I’ve been playing around with home assistant and I’m loving it. I’ve made a lot of simple automations, with several triggers, with and/or, most of them using the UI. I’ve never been into coding or programming but I’d really love to learn everything there is to learn regarding home assistant. I’ve read the HA documentation, but when I go into templating, scripts, and several other things, it doesn’t make any difference how many times I read it, I can’t understand it. Is there any guide for complete newbies, step by step, explaining everything for a newcomer to become a master? I’d love to learn everything this software has to give. All the syntax from the templates, scripts, and so on…
thanks in advanced, any help will be much appreciated
imho you need to gain some general knowledge about how software works and some basic techniques developers use - then you’ll be able to apply that knowledge while creating your system.
the next step would be using features of HA (like storing data in input_xxx, timers etc) to make your solution more effective.
and if it’s not enough (provided you already know some python by that time) - read HA code and use their hacks/create your custom components.
So it looks like now you need a foundation. Take a look at this book, it might help.
Would be great to know if they help you out! If there is a specific tutorial you think would benefit a newcomer to Home Assistant, let me know as I am looking for new topics to write about and adding content to my site every day
not that I’m not thankful to the previous guys, but this is definetely what I was looking for. I’ve only read a bunch of lines but the approach, and what I read in the index, covers exactly the kind of information I wanted to know. Many thanks my man, I’ll let you know everything
Thats great news and I am very glad to hear it! The Home Assistant documentation is superb, but it can be challenging to understand if you are completely new to the platform or from a non-programmer/tech background.
In my articles I am trying to expand on some of the basics in order to help people who are completely new to the platform. I think a few extra screenshots and code examples can go a long way!
Once you have a little experience, everything will become clear and it won’t seem so hard to understand, just stick with it and good luck getting stuck into this awesome platform!
I’m really excited, I understand HA somewhat, to a certain extend, but I get lost with its peculiarities. I’m good at logic, math an so on, but this guide for dummies is exactly what I needed. I didn’t want to become a master in coding in genersal, I just want to really excel at HA, and this seems is going to give me the foundation it requires. I really appreciatte, please keep it up. Screenshots and step by step information really does a whole lot for me. Many thanks for your work!
sorry for unmarking the “solution” tick but, after reading it a bit, it fell a bit short. Great for automations, scripts and a few things but I’m really interested in going really deep. Is there any guide like this, so beautifully put, that goes through the whole system? those articles are great though, that’s exactly the way a newbie needs to get things explained.
Sounds like you are going to do just fine, you’ll have it mastered in no time! There are some good YouTube channels too, check out Dr Zzs, Bruh Automation, DigiBlur and The Hook Up.
I was actually planning to write a comprehensive guide on templates, but didn’t get to it yet. I’ll definitely get to writing this soon though, you can keep an eye out for it on Twitter / Instagram
For now you may be interested in this article as there is a little example of using templates.
Yes absolutely, I want to cover as much as possible but it takes time to write everything, so I am still adding to the site every day (updates always on social media). Eventually when I have covered enough topics I will link it all together with one big table of contents post.
Definitely check out the official documentation too, the more you learn about HA the easier it is to understand. Thanks again, really appreciate the feedback!
I’d advise to use the official docs as a starting point as they have the latest (but not always 100% full and correct) information. Then you can use search here (or just google it) but keep in mind that the further in the past you go the less are chances a solution would work as HA is changing rapidly.
Another useful option is to use Discord (link on the front page) - if you go to an appropriate channel and ask a proper question (so people can understand your issue) you can get help in just minutes.
