Homebridge and its plug-ins for answers.
https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge

Since I needed a z-wave server and some other capabilities I now run Hass.io with a z-wave stick and run Homebridge as an add-on under Hass.io to make my z-wave devices (among others) visible to my Apple Home app. In a few cases, I have a Hass.io component to control a device from Hass.io AND a Homebridge plug-in to control it from Apple Home (in this case I hide the Hass.io device from Homebridge via config options). I do this because the Homebridge plug-in works better in Apple Home for me (Harmony Hub is one example, Alarm.com is another). Since Homebridge may surface devices to Homebridge which are already directly supported by Apple Home, I tend to also hide those from Homebridge as well to avoid duplications (Hue, Lutron Caseta, …).