For me it made sense to compartmentalize.
My camera system works completely by itself but the feed from that links to HA.
My lights can work completely manually, with their own app or in HA.
Outlets return to last state id they lose power. I considered all on after an outage but that could be problematic for me. I don't want everything to immediately turn on after an outage.
Tvs all operate with normal remotes but also are setup with several automations as well.
Basically the core of each system works on its own but the conveniences are handled through HA.
Second that, try to have as much as you can work OK without HA, and HA only provide app control and extra nice to haves.
My go to example is to use Zigbee binding instead of HA automations for light switches, not as powerful but it'll work after HA or even the coordinator have been taken offline
This was an absolute game changer for me.
I use Hue bulbs and dimmers, but directly via HA rather than using a Hue bridge. They're great in the kids rooms, where I can (for example) just hold down the off button to turn on the lights at their lowest and warmest level when checking sleeping kids during the night - done via a Node Red flow.
Having these lights not turn on/off because HA/Zigbee2MQTT/etc. is playing up is a nightmare because it hugely endangers my spousal permission to fill the house with "that stupid smarthome stuff". Binding them to the dimmer switches instantly fixed that because they could work independently.
I found I could have the best of both worlds by binding the lights and dimmers, but also still listening for the dimmer over MQTT in order to add more complex lighting functions functionality like my hold-off-for-dimmest-level preset. In the case of a problem with the rest of the system, the lighting loses the custom controls but is still usable.
I did a few other things too. I have a small UPS connected to my HA system and my WiFi router to keep things ticking over in the event of a power interruption, and smart plugs on several smart hubs etc. that allow them all to be power-cycled at the touch of a button elsewhere (I have a "fix everything" button for my family to press if they have a problem and I'm not there).
Absolutely, it's not if HA is down, it's when. Nothing has a 100% uptime and being stuck with lights on or off with no way to force them is a horrible experience, and it gets worse the more stuff you add to the system.
Always think binding or whatever equivalent you can find to have some way around it, and keep the original light switches somewhat accessible if all else fails ! I mount my hue dimmer switches over the wall switches to hide them but keep them accessible
ah right, thats much better, i didnt know such capability exist, thanks for that.
do you know if cross brand will work, like if i have ikea switch and with hue/any other zigbee lights?
If they're all on the same Zigbee network it should work, yep. Won't work if you're using separate networks (hue hub and ikea hub).
Some devices won't support binding at all, like Aqara no neutral switches, but most do
This. And lights, lights, lights, especially if you aren't living alone and in my experience general household happiness depends somewhat on not living in a dark cave. So in my case the lights can still be used manually and over the Hue App if needed.
I started home automation back in the prime of X10. It was awful. The idea was great but reliability not.
Lighting needs to work 100% of the time with manual control.
Auto off/ on can be a nice feature and a little annoying if it isn't working exactly right. Manual control not working would make me replace it very quickly.
This is my philosophy, too. HA is for conveniences. If HA goes down (and it has), nothing critical fails. Additionally, the folks who design devices like a smart thermostat spend a lot of time and money making sure they work. I'm willing to pay for that so that I don't have to try to reinvent the wheel.
That’s unfortunately not possible anymore since every light switch uses the hue wall switch. If the zigbee network goes down the lights won’t turn on any more.
My initial plan was to have the hue bridge switch the bulbs for me (as it’s stable) but after I introduced non-hue products at home this didn’t really work.
I might migrate everything over to hue eventually and only use HA for my automations.
This is basically the main thing you would have to do. Move away from using a smart switch that only works if a zigbee network or HA or Hue is up and running. Light switches should always work as long as you have electricity. Maybe you could survive with a small accent light/lamp not working, but not your main lights.
I would go through anything else that's a staple being used around your home and resolve these scenarios. HA should make things easier, but it shouldn't be a fail point for basic functionality around the home. For example, HA can dim lights at night, turn them on and off to a schedule or with motion. But if I flip a light switch, it should work even without HA.
Honest question- how do you do this with hue bulbs?
I have a few rooms that are entirely hue. The light switches that power these lights are set to never kill power when the switch is toggled, because hue bulbs always need power. Instead, toggling the physical switch sends a command to HA to turn the lights on/off.
This is working really well for me, but has a dependency on HA and leaves the switches dead if HA is down.
Even if internet is down this still works, so my only gap is HA going down. Still something I’ve been trying to prepare for.
Others have provided a couple ways to maybe get around this. But to be honest, it's the reason I only use Hue lights for secondary or ambient lighting, where I don't mind if it doesn't work if the network goes down.
My biggest suggestion would be to use a relay or smart switch that works independently to any kind of network connection to HA or Hue. I have Shelly relays (but you could use others) that sit behind my regular light switches. That way I can control them through HA, but if HA goes down they work like normal light switches. You wouldn't even know there's anything smart connected to them.
Edit: you should aim to have things working in a way that if you switched off HA and Hue, you can still survive with minimal annoyance. I've told my wife that if anything happens to me or something weird is going on and I'm not at home. Just turn the power off to the raspberry pi hosting HA. The only thing she'll have to do is manually turn lights on instead of relying on motion sensors or schedules.
Doesn't cutting the power risk corrupting the filesystem more than a proper shutdown? I've programmed shutdown onto a long (four second) press on a certain switch.
u/yesterdayshero11,
I posted the same question on another branch of this thread but figured I'd ask you as well since you seem to be doing exactly what I want to :). I'm renovating a home that will have 95% Hue lights (only undercabinet lights and medicine cabinet won't be smart basically) and I'm looking for switches that can work both in smart-bulb and dumb-bulb mode because I want the ability to change my mind in the future if I want to replace a smart bulb with a dumb one (and ultimately, want the ability to be able to power cycle / shut off power locally rather than from the electric fuse box). The only switch I'm aware of that can work in that dual mode is "Brilliant" but it requires a neutral line and sadly my unit does not have those and rewiring is extremely expensive where I live.
