Here is what I do like: Currently, I am simply using GUI. I moved over sixty end-device bulbs (Singled) to HA within the last few weeks, replacing five bulbs at a time with INNR and Silvania router bulbs. Hue is too rich for my blood. I am slowly adding automation and scenes. I’ve added Node-Red which I plan on diving into at some point, added Magic because I have a couple of string lights on a few trees outside (WIFI - works well with HA, still cloud but it is cool), connected Tuya with Smartlife (about 25 devices), and all connected to a $200 Beelink mini-PC. It works great. I am using HAOS. The memory and resources are barely hitting 5%. It is over-kill, but why not future proof my system.
I plan to blow up my HA figuratively when my wife and I move to Arizona from Texas. We are buying some land and going to drop a double wide in the middle of it and add a tiny home which is going to be the future home of my father (getting older). I decided to get with HA and move away from Smartthings. Everything is working nicely. I am loving it. To keep my wife happy, I only spend two hours a day on it, so not a lot of time. But it is all good.
The issues I am having are my Sengled bulbs that are further away. This is a Zigbee2MQTT feature request, but I would like to see a report of items on my network that are offline the most. I will be replacing all my Sengled end-device bulbs with router bulbs. I want to replace the ones that are offline the most and most important to me.
The above are my planned replacements. It will take two months to do this. But the point is, I would like to see a report of my offline devices, the ones that disconnect the most. I am not glued to my screen all day so if things go offline, I may not see it because as we speak, there are only two devices offline. A few minutes ago, there were six devices offline. It would be good to prioritize the replacements to include battery devices.
The next thing is automation. I like the scenes and automation. I am still learning YAML, but sometimes I want to change the color and not the brightness, or vice-versa. I am not able to select what is being changed. My ceiling lights change colors throughout the night in the family and living room. It is set to one to five percent brightness. There is another automation that will brighten the lights to 40% when they hit a certain motion detector. I do not want it to change color, I just want to dim the lights. YAML can take care of this. This I will eventually learn. I can code a little, and YAML looks easy (I know HTML, MySQL, C#, C++ a little, I am no export at all, like beginners). I just feel like some people will never go to HA if they had to code. Knowing that this is open-source, I get it. That is what’s so freeing about HA is that it is only limited to manufacturers specs of the devices. In some cases, you can build your own device with ESP, NICE! I got ideas for that one.
I see a lot of potential in this platform. I cannot wait to dive deeper. In my new home, I plan to have over 200+ devices connected, probably more. I may need to keep Smartthings running only because my Sonoff Zigbee coordinator may not be able to handle so many devices. I should go between ZWave, Zigbee, Lora, WIFI, and other communications protocols so I can add increasingly more devices.
In the Scenes and Automation, there should be a way to select rather you want brightest, adjustable whites or color. It should not be both.
In Smartthings, I had to create virtual switches. I need to learn how to do this in HA. It shows up in Alexa. I have an automation to turn on my Govee fans and heaters, for each fan called High, Middle, and Off. That does not give me complete control. The Govee integration is great. It works for my lights but not for other devices Govee makes. Eventually, I would like to contribute by adding integrations myself. That is years from now. I wish I can control my Govee devices from HA, even if it is cloud based. I have plans for adding more Govee lights, especially for the back and front yards. Govee are excellent alternatives to the expensive Hue selections. The Govee integration is quick, responsive, and has not had any issues. Of course, I only have one light strip.
The next grievance is not the fault of HA at all. When I first got into smart home was when I won my first Alexa dot at a food and wine fair. On Christmas, in 2019, I bought several Alexa devices and a few WIFI bulbs using Smartlife. Then I discovered Smartthings, started buying Sengled. I did not know anything about end-device and router. Then suddenly, Smartthing started getting sluggish. I had over 50 devices connected to it. I wish I knew about router versus end-device bulbs and plugs. I guess this is the journey we all take when getting into Smart Homes.
Anyway, I had some thoughts and needed to get them out there. Any comments, suggestions, please reply.