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Surprised that there’s no mention of Home Assistant. It’s great for even lightweight home automation. But based on the title I was expecting something less int

by orev 4y ago

Surprised that there’s no mention of Home Assistant. It’s great for even lightweight home automation. But based on the title I was expecting something less intelligent, like simple lamp timers. You can get surprisingly far with those and some motion sensors, without needing a hub or apps at all.

eternityforest 4y ago
I wouldn't exactly call it great. Most user groups have tons of reports of issues, they seem to need to fuss with it every update, and if you aren't careful with lots it can burn out some SD cards.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  > Most user groups have tons of reports of issues, they seem to need to fuss with it every update, I’d say issues are a pretty small group of people, it’s just that it has a lot of users. > they seem to need to fuss with it every update Updates are seamless almost every time? > and if you aren't careful with lots it can burn out some SD cards. Cheap SD cards don’t like Databases, expensive one’s still might have issues. But you are neither forced to use SD cards, nor an rPI with HA. I used to have a PI4 with an SSD, and nowadays a VM on x86 hardware.
  - sdflhasjd 4y ago
    I use Home Assistant as my smart home hub, and I've even got it on a beefier mini-PC after it ate (a high quality) SD card. This is hundreds of currency more expensive than a PI. But my main complaint is how high maintenance it is. I do think they've got a little bit better in the last 6 months, but it used to be there was a intentional deprecation and breaking change in nearly every major (i.e monthly) update. Updating requires carefully reading through the change logs. Then once you've fixed your configuration, that update might have fixed some bug you've been having only to introduce a new one. My installation spent the better part of the last 12 months with at least one annoying bug at any time.
    - Semaphor 4y ago
      > This is hundreds of currency more expensive than a PI. I run it as VM on a tiny Proxmox < €100 server that also runs a bunch of other things. I’ve been using HA for several years now, I almost never have update issues, updating on every notification. I had a tiny incompatibility this major update that only made issues with once HACS component (community store, not tested by base HA). The last actual issue was some time mid 2022, and even that wasn’t major.
    - vladvasiliu 4y ago
      > I've even got it on a beefier mini-PC after it ate (a high quality) SD card. This is hundreds of currency more expensive than a PI. Only if you buy new and get something much more powerful. I run HASS in a VM on an old small form-factor desktop they were going to throw away at work. The most expensive part of that PC (that I paid for) is the quad intel NIC that I use for my router VM. It can NAT + FW (pf) + VPN (wireguard) at gigabit speeds without breaking a sweat. This is an HP EliteDesk 800 G2 with an i5-6500 and 32 GB RAM. Similar boxen can be had off ebay for peanuts if you don't live in the boonies (or you'll have to pay for shipping). They may consume more than an RPI, but they are very quiet (I run it 24/7 in a studio apartment and am very sensitive to noise). They're also able to do much more than said pi, since they can use standard off-the-shelf components (regular DIMM RAM, regular SSDs, regular expansion cards, etc).
  - eternityforest 4y ago
    The problem is HA hammers the DB all day. When I do logging I buffer in ram and dump all at once, and often I just save min/max/avg over a period rather than every transition.
- clows 4y ago
  > Most user groups have tons of reports of issues, they seem to need to fuss with it every update, Tons of users with tons of different integrations means tons of issue. That is true I suppose. I have a very simple Homeassistant setup with a few different zigbee lights and sensors. It has it's issues but 98% of the time it works just fine. The 2% that are frustrating are issues with zigbee connectivity but homeassistant works pretty well. I'm still not a fan of the yaml configuration but that is being worked on. > lots it can burn out some SD cards. more of a hardware issue (raspberry pi) than a software issue. I run it on an intel nuc and have no issues with SD cards.
- thunfischbrot 4y ago
  Running on a cheap USB stick is the better choice nowadays. They tend to be much more forgiving and faster.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Updates are more of an enthusiast thing - you can treat it as a piece of hardware, isolate it from hostile networks and leave it as-is. You don't have to update and it'll keep working just fine.
ocdtrekkie 4y ago
It's really refreshing to see a non-Home Assistant solution. Obviously it's great software that meets a lot of needs, but it's basically a complete monoculture, to the point home automation is really only interesting to read about if someone is doing something else.

by orev 4y ago

eternityforest 4y ago

I wouldn't exactly call it great. Most user groups have tons of reports of issues, they seem to need to fuss with it every update, and if you aren't careful with lots it can burn out some SD cards.