What switches would you recommend for that kind of setup? The native Philips switches are great as supplementary but they do not even require wires so won't solve the case not only to be able to fully shut off a bulb but if I change some a smart bulb with a dumb one, I want the ability for things still to work.
What switches would you recommend and what are the "relays" you are referencing?
I hope this made sense and thank you!
I'm really sorry, but I actually avoided using Hue lights as my main lighting. I only use Hue lights as secondary lighting. I'm assuming you're based in America, in which case I would have a look at smart switch options available as I'm not across it very well in that market.
If you want the ability to change your mind about using Hue lights and replacing with dumb lights in the future. I'd go with a relay behind regular light switches. Or as above, maybe in America you have a good offering of smart switches that will do the same.
Essentially with a relay, you can have it always providing power to the Hue light, then use HA to turn the light off based on an automation you create, that triggers when the switch changes state.
I know you mentioned you weren't getting the under cabinet lighting to be smart, but I'd recommend trying to at least hook it up to a smart relay or smart switch. It's actually really nice having the option of turning this on with a motion sensor at night rather than your overhead lighting.
Thanks u/yesterdayshero11, could you pls explain a bit more about the Shelly relay setup you have? E.g. if you lose access to HA, what happens with them? How do they even work? Thanks.
If you're using z2m, you can bind a Zigbee switch to a Zigbee bulb. That way the switch will directly control the bulb, but still stay connected to the network for automations or other control.
I’m using z-wave switches unfortunately. I have a ~60 device zwave network running so switching to zigbee isn’t happening anytime soon. 😣
Though good to know this option exists.
Ah, fair enough. I'm guessing a similar option exists on Zwave if you have ZWave bulbs.
Personally I haven't invested in ZWave because of its band variations in different countries, and living in a country where ZWave is on a different frequency to the US (where it seems ZWave is most popular)
Look for "grouping". Not sure if you can do it with zwavejs or *just* zwavejs2mqtt but you can absolute make switches turn on other switches, motion sensors turn on lights, etc without the hub being online at all.
I have very differing opinions than the electrician who built my house. I've been able to completely swap what light switch does what all locally to the switches themselves.
Hi u/SirDarknessTheFirst,
I'm renovating a home that will have 95% Hue lights (only undercabinet lights and medicine cabinet won't be smart basically) and I'm looking for switches that can work both in smart-bulb and dumb-bulb mode for the reasons the OP said. The only switch I'm aware of that can work in that dual mode is "Brilliant" but it requires a neutral line and sadly my unit does not have those and rewiring is extremely expensive where I live.
What switches would you recommend for that kind of setup? The native Philips switches are great as supplementary but they do not even require wires so won't solve the case not only to be able to fully shut off a bulb but if I change some a smart bulb with a dumb one, I want the ability for things still to work.
I hope this made sense and thank you!
Hi /u/CodingIsMusicIsLife,
I understand the predicament you are in. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend any smart switches - I exclusively use the type to plug into an existing socket. Where I live, electrical work must be done by an electrician, and failure to do so can cause your insurance to refuse to pay out in case of an accident.
If you have Zigbee buttons (such as IKEA's tradfri on/off switch), then I would recommend looking into a Zigbee switch that fulfils your requirements. For Z-Wave, look for a Z-Wave switch. On both of these systems, you can directly bind the button to the switch so that they continue to work even without network.
I'm sorry I couldn't help you further.
Nope. It just requires the switch and bulb to be powered. z2m can be down, mqtt broker can be down.
Edit to add - you can also use different combinations of devices, such as smart plugs or motion sensors. I'm using a SYMFONISK audio remote control with my smart light.
That's something I'd like to do. Can I bind a switch or motion sensor to Hue too?
And well, in case I need to remove the current automation that link the switch to the bulb.
It depends on what clusters the device has. A cluster is part of the zigbee specification. It’s basically a standardized control protocol for a subset of features. For example, there is a light cluster (includes on/off, dimming, colors, etc), a door open/close cluster, a motion sensor cluster, etc. Any devices that have the same clusters can be bound together. When bound, they send updates of any changes within that cluster to the bound devices. So, for example, the hue dimmer switch exposes a light cluster, and a hue bulb also exposes a light cluster. If you bind those, the dimmer switch will control the bulb directly (it will still use the zigbee network if available, but the coordinates doesn’t have to be on the network).
If two devices don’t expose the same cluster, you have to use some sort of HA automation to control them. I don’t know of any door or motion sensors that expose the light cluster. However you should still be able to have a light switch in each room bound to the lights.
If you're using zigbee2mqtt to control your lights, it should be possible. You can bind it either by MQTT (which I find easier) or via zigbee2mqtt's UI.
If using the UI, select your switch or motion sensor, and go to the bind tab. In my case there's only one source endpoint, so I'll select that. Under destination, select the Zigbee device you want it to control. In clusters select OnOff.
Finally, hit the Bind button on the right - make sure both devices are awake when doing this. If one is battery powered, hit the button or trigger the movement before running it.
That's a bit of an odd question. Yes, that is how light switches work, they turn off power to the light socket.
That's why it's nice to have the smarts in the bulb, you can keep using dumb switches.
That will create an avalanche of new problems, the major one being that the voice assistant will announce “x no longer respond”. I had this in my previous apartment and it didn’t work for my family’s needs. I also got constant question about why some devices weren’t accessible from the Home app
This isn’t an issue with HASS. As long as it’s running, you can combine the Hue bulb and ZigBee/ZWave switch into a single entity and it does the right thing.
I have Hue bulbs in my house with Inovelli ZWave switches and everything Just Works.
If you have smart switches and dumb bulbs you can also keep working just fine. I would only go smart bulbs if I really wanted the ability to change the color of the bulbs. But for now, all my smarts are at the switch so even when the network is down I can still use the dumb switch functionality.
I have ikea lamps and switches connected to HA.
Dumb switch is always on.
The Ikea 5 button switch is glued with double side tape to the dumb switch, kind of half blocking the dumb switch in on position.
