So I’m new and this is my first post so be kind please.
At present I have no home automation solution and I’m weighing up the solutions, its basically boiled down to building my own using Hass io running on a pi or buying a Google home assistant. I enjoy building things so the hass.io is very appealing to me but I’m a bit nervous about how it will connect up to things, for example if I go out and buy some new light bulbs how do I ensure they are compatiable with Hass io? Is there a standard for this stuff or am I dependent on the wider community creating a connector for it and using that?
I’m nervous about buying something that I’ll struggle to get connected to other things.
search this forum for particular devices, and have a look here to get you started: https://www.hadevices.com/
if you’re choosing between HASS and GH, imo the biggest difference to consider is if you’re happy to have every home automation activity go through google/the internet. if yes, pick up a GH, if not, then try HASS!
They are really 2 different things. Google Home has lots of integrations but when you want to automate things with schedules and triggers it’s going to be pretty limited. Most people using Home Assistant will integrate with Google Assistant but yeah… different uses…
I just left Smart Things and came over to HA about a month ago, so I’m still learning.
I, and I think most people, use both.
Google Assistant is a great platform. I have many friends who use GA/Alexa and are very happy, although I don’t really call it “automation”, more just voice control for your house.
I use mine in conjuction with HA and it’s great. You can have the GH speak to you via TTS to report conditions, although I haven’t set this up yet.
Also with using Cloud Connector on HA to connect to Google Assistant you can control anything that is connected to HA even if it’s not natively supported by Google Assistant.
As far as compatibility.
I have a pretty diverse Smart Home Setup. I’m a budget buyer (except for lights, I always go Hue) so some of my stuff is mix and matched. So far as I can tell, as long as it’s zigbee/zwave/wifi and the API’s are available, there’s not much that isn’t compatible, especially if it’s a moderately populate piece if tech.
My Netgear router running DD-WRT is integrated, I never thought that’d be a thing.
It’s pretty great, and I’m pleased with my switch over from SmartThings (which is a great eco system itself, I just wanted more flexibility)
One doesn’t exclude the other, on the contrary, but that is making it more complicated of course.
I’m using HA to interface a lot of equipment that is not Google Home compatible to Google Home.
At the same time, Google Home in Denmark does not yet have any automations in it (Routines), so I’ve built them all in HA.
I’m using Google to voice control equipment that is both directly controlled by Google Home, and equipment that is presented by HA.
That way I’ve been able to utilize my older Fritz!Box Smart Home equipment, and I’ve also gotten my Danalock Z-Wave/BT lock integrated, without having to wait for a vapour ware product like Danalock Bridge.
I’ve also installed a bunch of cheap 433 MHz sensors and a Sonoff RF Bridge, and the information they provide is accessible through Google Home as well.
Thank you all for the replies they are very helpful so if I’m understanding this correctly I could;
Have my little project, get myself a pi and set up HA on it.
Use existing connectors to get it hooked up to my Nest thermostat.
Go and by new kit like light bulbs (ensuring connectors exist) and then hook those up to HA.
That’s all great but leaves me with one question, how I control it. Ideally it would be voice controlled and with an app on my phone, would that be possible? I’ve seen a couple of apps on the Android store. Has anyone managed to get a speech controller working. Kind of like having Google home listen and action things in the HA?
There’s also a bunch apps both for Android and iOS.
Here’s how it looks on my Amazon Fire running Areila (I haven’t done anything UI wise on this, I’m basically using it for the device tracker and sensors)
Google home and home assistant are really complimentary to one another. I have amazon Alexa along with home assistant. The beauty of both together is that your lights can be controlled by voice, home assistant app or automatically ie no input whatsoever depending on the circumstances and what you want.
Example my kitchen lights I can manually via switch. Via the app. Voice control through Alexa and automatically if I arrive home and it’s after sunset.
The best thing about using both is home assistant has loads of integrations and allows you to do far more complex stuff. It is a fun project.
That said google assistant is a good was to start off simply and if you get hooked into more home automation you can expand from there
