I jumped into this thing some time ago very hopeful but because of the deep tech talk that’s sometimes used I considered myself “successful” when I could simply turn on and off a few lights in the house.
I started with a Raspberry Pi3 but that was a horrible experience. Every time the thing was rebooted I would have to reinstall the OS and start all over again. Even now when all I’m using the thing for is a simple web browser in the kitchen, heaven forbid I should run the shut down command, I have to reinstall the entire OS. Horribly unreliable. I had NO success with the PI and I’m not interested in giving it another go. NOPE.
On a side project I was implementing a Synology NAS for backup and some light server and security work for the home and realized that it might be possible to run Home Assistant. I plowed through this once again and after many many hours I was able to show something for the effort. I am running one of those little aotec dongles and 3 Zwave light switches and three door sensors. When I go into my web browser, I can turn the lights on and off and see if doors are open or closed. That’s it, nothing more.
I’ve come to realize that there are a couple different implementations where you may, or may not be able to generate “if/when/then” or scripts scenarios within the browser. I’m pretty sure that with my implementation, this is not possible.
I’m really hoping to do what everyone seems to indicate is very doable and “simple”. When a door is opened, can I turn on a light? The bonus would be, send an email or text message but I’m really ok with little baby steps.
Is there a forum or section within this website where simple non-programmer English is spoken that I might make some progress?
my PI 3 SD card just crashed the other day so i full migrated over to Synology NAS.
In previous weeks i had moved the HA Database and MQTT server over to my Synology due to the fact i knew the SD card work crash some day with all the IO on it.
My Next major project is to migrate to a Wave dongle rather than use the individual hubs etc .
My Next simple project (this week) , turn a number of inside lights on when the garage door opens (at night).
Prior to the HA migration to Synology , i had setup Node Red , I will be using this rather than HA automation.
Thank you very much. I’ll take some time later today to watch that video. I too spent a lot of time dealing with stability issues. I did not find the RPI reliable and when trying to understand the lingo and different implementation approaches not at all helpful. Since going to my Synology, the thing has been 100% reliable but now I’m back at my learning curve and realizing there is very little support for this type of implementation. Quite possibly because so few people are using it in this manner.
If you don’t mind me asking an additional question of you. This seems to be a rather significant thing that I’ve noticed with my deployment of Home Assistant. In my installation, I do not have the Hass.IO menu option in my browser panel. The installation instructions for Code Red suggest that I go to this menu location and past the URL for code red into that window.
I make the assumption that you have installed HA on the Synology… if so you will not have a HASSIO option.
you are running the pure form of HA. there is no HASSIO option for Synology ( as yet)
I prefer to run all my different systems (HA, node red , database , MQTT etc) on different systems. If one crashes if does not corrupt/bring down the others.
Rather than use a different computer/server for these different , i use a virtual computer (docker/container).
Synology was docker included( just click a button to install the docker environment )
then one text command to install HA , Node Red etc
Note: to anyone else reading this , just trying to make it simple !
For example to install HA and setup the docker container -
$ docker run -d --name=“home-assistant” -v /path/to/your/config:/config -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro --net=host homeassistant/home-assistant