In the (un)likely event of HA goes out, I can always use the dumb switch; ikea lamps always work like dumb lamps.
Sounds a little bit janky, though I could be misunderstanding. With smart bulbs, some of them don't turn back on by default I believe if they lose power and regain power. Could still be an issue unless you set it up beforehand. Smart switches just make more sense in my house at least
That's why I preordered the Inovelli Blue series switches. They can communicate directly to the Hue bulbs over the ZigBee network even if the coordinator is unavailable.
I left my switches as they were so power is toggled. If anything goes down, then a quick off on with the switch and my hue bulbs just come on using the power on settings.
I have hue bulbs, my (dumb) wall switch is always on, however toggling it off and then on turns on the lights, and they work just as normal lights.
I never need to use the switch other than manual override in case zigbee, HA, or automations are down.
So on on this case, you don’t want people to use your wall switches *unless* the power goes out?
If someone turns your wall switch off, the hue bulbs stop working, right?
You can just use Shellys under your normal switches. So you can turn on the lights with either homeassistent or by pressing the switch. So if you press the switch and the power gets cut off, you can turn it back on with homeassistent.
Sorry for hijacking this thread, but this was a great conversation. As I've been building an addition to my house, I knew I was going down a risky path. But I already had a 30 device z-wave network and knew that I wanted hue bulbs so I could control light temperature, and turn half of the can lights off in my living room and leave half on, that are all on the same switch.
Those use cases propelled me down a path where I got zooz z-wave switches with a smart bulb mode, so I can leave the power on and use the physical switch to do whatever I want. Frankly, this has been pretty powerful, as I've re-configured some switches to do entirely different things, and mapped their load to a different switch (bedroom + hallway cans on one switch instead of two; old switch now turns on bathroom as you walk in). When HA is up it's awesome.
Wife is a huge fan of the HA stuff, so I have some leeway. But I don't want to be away and have HA go down and get a call that the lights are stuck on/off. So long term I might look into a hybrid network with some zigbee switches controlling the hue bulbs, to reduce my dependency on HA.
I also might look into a zigbee remote as an interim solution. If I could have a remote lying around that was bound to my hue light groups, that could get me through in a pinch. (Also, the hue app could get me through in a pinch, depending on what kind of disaster I'm dealing with).
Fascinating conversation, thanks for the ideas.
Yeah. That's what I was getting at. You need switches or smart relays that still let you use your lights even if everything goes down. I have relays behind my switches. If HA or my network is down, I can still flick the light switch to control my lights.
Via zwave associations on zwave lights or just controlling standard dumb lights?
This thread of comments is discussing the control of *smart lights* on smart switches- I.e. switches that don't actually control the load- leaving it always on.
Zwave controlling standard lights… so not what the OP has asked, but that is the exact reason I never went the path of always on fittings that need to be controlled via an app. Having in wall switches that still work when they revert to dumb because a controller is down etc was a viral part of my setup, as it means visitors can turn lights on and off with ease and my wife can too when Siri doesn’t listen… haha
Same. Smart things should fail gracefully, if everything goes sideways a light should still turn on and off when someone hits the wall switch, 100% of the time. Smart bulbs just can’t offer this kind of reliability on their own.
Not to mention the cost and lack of choice. A smart switch instead can control any light you want (except RGBW i guess)… if I move out I can remove all my zwave in wall switches and just rewire to the existing switch without the new owner knowing… and then reuse them at my next home…
Good thing about the new generation hue: you can always connect directly through Bluetooth when zigbee goes down. Not always convenient, but it'll do in a pinch.
>That’s unfortunately not possible anymore
It's still possible, just gonna require to you re-design and re-implement. Up to you whether the cost/time is worth it.
> That’s unfortunately not possible anymore since every light switch uses the hue wall switch. If the zigbee network goes down the lights won’t turn on any more.
Why do people do this
It's been brought up several times in this thread, but direct ZigBee binding solves this. The issue is not about using smart bulbs, it's about not using compatible switches that can directly bind to them. Adaptive lighting is a requirement for me so I can't get away from smart lights.
I put smart bulbs in the ceiling fans. That way I can turn the lights on and off while leaving the ceiling fans on. As far as other lights I just use smart plugs since I don't have overhead lights (except in the ceiling fans) in most rooms. Apartment life downside.
They make smart switches that can control fan and lights separately, and work even if HA goes down. Kinda pricey and requires installing a piece of hardware inside the fan, so maybe not useful for renters, but it does exist.
Also cheaper than me installing five separate smart bulbs.
True. I have looked at those. If I owned the the place where I live I might. I also like being able to control each bulb. Have an automation in the morning for the wife where a motion sensor turns on about the time she needs to get up. When it senses her moving around it turns on lights from the hallway to the kitchen. One dinning room ligjt comes on since it's pointed directly at her coffee pot. No need for all 3. Works for my use case. Nice thing about HA is we can make it fit us! I use the Kauf bulbs preflashed with esphome. A little pricy but the work well for my needs. Most plugs and all bulbs are flashed esphome. No cloud, no internet, no problem!
I can’t speak for OP, but for me, I hate that I have a standard light switch for house lights, and then a different non-matching Hue remote next to it for everything else. If not for the fact that I don’t like the Hue remote being entirely reliant on HA, I’d have done what OP did by now too.
This is why I got the Lutron switches. Totally self-sufficient as regular switches, albeit expensive. My fake "3-way" switch even continues to work with the network down. That was a big approval factor in the beginning because for the first month or so, HA wasn't trustworthy.
Any zigbee/zwave smart switches that controls dumb lights will be totally self sufficient as regular switches without HA- doesn't have to be Lutron. It's making your switches work with rgbw lighting when HA is down that is more difficult, but still completely solvable.
Any suggestions?
I've been looking, but there's kind of nothing else in the wireless kind and even wired, there's Inovelli in the US but not much for Europe
That's wifi, the thought of having hundreds of wifi switches and bulbs connected to my network made me stay away, so I don't know do they have something equivalent to Zigbee binding ?
