Why is it so complex and difficult to install and maintain HomeAssistant?

[DominiqueGEORGES]

KingRichard,

I’m more a Windows guy, but also knowledgeable in Linux world (my real world was OpenVMS).
I’ll have a try on your technique.

Thanks.

Kind regards
Dom

[DominiqueGEORGES]

Samnewman86,

Yes I will do

HA is a powerful product, reason why I’m still testing it and not Jeedom nor Domoticz anymore.
I just want to find the right and most of all, reliable way to manage it.

I really hate (40 years in IT) products that change naming convention, way of working, … every version.

Thanks for your advices.

Kr,
Dom

[DominiqueGEORGES]

Hi Guys,

I want to thank ALL of you for the positive ideas, advises, … on this subject.

It is not a complain about HA, which is a really good product, just a request for help

I love the positive reaction of HomeTrainee.

I want to go further with HA (even on a NUC, why not), but on a dedicated and autonome server (Raspberry or NUC).
I’ll follow your advices and listen for the eventually next one.

Kind regards
Dom

[aceindy]

@DominiqueGEORGES

For some configurations (ZigBee or …) you need to install a MQTT server.
If you have the Raspberry installed with “Home Assistant OS”, you can’t install anything else on that system, thus, you need another one for tools like MQTT, …
Why not having everything under one main platform and managing it using HA ?

I have installed HassOS using downloaded vm image on hyper-v.
It has been running ‘out-of-the-box’ now for 1.5 years receiving frequent updates on core, os and supervisor. I have not added/touched any configuration on the OS itself…(more a MS person myself)
Installed MQTT as well as some other add-on by means of supervisor.

And regarding privacy…well it is open source and I doubt I alone can make it more secure then the current people working on it.
I even think I would mess it up as I am not that familiar with Linux.
Furthermore I figured this community is so big with so many experienced coders, the chance that privacy is seriously affected due to bad coding is really small. (however, a breach was found and patched not so long ago…
I think my local network configuration is just as important to secure privacy.

[DominiqueGEORGES]

Aceindy,

you are probably right, but, as old IT man, I love to have total control on what I manage.
I’m also more MS than Linux guy (I started and never stopped since v 3.0 of Windows very loooong time ago).
On my Hassio Raspberry, I tried to plugin my Raspbee but it has never been recognized (by the Raspberry itself or by Hassio … I really don’t know, as it is a black box).
Restarting HA on my Hassio (Raspberry Pi 4 - 4GB) takes many minutes.
I just have 10 devices (add-ons) connected mainly Z-Wave.

That means in case of power failure, I can’t use light … during 5 to 10 minutes.
Not acceptable for me, and certainly not for my wife

Playing with enforcing my local network security, I disconnect network devices often (tests purposes) … I don’t have the control on the way HA tries to reconnect to the network (Wifi).

For me, a down time of less than 30 seconds is acceptable, more than 1 minute, is not !
Raspberry replies to ping in less than 6 seconds.
This means HA (on my current environment) takes minutes to become available without lot of devices.

I may have a configuration problem on my installation, but all the tests I run are OK.

Kr,
Dom

[richieframe (Richie)]

@DominiqueGEORGES

Raspberry replies to ping in less than 6 seconds.

you mean 6 milliseconds?

[DominiqueGEORGES]

Oupss.

No, after a power failure or reboot, the Raspberry comes up after less than 6 seconds

Kr.
Dom

[KingRichard (Richard T)]

Just try my method and you will have 100% control over HA. In my case your best friends is Portainer to controlled all your docker images

[DominiqueGEORGES]

So many valuable infos in such a short period !
Waow.

YES, I will

Kr,
Dom

[KingRichard (Richard T)]

My Docker Central hahahahaha

[DominiqueGEORGES]

How do you authorize / configure the access to your physical devices attached to the host ?

I mean a RaspBee (GPIO connected), Z-Wave or RFX-433 USB devices, …

Thanks,
Kr,
Dom

[aceindy]

@DominiqueGEORGES I guess I am older then you are…
I started with Vic20 back in 1982 (8 years before W3.0 came out)
Also never stopped

Never really timed it, but it takes approx 30s to reboot my HA
Maybe check your logs and figure out what is taking so long??

[DavidFW1960 (David)]

@DominiqueGEORGES

It does not seem to be possible to upgrade to that “new HomeAssistant OS”.
This is not fair, at least for such an environment that has to be used by “dummy people”, once installed.

Yes you totally can upgrade easily - one upgrade button to upgrade the host OS. 3.11 is old and in the supervisor>system you should see an upgrade button.

[DominiqueGEORGES]

I’m 58, started on my Ti 57, then HP41 and finally Commodore 64 ^^ (far better than Vic20 :D)
Running with 64kilobytes of RAM

Good old time, now, a laptop with 64 GB is the minimum …:’(

[aceindy]

@DominiqueGEORGES so we are close
Vic20(4kb)–>Comdore128(128kb)–>Amiga(10mb)–>i386–>etc

[123 (Taras)]

@DominiqueGEORGES

My HA is running since Feb-2020 (hassos_rpi4-3.11.img.gz) on Hassio (in test mode, just playing with one light), only one year old !

It does not seem to be possible to upgrade to that “new HomeAssistant OS”. This is not fair, at least for such an environment that has to be used by “dummy people”, once installed.

Of course it’s possible.

Respectfully, your many misguided opinions in this thread demonstrate you don’t have a basic understanding of Home Assistant. Do yourself a favor and read the documentation, at least the Installation section.

Good luck.

[DominiqueGEORGES]

Taras,

after lot of retries, I have been able to upgrade it.
All the modules seems up to date right now.

But yet, I’m not able to discover my RaspBee or Zigbee dongle.
And restart time is incredible long.

I will thus try a new install following advices of KingRichard (Debian, …)

Kind regards,
Dom

[123 (Taras)]

@DominiqueGEORGES

I’m not able to discover my RaspBee or Zigbee dongle.

1. Ensure your Zigbee dongle is disconnected.
2. Go to Supervisor > System > Host, click the overflow menu (three vertical dots) and select Hardware.
3. Make a note of all the tty devices.
4. Plug in the Zigbee dongle.
5. Go back to the Hardware menu and compare the list of tty devices with the original list. One of them will report information about the connected Zigbee dongle. What you want is the DEVNAME (like /dev/ttyS0)
6. Leave the dongle in place and restart Home Assistant.
7. When you configure the Zigbee integration, it will ask for the dongle’s port and you will supply the DEVNAME.

[gmaples (Gregory Maples)]

I’m new to Home Assistant. My prior experiments were with HOOBS, Hubitat, HomeSeer, and probably other things. Again and again I ran into issue after issue around integration across device platforms. I’d heard that HA was the ‘hardest’ of them all.

My experience could not be more positive so far. In a single day I was able to integrate Z-wave with homekit, and flawlessly. The biggest ‘issue’ I’ve had is the R-Pi board I’m running getting stuck in inclusion mode and needing to reboot.

Your experience is different, I understand, but mine could not be better. Also, the discord community is very helpful. So now I need to find a purpose for a few hundred $$$ in wasted ‘other’ automation boxes.

[123 (Taras)]

FWIW, if you wish, you could continue to use Hubitat Elevation as a Zigbee/Zwave hub and have it communicate with Home Assistant via a custom Hubitat integration.

Alternately, you can recoup some of your investment by selling it. I’m not sure if and how you can transfer Homeseer’s license but I believe you can for Hubitat.