installing and using third party python libraries with hassio is also not easy possible.
There’s a really simple “Custom Python Deps” addon in the default addon repository actually
But yes it does not run Linux, if you feel that is a restriction then you have a lot of other choices for deploying Home Assistant. For instance, I run Hassio in Docker on a Linux host for some of the reasons you mentioned.
if a custom python lib is installed there, will it then be available in other addons?
and i dont run hassio either 
i run ubuntu 17.10 on a beebox, and dont use docker
Couldn’t agree more with what people are saying in this thread. I’m not scared of tinkering with such software packages but HA just was a bit complicated in its current state. Even a bare installation needs multiple commands and manual user and rights definitions, where I think there should just be pre-compiled binaries available via apt-get and the likes. I’m sure this will come, but right now HA is just not quite mature enough.
I tried to install manually which I got to work, but then I tried configuring my Z-wave stick. I gave up after trying for several hours to get my stick recognised.
I wish the developers would focus on documentation and ease of installation. Particularly the three methods of installing seem to be too much. Just give it a year or so, since development seems to go quite fast. In the meantime, users who lack the time for development or helping developers in testing should look at the excellent OpenHAB, without trying to sound like a commercial:
I like though what HA is doing:
Let’s see if time will also make HA a viable production option eventually. With current progress, I think it will!
I really don’t think that HA is not mature. It was in the past, but we moved beyond that point. It is easy to say some stuff works and others do not but if your looking at the documentation that it is not clear etc etc. This is all open source, get together think of a better way of making it work and rewrite the documentation. Sure we all don’t have the time for it, neither do i. But i did already make some pages and alterations that i am sure helped others.
Looking at the installation methods, it should be indeed more uniform. The getting started page only points to hass.io. Sure it has a small section “alternate installation” but imho it would be nicer to show what it implies. I go to bed with Linux/docker and all that stuff so i want full control. Hassbian was the easiest (less amount of work) if i where to choose hass.io i would only shoot myself in the foot later on.
Have a page that shows “How do you want to install it?”
But i can understand that the ‘developers’ of HA want to get the highest mass adoption so having a good page there or point people to 1 solution is something to take into account.
And last but not least, what type of automater are you? If you want to open the blinds at a certain time, change your lights with motion and do simple things… i really would suggest to just buy a fibaro home server. (I did have one when i started, but because of the limitations i moved to HA) not to mention their excellent app and UI for doing all the stuff. Very high acceptance factor. I hope one day the misses will tell me “i like it”
Hi,
just to share my experience with HA, I’ve installed it a couple of times in the past, and have been running it for almost a year now - I’m running Hass.io. I did found it hard in the begining, even if documentation is not that bad - thanks to all the effort from the community!
For me, what I found to be the best thing to get things running was to take it one steap at the time, one new feature, one new integration at the time.
I’ve got myself another Pi, where I run the same version of Hass.io, but I’m using this new one as a test instance. So I do my stuff and then, when it works , I move the config to the “production” HA.
Also, I keep track of all changes I make, so I can understand the impact of every change. Any major change in a new config, I keep a new version of that yaml file. Whenever I need, I go back and check it out.
I’m still a noob but I’ve learned a lot looking at logs, documentation and hours reading foruns and other user’s experiences. And looking at other user’s configs shared in Github broadens your mind, and helps you understand some “simple” ways to do things.
So, go steap by steap, review logs, look at documentation, read posts, be selective and patient, and I’m sure you’ll get there. And you’ll see HA is an amazing open platform like no other!
@metalloid14 This might be a stupid question and I admit I probably haven’t really thought it through myself but what happens if you have two instances of HA both doing (almost) exactly the same thing at the same time?
At the very least it seems like you cannot use the state of any devices as a trigger for any automations. How have you set this up?
I really like the idea of having two copies of HA (I have a spare Pi). Apart from anything else it gives cover for that time the SD card fails 
if you add this add-on library https://github.com/bestlibre/hassio-addons it has a Mopidy set up to work with HASS.IO
Yeah I saw on another thread that someone had went over the same setup with you after I posted this.