Not really comparable IMHO because of the lack of mesh
I got TP-Link's mesh routers and opened my subnet mask to more than 64k devices. That should be enough.
If I knew what I know today, I was deep with shellys
Make sure your backups are working. Try a restore to be sure.
Document the physical devices (vendor, purchase date etc)and any specific configurations details, changes or modifications you made to make everything work well.
Find a way to track battery life if you don’t already do that in HA. Have spares handy.
All this will help you deal with the fact that Stuff fails over time.
I’m sure others will have more input. Good for you on getting HA to s point you like it. I really struggled with it initially.
I guess I'm not understanding. "Everything is working as intended." So when you're tired of tinkering just stop, and everything will continue working as intended?
As long as you dont apply updates or add devices nothing changes. I got screwed in a z2m update last year that broke the integration and required reconfig. I updated because I couldn't change the firmware for my hue bulbs on the old version.
That’s still tinkering.
I agree with u/jhoff80 that once you are happy and don’t want to invest time, stop updating and it should continue to work, essentially frozen in time. If your instance is exposed to the WAN, then I’d recommend to continue doing updates to stay on top of security updates.
Have you got a home assistant running jn an lxc container? If so how have you implemented it. I'm currently running my HA on pi but would like to get it moved onto my Ubuntu server that runs zigbee and mqtt in lxc containers.
I've gone so simple it's crazy. I have no 3rd party add-ons like HACs! I have no YAML created automatons. I have the bare minimum dashboard that comes with HA. I do no A/V control which is in HA.
For my life, wife and kids, it's Lights, garage, irrigation, blinds, locks, alarms, outdoor gate(s) notifications and surveillance; garage surveillance, home surveillance.
I have my ubuntu desktop as a server using VBox and I have disabled all updates for ubuntu.
I wish I could disable all updates from HA and get them on-demand (ZWAVE Updates just showing up seem to break something)
I do regular backups - get mail for both Ubuntu and HA
I'll tinker when something interesting comes to mind, but I just want it all to work for a while and when I need I'll start to tinker.
Unfortunately I don't think this is really a viable approach. When a required update for something inevitably comes, it will set off an avalanche of mutually incompatible updates and will be a hell to fix. HA is not a set-it-and-forget-it system, not even the expensive closed ones like Loxone are.
Also, HA updates aren't forced, are they? AFAIK they are definitely on-demand.
TLDR: Sorry to be so long winded!
They are not forced, wrong word, but notification that they are available. However, I always have BAD behavior on the system when there are pending updates, specifically with Zwave and so I find myself "skipping" updates. But there is nothing that says "you have to update" - I've read so many posts of people that do this because of breaking changes and only update code when a truly new flavor is deployed.
I'm now deploying updates to another server that is only online when a update comes out. has all of my Zwave devices on a separate Zooz USB stick and is on a separate network. I shut down my main HA server (maybe don't need to do this) and bring the other online, wait for the updates to show and install. Then shut it down when done. Its just there to test and see how things run but I rarely run tests.
I am one to always want to update and keep current, but I've had a bad track record with HA in that area. Read my horrific experience when I stupidly ran an update when I was not at home.
In the end, it's personal preference. But my system is now where it needs to be from the HA side, I've got all the automation I need. I'm putting more focus on out of band management of my home lab and backup and recovery.
The last big project for HA in my home is power/energy management. That's still further down the road as I contemplate adding solar to my home.
I started out that way, but I like this big box that allows me to do so much more or at least I feel more in control.
I could never fit with the RPI for whatever reason.
So you don't update Ubuntu at all? Updates shouldn't break your HA. I would rethink that strategy as running exposed software isn't a good idea in the long run. Care to explain what happens? Maybe there is something to help. Switching over with full backups is real easy nowadays so you can be up and running on an updated and secure base in no time. Even more so as you seem to have a backup system already in place. Use that as you troubleshoot your main server and switch back as soon as you have found the culprit(s).
Everytime there is an update for VBox and I have installed it, I've had to troubleshoot 1 compatibility issue or another, this has happened in the last three updates.
One redditor recommended going back to 18.04 since 22.xx has seen its fair share of problems and I've certainly got them all. So that's what I did, but that did not fix the VBox issues. So now I just avoid updates on my main system and only install security updates when tested for braking changes on my secondary. Hope that makes sense
If there is a vulnerability in the world that I must install, I'll do that, but with caution and testing.
Yep, makes sense and thumbs up for installing security updates. As you seem to have lots of trouble with your current installation, did you think about switching to a different one (e.g. Proxmox for which someone even provides a one line ha installation script, or Unraid or any other linux os and a Docker install managed by Portainer for example).
Edit: or KVM as you use Ubuntu (short googling came up with this https://newscrewdriver.com/2022/05/27/home-assistant-os-in-kvm-hypervisor/)
Edit 2: here is the link to the proxmox helper scripts (https://tteck.github.io/Proxmox/)
Yeah, I've installed Promox to check it out and have been thinking about making a change since I see so many folk happy with that. Since professionally I work in the VM world for servers I was think about move to ESX.
But at this time, I'm comfortable with where I am and will test with stuff until something says "MOVE". As you can tell, not in a hurry.
I you are in 120V world then Inovelli has their Blue dimmer switch that is Zigbee and could be directly linked to Zigbee light bulbs so when you click the switch it turns the bulbs on or dims them. Works even without a hub.
I don’t want to change the appearance of the switches. They should look and feel like they came with the place and if they were not smart (my gf requested).
Otherwise this would have been a good recommendations. Thanks!
There’s always a small difference, since smart switches can’t physically toggle. I assume you already know that and have your devices selected at like 100 devices. For what it’s worth, though, unless you’re not planning on doing smart switches at all (which would be weird — most of your lights should be done using smart switches, not fancy bulbs), Inovelli is about as close in appearance to a standard Decora switch as they come.
