I was looking into how I could control my TP-LINK HS100’s from my Harmony Hub and it lead me to Home Assistant. I’m getting pretty excited at the possibilities, but wanted to ask a few questions first before I dive straight in. Apologies if any of these seem obvious, but there’s a lot of information floating around and I’m not sure where to start reading.
I have a ‘NAS’ server (a PC with a lot of hard drives), currently running Windows but I’m looking to change over to Linux. Can I have Home Assistant running as a daemon, for example, with my OS? Can Hass interact with the OS in any way?
My NAS streams content to my Roku using Plex. I use programs like Sonarr and Radarr to manage content. What kind of features might Hass make available to me with this? I’m just trying to gauge what I can do with it, apologies for the open-ended question.
I use a TP-LINK HS100, a Harmony Hub + Harmony Elite Remote, and an Echo Dot to control my home currently. How can these things interact? Currently I’m just looking at Hass to control my HS100 through Harmony, but I’m sure I can do more
I saw there’s Docker integration — what kind of stuff can you do with this?
Again, sorry that these questions are a bit open-ended… I’m just trying to figure out what I can do!
Install linux and you will need the service up and running all the time for it to work. What do you mean by interact with the OS? Do you mean executing command line and shell scripts? If so then yes check out the components section to see all you can do.
There are components for Roku, Plex, Sonarr and Radarr so you can do anything you want. Get a daily report of what is wanted from Sonarr/Radarr. Have your lights turn on/off based on the plex/roku playing status? Kinda up to you here.
You will have harmony, echo and tp-link all connected to home assistant and control it that way. Its a lot faster and cleaner to manage everything inside home assistant. Controlling it through harmony is kinda the backwards way of doing it.
I am still new also, but a couple of things that I have found so far.
There are 2 main systems, Home Assistant and HASSIO, the HASSIO runs on a Raspberry Pi (I use a RPi3).
HASSIO is easier for some things, Home Assistant will run on about anything.
HA or HASSIO can replace most hubs, allowing it to work locally, if the cloud is down you can still operate most devices in your home.
They can control WiFi, z-wave and ZigBee devices plus some other devices.
If your NAS is Synology it can run on them (maybe others), I have 3 Synology NAS units, but wanted to start with the RPi3 first (HASSIO seems to be easier).
Depending on your skills you can add most anything.
Make sure (if using HASSIO) that you use the snapshot feature often (but for any major change or additions), it allows you to go back to were you started from.
When buying additional devices check the forums for compatibility and if the item is already supported.
Search the forums, there is a lot of good information that has been asked and answered already.
Beware of tutorials and youtube videos, a lot of good information, but a lot of them are out of date with the current version of HA / HASSIO. Sort them by date, view the newest first.
Use notepad++ for editing files, Yaml file spacing is very strict, an extra space or using a tab can prevent things from working. Notepad++ can show spaces and wraps lines properly.
When posting code use the code blocks so others can check spacing.
When asking questions, provide information as to what you are using, HA/HASSIO, what it is running on. Config.yaml information etc. It makes it a lot easier for someone to help you.
Thanks @dshokouhi! I guess it’s easiest to keep the 1,2,3 format going so here we go…
Yeah the NAS is on all the time. Command line / shell is exactly what I meant. If it has access to that then I can pretty much get it to do anything, I suppose!
Wow, that’s awesome. More than I was expecting — exciting times!
Yeah this seems a lot cleaner than having multiple systems controlling their own products — it feels a bit disjointed sometimes and this could be a good way of pulling it all together.
Nice. I do love Docker!
Thanks again.
@carbuthn I have to run so I’ll go through your points when I next get back to a computer!
Thanks for going through those points, some vital information there for a newcomer. Excited to dive into this! Gonna get it setup on my NAS as soon as possible.