I tried using Hassbian and Hassio with little success about 1 year ago. Since then Google Home no longer controls my Phillips Hue some sort of glitch with there lastest update. So now my (Little) home automation I had is gone. I can no longer use the GA to turn off lights or switches. Can somebody maybe point me the easiest direction to setup GA with HA using Hassio or whatever you recommend so I can use my voice to turn on and off items in my home.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Nothing fancy… when I need to test something, I stop my production HA and use the demo HA, then go back to the production when things are working
Same boat as you - including profession… Couldn’t have said it any better
Yes, I found this post by Googling “Why is Hass.io such a pain in the ass?”.
I set up Home Assistant previously, and it was sort of a hassle, but this is a whole new level of suckage. I’ve spent all day just trying to add my WiFi configuration so I don’t have to leave it plugged into Ethernet. Should have taken ten seconds to configure, but instead, 12 hours later, I’m still screwing with it. To the point that I’m ready to just put it down and walk away, rather than letting it consume another day of my life (we only get so many, you know).
Overall, the ‘open source’ community is a double edged sword. You get a lot of great passion projects, and eliminate the need for big corporations in development, but there is so much half-usable shovelware, the average person would pick up a Pi, try something like this, and decide after a few failures that the Pi isn’t worth the hassle at all. I’m not saying that Hassbian fits this category since it’s obviously working for a lot of people, but the amount of time it takes for someone like you or I to get it working makes it seem unusable, or at least, unfinished.
I’m giving it another day and then moving on, there are a million projects out there, no need to keep banging my head against the wall. Honestly I could have probably written my own super-simple web based program in the time I’ve spent trying to get this to work.
If you are that clever why don’t you join the team?
When did I ever claim to be clever…? Is there a point to your post other than ‘quit yer bitchin’?
And just because I can cobble together a web page that displays sensor data doesn’t mean I consider myself a dev.
Not really.
@QuantumStar I felt the same way when I first started setting up my hassbian install about a month ago. But a stuck with it and I am glad I did. Once it all started to click and I started figuring out how to dig into the documention I have a system I am very happy with now. I have moved 100% over from SmartThings and HA has been rock solid for me. Things that took learning.
I hope it starts to click for you. Don’t get frustrated, stick with it. It’s worth it once you really get things working.
12 hours and still trying to configure wifi? yeah mate Hass.io isnt really for you.
Calling something garbage that’s working easily for a fair few people is quite condescending and probably why a lot of open source projects die as the devs wonder what the point is of putting their own time and effort into when most times it boils down to the end user lack of skill
Okay smart guy, how did you set up your WiFi, or have you not actually tried this yourself…?
Well, I work online, so 12 hours total, but most of it in the background while working. Obviously like most Pi software, the biggest chunk of time is just sitting there waiting for it to finish sorting itself out (on the Pi 2, that’s over an hour). And I had to load the software a few times since I messed it up by using ‘update’ and ‘upgrade’ the way I would normally with a new Pi.
Say what you want, but do you think the Atari was better off for letting everyone develop for it, or did it doom itself by being connected with shovel-ware…? I had Home Assistant running just fine before I decided to switch to a Pi2 for that project. I have Hass.io up and running fine, can configure it, but if I can’t set up WiFi it’s useless to me.
There is no excuse for not having a normal settings screen like every other version of Pi software I’ve used, or at least a text file that I can easily edit.
Thanks, honestly, I’ve gotten everything else working, it’s just this damned WiFi set-up… I went through the instructions of using a USB stick named ‘CONFIG’ with the file ‘my-network’ in the /network folder, to no avail. I did use Notepad to create the file though, and now I’m reading that may have caused problems. I’ll spend another hour on it, and then probably just go back to Home Assistant. When I go to ‘mount’ the SD card on my PC, I get the usual error about needing to format a Pi SD card before using it on a PC.