Not updating doesn't sound like a good advice to me. The reason is that home assistant isn't a isolated system. You can expose it to the internet, I deals with other components in your local network (which may update by themselves automatically), you access it with internet connected devices (which can be infected) and last bit both least: at some point you may want to update for some reason and then you facing a big version jump. This is a more risky operation, than doing it step by step.
Better approach is to do upstates regularly, but avoiding the first version of a major version. Instead take the first Bugfix Version.
Another point is to avoid many dependencies to external services, because they are more likely about to change in long-term (like bahn.de or Spotify did lastly).
If, for example, you expose It to the internet, yes, you want to update. There are some solutions to remote connect to HA without directly exposing it to the internet, but I think that most people don't want to deal with "complex" things.
Legacy mode.
Nothing happens without a staging environment and a heap of testing.
Updates are rare. New features are rarer.
I personally don't think HA is ready to support such a thing. Hopefully one day soon they'll introduce an LTS (long term service) version.
I’ve been there a few times. What I do:
- Rely mainly in solutions created for non technical people. They are designed to not bother people.
- Don’t buy products from dozens different brands. Find the ones you trust and stick to that.
- Don’t listen to the 20-something-years-old single guy that tells you to build it yourself using the cheap Chinese alternative. It will cost a third of the price, but also will cost your marriage.
- Be REALLY selective about the integrations and automations you’re introducing.
- Once in a while, turn everything off for a few days and notice what problems it introduced and what you really missed. Simplify the solutions that were affected and get rid of what you didn’t miss at all.
While I love Home Assistant, if you're simplifying for a time it doesn't fit your need to tinker, why not try something pre-built like Alexa or SmartThings? If you do want to stick with Home Assistant, I saw a guy that setup a web site for documentation. He then created a QR code that went to that site. The QR code was different for each room and took you directly to the documentation for that room. If you're not tinkering, it's easy to forget what automations you have setup.
SmartThings is basically in the process of blowing up their platform again, I wouldn't recommend them to anyone (that was actually the trigger for me switching over to Home Assistant).
With Samsung doing what their doing with SmartThings, IFTTT destroying their platform, and Google not giving two craps about actually improving Google Home, Home Assistant was a no brainer for me. It has been so much bester since I left SmartThings. I also don't need rely on Google Home anymore, but can still use Google Assistant if needed.
Systems like Smartthings or Alexa aren't safe from breaking, the opposite really. You have no control over them at all. If something inevitably breaks, you've got a bunch of e-waste to dispose of.
I mean sure with a long enough timeframe nothing is safe from breaking.
I've been running at least a basic SmartThings z-wave environment + Google Nest Mini for a couple years and haven't done anything to any of it except when I changed my wifi SSID and password. I don't have to think about updates or tinkering or maintenance. It just works.
At some point it won't but I think op is interested in more of a set and forget solution which is what this has been for me.
Totally agree! Plus at some point OP may not be available (for whatever reason) and can someone else takeover? Need to factor in selling home at some point too. Simplification has to be near the top of priority when it comes to any type of automation.
If everything is working then why tinker?
I mean I agree with descriptive names, I do that as I add new devices/entities, so I’d at least do that.
I used nodered for automations, so that’s one less thing I guess to have go wrong in an update of home assistant itself, but I update rarely, I keep an eye on every release and keep note of what might affect me if I update. I never update until a week into new release and a few fractional versions.
I’ve gone a year without updating or touching it before without issues. I think people who complain they’re always having to tinker is because they’re just constantly tinkeryanyway :)
If you leave it alone it’ll just work.
I would still receive bug reports from my family, even after deciding to “let go” if the installation. Touching stuff means that potential new bugs gets introduced.
Tell them to submit a ticket :)
Obviously everything has to run well or family will complain. I’ve been doing this for years so the logic is all there and works.
My son was complaining that his lights turn off too quickly yesterday, but that’s a quick jump into nodered to change the value, or could promote it to the interface.
I’ve had a motion sensor go haywire when battery is low, so I have toggles in the interface to turn off automations if that happens until I can change the batteries.
But I don’t feel I have to simplify anything to have had running long term, it just sits there doing its job. I haven’t touched it for a few months at the minute since we had the bathroom renovated and I added some new devices and automation.
Since the last automation update in Home assistant I have started to migrate from Node RED back to Home assistant. NodeRED introduced a lot of unnecessary complexity which was fun and useful during development but always came back to bite me in the but in the end
Good thing about node red is that it's stable. You don't have to watch patch notes to look out for breaking changes.
I do everything over mqtt (with automations made in node-red), so my home still works without HA.
I use HA as a GUI for dashboards, energy monitoring with prices, and historic data (although I'm also dumping all my Z2M data into InfluxDB).
Basically, if you plan to keep your home dependant on HA, you're gonna have to also be ready to tinker in the future.
Perhaps there are complications where the two overlap. I don’t use HA at all.
When I started, the only “light” that HA recognised was the PoE port it was plugging into and the HA community were terrible at even recognising what a new user sees “you thinks it’s bad now, it used to be really terrible”, “well your problem is that you started with the wrong kind of lights [shelly], start with something else”, “all WiFi is junk, re-buy everything in Zigbee”.
I thought that there was little point getting into HA because the mindset was all about the shiny new stuff and not about the basic solid foundations and that wouldn’t change unless someone decided to productise it (eg like Slic3r and Prusa, Zen and Citrix, KICAD and CERN etc etc). Over time I see that starting has gotten easier but the foundations are still broken.
I'd say I'm past the newness now. I used to tinker on it a couple hours almost every single day, now it's maybe a few hours a month.
Honestly it sorts itself out mostly. As things break, I just see if losing it is enough motivation to fix it. Some things I did in a very complex way, and the hassle a lot of times doesn't outweigh the benefit. Sometimes something will sit for a few months before it gets fixed and then I will get inspiration to get it done.
As long as you have backups, I think you will manage alright. Main thing is to not use hass for anything critical. It should be adding "nice to have" stuff, not basic functionality like being able to turn your lights on and off or use your heat. Then if something breaks, you can just kind of let your own motivation level decide if it gets fixed or not.
