My Home Assistant Configuration

Share your Projects!
1

The below is becoming out of date quickly as I update my configuration. See the link above for an up to date configuration

These are the Home Assistant configuration files used in my Home Assistant (HA) setup. I relied on repositories of other HA users quite a bit when I was getting started for ideas and example code. Hopefully this repository will help someone eles who is getting started.

If you are just gettting started with Home Assistant I highly reccomend checking out this YouTube Series. It helped me a lot when I was first getting started. I also strongly reccomend you read the Home Assistant Docs. So many questions asked on the Home Assistant Forum could be solved by reading the docs.

Hardware Running HA:

  • Dell Optiplex 9010 SFF
  • VMWare ESXi Virtual Machine
    The virtual machine is given two cores of a i5 3570, 2GB of RAM and 8 GB of hard disk space. This setup runs very smoothly for me. There is an added power cost to run a desktop over a Raspberry Pi (how I started). However I also run a Router and Network Attached Storage (NAS) server on this same machine using seperate virtual machines.

Installation Process:

I’m currently running Home Assistant version 0.44.1. My preferred installation method is Virtualenv on top of your favorite Linux distro. I am currently running Ubuntu Server version 16.04 LTS.

Follow the directions in the Virtualenv link above (very closely) and it should install without issue.

Editing the Configuration Files:

What works for me is creating a Samba share from Ubuntu that I can then edit on any computer in my house.

For setting up Samba see this video: Samba Setup

After you have the Samba share setup I like to use Atom to edit my files. It works on both Windows and Linux and has a great interface and some nice features. NotePad++ is also easy to use and is a bit more lightweight than Atom (no Linux support though)

Connected Devices:

Cloud Controlled Devices:

Local Network Devices:

Device Reviews on the Home Assistant Forum:

Automations:

Garage_Door.yaml Automations:

  • Notify me when my garage door is opened and no one is home
  • Notify me if I leave my garage door open when no one is home

HTPC.yaml Automations:

  • When I turn on my HTPC, turn on the connected TV and amplifier
  • When I turn on my TV, turn on the connected amplifier

IP_Change.yaml Automations:

  • Notifiy me when my External IP changes

Living_Room_Lamps.yaml Automations:

  • Turn on the living room lamps at sunset
  • Turn on the living room lamps when the garage door opens and it is getting dark outside

Low_Battery_Adams_iPhone Automations:

  • Notify me when my battery is at 50% and 30%

Nest.yaml Automations:

  • When leaving on workdays set the nest to Away mode
  • Turn off Away mode at 4:00 PM (pre heat/cool the house before arriving home)
  • Turn off Away mode if someone arrives home
  • If HVAC fan hasn’t run for an hour, run it for 10 minutes

Outside_Lights.yaml Automations:

  • Turn off outside lights at sunrise
  • Turn on outside lights at sunset

PC_Security.yaml Automations:

  • Notify me if my Desktop PC turns on while I am away
  • Notify me if there is a failed login attempt to the HA front end
  • Notify me of a new device added to my Wifi network

Control Panel / Front End Screen Shots:

Rooms

1919×1094 83.4 KB

HVAC

1920×1094 57 KB

Device Status
1920×1098 78.3 KB

Home Assistant Status

1918×1093 66.8 KB

Automations
1920×1091 78.8 KB

Switches

1920×1094 68.3 KB

13 Likes
2

Very nice. I run a similar setup with a server & virtualenv although I did not break it into virtual machines (beyond my knowledge base).

I may take another look at Samba. I had in when I ran on a Pi but had issues when I tried on my HP DL380.

3

Thanks for sharing I might use some of these groupings they are well thought out

4

Finally gave this a update to match my current configuration. See the link at the top of the first post or the link below for updated information. I can’t edit the first post anymore.