If HA were a hobby where you added and improved things over time, I would be fine with it. But sadly, that’s not the case. It’s a time-suck requiring constant maintenance to keep things operating. It’s partly that HA interfaces to a broad world of smart home devices and services that are constantly changing. But it’s also partly that it’s more oriented to constant evolution rather than stability and robustness. I don’t think the home automation world can move forward until that changes.
I just meant that if you get to a point where your system is really realiable in certain HA version, you have more to loose than to win by updating. Specially when you depend on custom components which are very likely to break.
An example, a certain xiaomi zigbee outlet had power monitoring capabilites in, as far as I remember, 0.113 (using ZHA, not any custom component). Updated to 0.114 and it broke and it wasn’t until a few versions later that given problem was fixed. So you get your automations broken for a few weeks or months.
But if you are experiencing recurrent issues, yeah, updating might be a great option
@CrazyFool Dunno about those but make sure they can be local an be ready to give it some time to learn HA, you can’t skip that. Once you learn it and achieve a stable setup, you can almost forget about it.
There’s no chance that you can achieve a stable setup and forget about it with Home Assistant. It just doesn’t work that way. I’ve kept a running issues log for a while now, and it averages several issues per week requiring intervention, and a couple a month that require changes to components or configuration. And issues that involve permanent loss of former functionality at least once every couple of months.
Lights seems like one of the easiest things to automate and there a large number of choices but I’ve found it best to keep manual control of lights in place. For that reason, I prefer Shelly or Sonoff devices that can be controlled with manual switches (and in the case of Sonoff I flash with Tasmota). Your family (if you have one) might not be as excited as you about automation and there are often many, many edge cases that you may not be covering. Also, light automation that is smart(er) often involves motion tracking and at that point you need more hardware and integrations.
For me, Home Assistant and home automation is a (serious) hobby but I do aim for a stable system that, except for remote access, is disconnected from cloud services. As an electronic and software engineer I was able to build some of my own devices (where cost was prohibitive, the complete solution didn’t exist or I was just curious) but that isn’t for everyone. The benefit is full control though.
I’ve been in this for about a year and a half and while there has been some breaking changes in the core offering I’ve had few issues. Often, the breaking changes are third-party API changes, or due to your particular choice of custom components. A more vanilla approach to using HA might help you. The development of custom components installed via HACS (a third-party store for third-party components) can often be fast and experimental.
I think a lot of good comments have been made and in the end will be your choice. Even if I near the end of development of my system I will still aim to keep my system up to date, just like I keep my phone, PC and laptop up to date.
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I’m not sure what these issues are that everyone else is having weekly.
My system runs stable unless I change something and make an error.
I never update to a .0 release, with a few days for .1 or .2.
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Not sure what you’re doing, but it doesn’t happen to me…
I probably need to go check something once a month and it doesn’t usually take more than 20 minutes.
Every few months some integration breaks because it depends on some API and it probably requires more time… but that maybe happens every 4-6 months.
In fact, if you can’t forget about it, what’s the point of the smart home? It eases your daily life but you become a slave to it… Should better stick to a non-smart home then.
I have really forgotten about HA. My last snapshot is from 06/01/2021.
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I share these exact sentiments.
I can understand if it is a hobby. But there can be a fine line between a hobby and a chore.
I suppose I have 3 choices:
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give home assistant a go, if I have local devices only I can expect less maintenance.
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flash all of my sonoffs/shellys with tasmota. I believe tasmota offers hubless automation between devices. please correct me if I’m wrong and let me know if this is a viable option.
The only automation I need is for individual TH10s to turn on/off the boiler relay. -
stick with stock sonoff firmware and eWeLink. AFAIK, the automation i need is possible through eWeLink scenes (6x TH10 in 6 rooms to switch on/off sonoff relay next to the boiler). This option is appealing more to me for the ease of google integration. There are security issues no doubt, but I’m sure I can learn how to put all of these devices onto a separate network. Yes, I’m reliant on an Internet connection for my automation to work but from the testimonies on this thread, my very stable internet goes down less frequently than some HA hubs.
Kind regards
CF
That’s pretty old, I’d freak out 
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Well sonoff and shellys is a good way to go. Do not add tuya into the mix because tuya is not really OpenSource friendly at the moment.
As for options with sonoff there are local mods available which will allow you to used ewelink FW and still run locally.
Another options is to go with esphome.
Number 3 is the worst option in my opinion, as it makes you dependent on ewelink, meaning if they change something, you need to adapt your setup, so not set and forget at all.
If there is an option to have local control, I always use this as, because it doesn’t make you dependent on any third parties.
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I don’t know what devices and integrations you are using, but I have a completely different experience.
In the last year and a half, almost all changes I did to my install were to add new functionality or optimize/clean up existing code (which is not needed at all, but I like clean/efficient code ).
When a new release arrives (once a month),I read the release notes and check which integrations that I use are impacted.
Most of the time I can just upgrade without adapting my config at all, every few months I need to make some changes due to a breaking change, which takes me around 5 min on average.
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not true if you used this mod https://github.com/AlexxIT/SonoffLAN
I used it and it working great for SonOff as an options
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This is true in most cases unless you are implementing alot mods. In most cases the mods get a liltle bit behind in update most of the time which will create problems.
Ah interesting, didn’t know about that, I don’t use sOnOff.
I just googled ewelink and assumed that it’s bound to the manufacturer.
It’s both things, a hobby and a solution. Also depends if you live alone or not.
If you have a RPI or similar you can have it up and running in around 30 mins. And then decide by yourself 
Its a mod which capture local info and password in json format so unless you add a new device and set to scan for the new device, then that mods will connect your sonoff locally without going to cloud. Special thanks for Alex who create the module.
TUYA also come with localtuya but its unlike sonoff it still required cloud connections which is suck.
That’s why I inform the devs of custom components proactively about upcoming changes whenever possible.
Anyway, I think custom components are a separate topic and shouldn’t be considered when discussing stability/reliability of Home Assistant. You even get a warning about this when using custom components.
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Agree! HA is flexible for someone, who wants to customize or in total control over your home automations/device rather then have to follow cloud apps + pay a monthly fee (in some cases not today but maybe in the future)
yup… but after you install HA and it runs… you will obviously be looking for this and surely will want to try. It happens to me and now there are no way going back to just a plain vanilla HA. You just want to make your HA not only working but also look good. 
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Just give it a go… Start with the stock sonoff firmware if that makes it easier for you and maybe you’ll move from there if it ever becomes an annoyance. But I would definetely give it a go…
haven’t changed anything since then :D. It’s feels strange to hang my tinkering boots tbh hehe… 2 months feel like a whole life
Totally agree with that. The biggest annoyances are my own errors more than 90% of the times.
I have been able to control several tuya devices locally and they don’t need internet connection at all (I tested it). It’s not 100% compatible with all devices but it works for me. No opening device, no soldering, no flashing required. I use the flow below.
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