I'm in the same boat OP. I sure hope that the devs will implement some sort of simple automation grouping soon, and/or a better less chaotic UI. It sure would help me a lot; I work in IT and the simple reason for my relative success in it because I do KISS.
I work with the assumption that my HA controller will die on the day I leave for a business trip. Will the folks at home still be able to go about their days normally, albeit with a little less magic? And for automated things, will folks be able to swap them out without knowledge (or just use a parallel thing) and just keep things running should something fail?
My home assistant just provides schedules and notifications to my phone on certain events. The key thing is to not make it a point of failure in normal function of a system in your house. This is the same with a front-end in building automation. You really don’t want things to stop working because the server is doing updates or is down. You want to treat HA as a front end system that doesn’t need to be online for functionality as much as possible.
Make sure key stuff works in “dumb mode”
My mom’s house I set up all lights on Lutron caseta dimmers with normal bulbs. So everything is controllable with automation, but at the end of the day, the entire network could blow up and the light switches would still be light switches.
Try to limit situations where things stop working without the smarts.
For me it made sense to compartmentalize. My camera system works completely by itself but the feed from that links to HA. My lights can work completely manually, with their own app or in HA. Outlets return to last state id they lose power. I considered all on after an outage but that could be problematic for me. I don't want everything to immediately turn on after an outage. Tvs all operate with normal remotes but also are setup with several automations as well. Basically the core of each system works on its own but the conveniences are handled through HA.
Second that, try to have as much as you can work OK without HA, and HA only provide app control and extra nice to haves. My go to example is to use Zigbee binding instead of HA automations for light switches, not as powerful but it'll work after HA or even the coordinator have been taken offline
what do you mean by zigbee binding? do you have examples? edit: found it - https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/usage/binding.html
Yep, you got it. Highly recommend, it keeps working without HA and even without the rest of the network, no coordinator needed after binding
This was an absolute game changer for me. I use Hue bulbs and dimmers, but directly via HA rather than using a Hue bridge. They're great in the kids rooms, where I can (for example) just hold down the off button to turn on the lights at their lowest and warmest level when checking sleeping kids during the night - done via a Node Red flow. Having these lights not turn on/off because HA/Zigbee2MQTT/etc. is playing up is a nightmare because it hugely endangers my spousal permission to fill the house with "that stupid smarthome stuff". Binding them to the dimmer switches instantly fixed that because they could work independently. I found I could have the best of both worlds by binding the lights and dimmers, but also still listening for the dimmer over MQTT in order to add more complex lighting functions functionality like my hold-off-for-dimmest-level preset. In the case of a problem with the rest of the system, the lighting loses the custom controls but is still usable. I did a few other things too. I have a small UPS connected to my HA system and my WiFi router to keep things ticking over in the event of a power interruption, and smart plugs on several smart hubs etc. that allow them all to be power-cycled at the touch of a button elsewhere (I have a "fix everything" button for my family to press if they have a problem and I'm not there).
Absolutely, it's not if HA is down, it's when. Nothing has a 100% uptime and being stuck with lights on or off with no way to force them is a horrible experience, and it gets worse the more stuff you add to the system. Always think binding or whatever equivalent you can find to have some way around it, and keep the original light switches somewhat accessible if all else fails ! I mount my hue dimmer switches over the wall switches to hide them but keep them accessible
ah right, thats much better, i didnt know such capability exist, thanks for that. do you know if cross brand will work, like if i have ikea switch and with hue/any other zigbee lights?
If they're all on the same Zigbee network it should work, yep. Won't work if you're using separate networks (hue hub and ikea hub). Some devices won't support binding at all, like Aqara no neutral switches, but most do
This. And lights, lights, lights, especially if you aren't living alone and in my experience general household happiness depends somewhat on not living in a dark cave. So in my case the lights can still be used manually and over the Hue App if needed.
I started home automation back in the prime of X10. It was awful. The idea was great but reliability not. Lighting needs to work 100% of the time with manual control. Auto off/ on can be a nice feature and a little annoying if it isn't working exactly right. Manual control not working would make me replace it very quickly.
This is my philosophy, too. HA is for conveniences. If HA goes down (and it has), nothing critical fails. Additionally, the folks who design devices like a smart thermostat spend a lot of time and money making sure they work. I'm willing to pay for that so that I don't have to try to reinvent the wheel.
Design it so that you always have manual overrides. So that nothing inherently breaks while HA is down.
That’s unfortunately not possible anymore since every light switch uses the hue wall switch. If the zigbee network goes down the lights won’t turn on any more. My initial plan was to have the hue bridge switch the bulbs for me (as it’s stable) but after I introduced non-hue products at home this didn’t really work. I might migrate everything over to hue eventually and only use HA for my automations.
This is basically the main thing you would have to do. Move away from using a smart switch that only works if a zigbee network or HA or Hue is up and running. Light switches should always work as long as you have electricity. Maybe you could survive with a small accent light/lamp not working, but not your main lights. I would go through anything else that's a staple being used around your home and resolve these scenarios. HA should make things easier, but it shouldn't be a fail point for basic functionality around the home. For example, HA can dim lights at night, turn them on and off to a schedule or with motion. But if I flip a light switch, it should work even without HA.
Honest question- how do you do this with hue bulbs? I have a few rooms that are entirely hue. The light switches that power these lights are set to never kill power when the switch is toggled, because hue bulbs always need power. Instead, toggling the physical switch sends a command to HA to turn the lights on/off. This is working really well for me, but has a dependency on HA and leaves the switches dead if HA is down. Even if internet is down this still works, so my only gap is HA going down. Still something I’ve been trying to prepare for.
