WTH can't I have multiple HAs on a single Nabu Casa?

Archive Month of "What the heck?!" (2020)
#1

I have HA at home, connected to Nabu Casa and it works great. I’m adding HA to our RV (Camper/Caravan/travel trailer/etc.) and would like similar functionality. I realize there are ways to connect externally and use Alexa without Nabu Casa, but I want the simplicity of a switch to flip. :slight_smile:

I would like the ability to add multiple (at least 2 or 3) HA connections to my Nabu Casa account without having to create separate accounts to manage. This would be beneficial to those with multiple homes as well.

Terry

#2

If you are looking to join HA instances (with client HA instances passing their entities to a main HA instance) there is a custom component which handles this pretty well.

https://github.com/lukas-hetzenecker/home-assistant-remote

You could then have the main instance be linked to your Nabu Casa account and see whichever entities/automations/scripts that you choose to pass along.

In regard to multiple HA instances within a single Nabu Casa account, each HA instance needs it’s own domain and certificate to manage and update. This would also require some app or instance which is “outside” all your other instances, managing or routing the notifications and automations and device_trackers among all of them (which instance sends what to the others and when?).
That would be quite a another project/service to develop.

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#3

I don’t think the argument is to necessarily have all of the various HA instances linked together via Nabu Casa.

I believe (at least in my case) I want each individual HA instance to be it’s own standalone instance but be managed via one Nabu Casa account.

As it is right now I would need multiple Nabu Casa accounts, One for each standalone HA.

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#4

If you could run mulltiple HA instances off one nabu casa account, nabu casa’s income would diminish to $5.00 total per month, as we’d all share one account.

But to be fair, I’d suggest maybe 3 instances - one for home, one for the office and one for the RV.

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#5

Yeah, limiting the number of instances would be reasonable. Well, unless that limit is one… :wink:

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#6

Exactly, one Nabu Casa account allowing more than one HA instance connected to it. I wouldn’t mind paying a LITTLE more per month for additional instances (perhaps $1-2USD/instance) although I realize that may not be agreeable or possible for everyone. Charging extra could also pose a problem for those wanting to use the feature for multiple dev instances; although it would be less expensive than the option available now…

Terry

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#7

Apparently my last paragraph made no sense. :neutral_face:

There are also those wanting to set up HA as a service and looking for discounts or a reseller program. Maybe a Nabu Casa Pro app is needed for any of this.

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#8

A NabuCasa Pro option would be great for those wishing to do consumer installs and support, especially if it could be white-labeled for the individual Integration Partner!

Thanks for the pointer to Home-Assistant-Remote. I’m playing with it now and while not a perfect solution to my WTH, it is definitely cool and useful!

Terry

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#9

I would love this. I’m in the same situation with my home and RV and I currently hack stuff together with state and event stream.

I would also be willing to pay extra for this, certainly as much as a second nabu casa subscription, I just want them maintained under the same account.

#10

Same here. Even another subscription within the same account. I would make use of it.

#11

Same. I have home, cabin, and work instances. Would love to manage under a single account.

#12

You don’t monetize things by giving away 3 for the price of one.

#13

Forgetting the cost for a moment, is there any way to connect to more than one instance via my phone app? I just signed up for an instance I finally got deployed at my mother’s house. Now I’m thinking about running HA at my house too.

#14

This is a fairly common practice. I have video and photo editing software I’ve installed on multiple devices. The idea is that the user has a license to use the app on more than one device, as opposed to “giving away 3”.

#15

Actually, you can, and it’s kinda funny how I do it.

I have 1 Nabu Casa account as my main server, and each “node” is connected via a private ZeroTier network, along with their own services on site for my family in various physical locations.

I also use Remote Home Assistant HACS component to filter entities in and out of the main and secondary servers. Plus side about using ZeroTier in this manner is that finding an external IP address is not required since ZeroTier internal IPs are more or less static.

I have this in 2 campers, an office, my sister’s house 500 miles away, and a church my family owns. It’s really cool!