Semaphor 4y ago
> Most user groups have tons of reports of issues, they seem to need to fuss with it every update, I’d say issues are a pretty small group of people, it’s just that it has a lot of users. > they seem to need to fuss with it every update Updates are seamless almost every time? > and if you aren't careful with lots it can burn out some SD cards. Cheap SD cards don’t like Databases, expensive one’s still might have issues. But you are neither forced to use SD cards, nor an rPI with HA. I used to have a PI4 with an SSD, and nowadays a VM on x86 hardware.
- sdflhasjd 4y ago
  I use Home Assistant as my smart home hub, and I've even got it on a beefier mini-PC after it ate (a high quality) SD card. This is hundreds of currency more expensive than a PI. But my main complaint is how high maintenance it is. I do think they've got a little bit better in the last 6 months, but it used to be there was a intentional deprecation and breaking change in nearly every major (i.e monthly) update. Updating requires carefully reading through the change logs. Then once you've fixed your configuration, that update might have fixed some bug you've been having only to introduce a new one. My installation spent the better part of the last 12 months with at least one annoying bug at any time.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    > This is hundreds of currency more expensive than a PI. I run it as VM on a tiny Proxmox < €100 server that also runs a bunch of other things. I’ve been using HA for several years now, I almost never have update issues, updating on every notification. I had a tiny incompatibility this major update that only made issues with once HACS component (community store, not tested by base HA). The last actual issue was some time mid 2022, and even that wasn’t major.
  - vladvasiliu 4y ago
    > I've even got it on a beefier mini-PC after it ate (a high quality) SD card. This is hundreds of currency more expensive than a PI. Only if you buy new and get something much more powerful. I run HASS in a VM on an old small form-factor desktop they were going to throw away at work. The most expensive part of that PC (that I paid for) is the quad intel NIC that I use for my router VM. It can NAT + FW (pf) + VPN (wireguard) at gigabit speeds without breaking a sweat. This is an HP EliteDesk 800 G2 with an i5-6500 and 32 GB RAM. Similar boxen can be had off ebay for peanuts if you don't live in the boonies (or you'll have to pay for shipping). They may consume more than an RPI, but they are very quiet (I run it 24/7 in a studio apartment and am very sensitive to noise). They're also able to do much more than said pi, since they can use standard off-the-shelf components (regular DIMM RAM, regular SSDs, regular expansion cards, etc).
- eternityforest 4y ago
  The problem is HA hammers the DB all day. When I do logging I buffer in ram and dump all at once, and often I just save min/max/avg over a period rather than every transition.
clows 4y ago
> Most user groups have tons of reports of issues, they seem to need to fuss with it every update, Tons of users with tons of different integrations means tons of issue. That is true I suppose. I have a very simple Homeassistant setup with a few different zigbee lights and sensors. It has it's issues but 98% of the time it works just fine. The 2% that are frustrating are issues with zigbee connectivity but homeassistant works pretty well. I'm still not a fan of the yaml configuration but that is being worked on. > lots it can burn out some SD cards. more of a hardware issue (raspberry pi) than a software issue. I run it on an intel nuc and have no issues with SD cards.
thunfischbrot 4y ago
Running on a cheap USB stick is the better choice nowadays. They tend to be much more forgiving and faster.
Nextgrid 4y ago
Updates are more of an enthusiast thing - you can treat it as a piece of hardware, isolate it from hostile networks and leave it as-is. You don't have to update and it'll keep working just fine.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago

It's really refreshing to see a non-Home Assistant solution. Obviously it's great software that meets a lot of needs, but it's basically a complete monoculture, to the point home automation is really only interesting to read about if someone is doing something else.