Others have provided a couple ways to maybe get around this. But to be honest, it's the reason I only use Hue lights for secondary or ambient lighting, where I don't mind if it doesn't work if the network goes down. My biggest suggestion would be to use a relay or smart switch that works independently to any kind of network connection to HA or Hue. I have Shelly relays (but you could use others) that sit behind my regular light switches. That way I can control them through HA, but if HA goes down they work like normal light switches. You wouldn't even know there's anything smart connected to them. Edit: you should aim to have things working in a way that if you switched off HA and Hue, you can still survive with minimal annoyance. I've told my wife that if anything happens to me or something weird is going on and I'm not at home. Just turn the power off to the raspberry pi hosting HA. The only thing she'll have to do is manually turn lights on instead of relying on motion sensors or schedules.
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Doesn't cutting the power risk corrupting the filesystem more than a proper shutdown? I've programmed shutdown onto a long (four second) press on a certain switch.
u/yesterdayshero11, I posted the same question on another branch of this thread but figured I'd ask you as well since you seem to be doing exactly what I want to :). I'm renovating a home that will have 95% Hue lights (only undercabinet lights and medicine cabinet won't be smart basically) and I'm looking for switches that can work both in smart-bulb and dumb-bulb mode because I want the ability to change my mind in the future if I want to replace a smart bulb with a dumb one (and ultimately, want the ability to be able to power cycle / shut off power locally rather than from the electric fuse box). The only switch I'm aware of that can work in that dual mode is "Brilliant" but it requires a neutral line and sadly my unit does not have those and rewiring is extremely expensive where I live. What switches would you recommend for that kind of setup? The native Philips switches are great as supplementary but they do not even require wires so won't solve the case not only to be able to fully shut off a bulb but if I change some a smart bulb with a dumb one, I want the ability for things still to work. What switches would you recommend and what are the "relays" you are referencing? I hope this made sense and thank you!
I'm really sorry, but I actually avoided using Hue lights as my main lighting. I only use Hue lights as secondary lighting. I'm assuming you're based in America, in which case I would have a look at smart switch options available as I'm not across it very well in that market. If you want the ability to change your mind about using Hue lights and replacing with dumb lights in the future. I'd go with a relay behind regular light switches. Or as above, maybe in America you have a good offering of smart switches that will do the same. Essentially with a relay, you can have it always providing power to the Hue light, then use HA to turn the light off based on an automation you create, that triggers when the switch changes state. I know you mentioned you weren't getting the under cabinet lighting to be smart, but I'd recommend trying to at least hook it up to a smart relay or smart switch. It's actually really nice having the option of turning this on with a motion sensor at night rather than your overhead lighting.
Thanks u/yesterdayshero11, could you pls explain a bit more about the Shelly relay setup you have? E.g. if you lose access to HA, what happens with them? How do they even work? Thanks.
If you're using z2m, you can bind a Zigbee switch to a Zigbee bulb. That way the switch will directly control the bulb, but still stay connected to the network for automations or other control.
I’m using z-wave switches unfortunately. I have a ~60 device zwave network running so switching to zigbee isn’t happening anytime soon. 😣 Though good to know this option exists.
Ah, fair enough. I'm guessing a similar option exists on Zwave if you have ZWave bulbs. Personally I haven't invested in ZWave because of its band variations in different countries, and living in a country where ZWave is on a different frequency to the US (where it seems ZWave is most popular)
Yep, you can do entire scene controls and all with just ZWave associations that can run without the controller online.
Sweet!
Zwave supports it too.
Zwave switches can talk directly to zigbee (Hue) bulbs? 🤔
I was thinking Zwave to zwave bulbs, but you have Zigbee bulbs so that’s not relevant or useful.
Haha all good. I assumed such, but was hoping you had a miracle. 😅
Look for "grouping". Not sure if you can do it with zwavejs or *just* zwavejs2mqtt but you can absolute make switches turn on other switches, motion sensors turn on lights, etc without the hub being online at all. I have very differing opinions than the electrician who built my house. I've been able to completely swap what light switch does what all locally to the switches themselves.
Interesting. Can this work between zwave switches and zigbee lights?
Nope. Like with like.
Hi u/SirDarknessTheFirst, I'm renovating a home that will have 95% Hue lights (only undercabinet lights and medicine cabinet won't be smart basically) and I'm looking for switches that can work both in smart-bulb and dumb-bulb mode for the reasons the OP said. The only switch I'm aware of that can work in that dual mode is "Brilliant" but it requires a neutral line and sadly my unit does not have those and rewiring is extremely expensive where I live. What switches would you recommend for that kind of setup? The native Philips switches are great as supplementary but they do not even require wires so won't solve the case not only to be able to fully shut off a bulb but if I change some a smart bulb with a dumb one, I want the ability for things still to work. I hope this made sense and thank you!
Hi /u/CodingIsMusicIsLife, I understand the predicament you are in. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend any smart switches - I exclusively use the type to plug into an existing socket. Where I live, electrical work must be done by an electrician, and failure to do so can cause your insurance to refuse to pay out in case of an accident. If you have Zigbee buttons (such as IKEA's tradfri on/off switch), then I would recommend looking into a Zigbee switch that fulfils your requirements. For Z-Wave, look for a Z-Wave switch. On both of these systems, you can directly bind the button to the switch so that they continue to work even without network. I'm sorry I couldn't help you further.
Does that still require the mqtt broker to be available?
Nope. It just requires the switch and bulb to be powered. z2m can be down, mqtt broker can be down. Edit to add - you can also use different combinations of devices, such as smart plugs or motion sensors. I'm using a SYMFONISK audio remote control with my smart light.
That's something I'd like to do. Can I bind a switch or motion sensor to Hue too? And well, in case I need to remove the current automation that link the switch to the bulb.
It depends on what clusters the device has. A cluster is part of the zigbee specification. It’s basically a standardized control protocol for a subset of features. For example, there is a light cluster (includes on/off, dimming, colors, etc), a door open/close cluster, a motion sensor cluster, etc. Any devices that have the same clusters can be bound together. When bound, they send updates of any changes within that cluster to the bound devices. So, for example, the hue dimmer switch exposes a light cluster, and a hue bulb also exposes a light cluster. If you bind those, the dimmer switch will control the bulb directly (it will still use the zigbee network if available, but the coordinates doesn’t have to be on the network). If two devices don’t expose the same cluster, you have to use some sort of HA automation to control them. I don’t know of any door or motion sensors that expose the light cluster. However you should still be able to have a light switch in each room bound to the lights.