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#16

I have no problems paying $5/Month for each Home Assistant (HAss) instance ($5/Month/HAss CPU). What I want is the ability to have access to other peoples HAss CPU’s from my single Nabu Casa account. I.e. I have access to other peoples (friends & family who I help) HAss CPU’s from my one Nabu Casa account (they send me an invitation for A single CPU from their personal Nabu Casa account, to administer that one/more HAss CPU/'s from my personal Nabu Casa account). So in other word, A Nabu Casa account should be free, but each HAss CPU pays $5/Month to be registered with Nabu Casa & is owned by an individual account; but administered/accessed by one/more accounts. The more HAss CPU’s you own (you have 3 homes) the more money you have, the more you should pay… This also gives HAss the ability to compete better with commercial systems like Fibaro, in that it is more appealing for professional installers to monitor, administer & fix client CPU’s.

Then I would like to pay extra in my personal Nabu Casa account for cloud storage, in which I can store data from HAss CPU’s for things like Logs & Pictures from HAss, with the option of locking that data for A dedicated retention period (Cloud Storage is a gold mine), let’s for E.g. say $5/5Gb/month as log file’s don’t take up much room. & that storage is only accessible from my personal account, so if multiple people want to store the same data (multiple copies of the same data), they all have to pay for that copy of the data (heaps better for security & Nuba Casa makes more money, I’m all for supporting HAss).

I’d also like to pay in advance, A credit system if you will. E.g. I just got payed, I want to put $60 on my Nabu Casa account (pay for the next 12 months) in advance. Rather than it being deducted each month from my credit card (I hate credit cards). This helps everyone Nabu can put this money advance into investment systems & earn more off the interest, & helps the poor by helping prevent over the top interest rates on credit cards. Instead of making the rich richer & the poor poorer.

Last but not least, allow one account to pay for another accounts bill’s. This is to encourage Professional installations, as it can get confusing when you pay 2+ different company’s for the one product experience (E.g. myhome.org setup & maintains my system currently; but next year i will want to shop around for a new company to maintain my system, but what is this Nuba casa bill on my credit card today?). In my experiences there are two main type of people who get into Home automation, the wealthy who want & pay for someone else to setup & maintain their systems, & the tinker-a, who wants things on the cheap, & do everything them selves (Sorry mum, dad, uncle, aunt & brother in-law, you’re considered wealthy).

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#17

@DJ_RaidAr_VIP

I tried doing the same using Tailscale but could not get my remote instance to connect when setting up Home Assistant Remote. As I had already set up a separate Nabu Casa account for my second home I was able to use that to configure HA Remote. This allows me to monitor my second home and trigger alerts within Node-Red on my main home HA.

I use the HA mobile app on our phones and tablets for our main home and a browser link via Nabu Casa for the second home as well. I stream my security cameras via Lovelace. Streaming via HA Remote doesn’t seem to work so I still need Nabu Casa unless I can get Tailscale or Zero tier to work.

Curious on what IP you used for connecting your remote instances in HA Remote using the Zero tier setup.

#18

So, I do it through ZeroTier because I can keep it in the same subnet, which makes things easy. But then again, I’ve never dealt with Tailscale yet, but the Wireguard angle is very tempting.

So, I use the HACS Custom Component Remote HomeAssistant to connect all of the different Home Assistants together, and to each I will add a prefix to all of their entity names (this can be configured, along with including / excluding entities / entity types in the Remote HA Workflow). So this can connect them to their own “LAN” and send data without hassle. And, once those entities are in your main Home Assistant, then you can enable them for Alexa / Google Home control, or whatever the case.

What I do when I want to call to turn off a light in a remote Home Assistant is: “Alexa, turn on light” (For my camper for example, “Alexa, turn on camper bedroom lights”) and it only fails if the node isn’t connected to the internet.

Oh, and so that I don’t get confused as to where those entites are lost, I make a new view in home assistant dedicated to that site, so one for each home my family has, camper, church, etc. I even have a feature that uses vacation features. So if a family member goes on vacation, my main node will determine whoever isn’t on vacation and is nearby to get security notifications, and also if they have pets, it will keep track of cleanings, food, etc.

It’s still a work in progress, but it’s definitely a nice way to solve your problem.

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#19

You got your wish, kinda. Nabu Casa has rolled out annual subs today, US only at first.