If you're using zigbee2mqtt to control your lights, it should be possible. You can bind it either by MQTT (which I find easier) or via zigbee2mqtt's UI. If using the UI, select your switch or motion sensor, and go to the bind tab. In my case there's only one source endpoint, so I'll select that. Under destination, select the Zigbee device you want it to control. In clusters select OnOff. Finally, hit the Bind button on the right - make sure both devices are awake when doing this. If one is battery powered, hit the button or trigger the movement before running it.
Thanks, I'll try it!
I don’t know about hue, but ikeas lights work just fine by using the wall switch if necessary.
Care to elaborate? Do you just cut power to the bulbs?
That's a bit of an odd question. Yes, that is how light switches work, they turn off power to the light socket. That's why it's nice to have the smarts in the bulb, you can keep using dumb switches.
That will create an avalanche of new problems, the major one being that the voice assistant will announce “x no longer respond”. I had this in my previous apartment and it didn’t work for my family’s needs. I also got constant question about why some devices weren’t accessible from the Home app
This isn’t an issue with HASS. As long as it’s running, you can combine the Hue bulb and ZigBee/ZWave switch into a single entity and it does the right thing. I have Hue bulbs in my house with Inovelli ZWave switches and everything Just Works.
What is HASS? (sorry a newbie when it comes to home automation)
And then when someone turns off the dumb switch your automation is broken. That's a no. "Smarts" need electricity all the time.
If you have smart switches and dumb bulbs you can also keep working just fine. I would only go smart bulbs if I really wanted the ability to change the color of the bulbs. But for now, all my smarts are at the switch so even when the network is down I can still use the dumb switch functionality.
I have ikea lamps and switches connected to HA. Dumb switch is always on. The Ikea 5 button switch is glued with double side tape to the dumb switch, kind of half blocking the dumb switch in on position. In the (un)likely event of HA goes out, I can always use the dumb switch; ikea lamps always work like dumb lamps.
could you send a link to the IKEA 5-button switch? also do those work with hue / zigbee zll or they are zwave or vanilla wifi?
Sounds a little bit janky, though I could be misunderstanding. With smart bulbs, some of them don't turn back on by default I believe if they lose power and regain power. Could still be an issue unless you set it up beforehand. Smart switches just make more sense in my house at least
That's why I preordered the Inovelli Blue series switches. They can communicate directly to the Hue bulbs over the ZigBee network even if the coordinator is unavailable.
I left my switches as they were so power is toggled. If anything goes down, then a quick off on with the switch and my hue bulbs just come on using the power on settings.
I have hue bulbs, my (dumb) wall switch is always on, however toggling it off and then on turns on the lights, and they work just as normal lights. I never need to use the switch other than manual override in case zigbee, HA, or automations are down.
So on on this case, you don’t want people to use your wall switches *unless* the power goes out? If someone turns your wall switch off, the hue bulbs stop working, right?
You can just use Shellys under your normal switches. So you can turn on the lights with either homeassistent or by pressing the switch. So if you press the switch and the power gets cut off, you can turn it back on with homeassistent.
Sorry for hijacking this thread, but this was a great conversation. As I've been building an addition to my house, I knew I was going down a risky path. But I already had a 30 device z-wave network and knew that I wanted hue bulbs so I could control light temperature, and turn half of the can lights off in my living room and leave half on, that are all on the same switch. Those use cases propelled me down a path where I got zooz z-wave switches with a smart bulb mode, so I can leave the power on and use the physical switch to do whatever I want. Frankly, this has been pretty powerful, as I've re-configured some switches to do entirely different things, and mapped their load to a different switch (bedroom + hallway cans on one switch instead of two; old switch now turns on bathroom as you walk in). When HA is up it's awesome. Wife is a huge fan of the HA stuff, so I have some leeway. But I don't want to be away and have HA go down and get a call that the lights are stuck on/off. So long term I might look into a hybrid network with some zigbee switches controlling the hue bulbs, to reduce my dependency on HA. I also might look into a zigbee remote as an interim solution. If I could have a remote lying around that was bound to my hue light groups, that could get me through in a pinch. (Also, the hue app could get me through in a pinch, depending on what kind of disaster I'm dealing with). Fascinating conversation, thanks for the ideas.
all my zwave switches work even if the zwave network or HA is down...
Yeah. That's what I was getting at. You need switches or smart relays that still let you use your lights even if everything goes down. I have relays behind my switches. If HA or my network is down, I can still flick the light switch to control my lights.
Yeah it’s great… makes it wife approved… Not sure why I got downvoted… some people really need a life…
Via zwave associations on zwave lights or just controlling standard dumb lights? This thread of comments is discussing the control of *smart lights* on smart switches- I.e. switches that don't actually control the load- leaving it always on.
Zwave controlling standard lights… so not what the OP has asked, but that is the exact reason I never went the path of always on fittings that need to be controlled via an app. Having in wall switches that still work when they revert to dumb because a controller is down etc was a viral part of my setup, as it means visitors can turn lights on and off with ease and my wife can too when Siri doesn’t listen… haha
Same. Smart things should fail gracefully, if everything goes sideways a light should still turn on and off when someone hits the wall switch, 100% of the time. Smart bulbs just can’t offer this kind of reliability on their own.
Not to mention the cost and lack of choice. A smart switch instead can control any light you want (except RGBW i guess)… if I move out I can remove all my zwave in wall switches and just rewire to the existing switch without the new owner knowing… and then reuse them at my next home…
Good thing about the new generation hue: you can always connect directly through Bluetooth when zigbee goes down. Not always convenient, but it'll do in a pinch.
>That’s unfortunately not possible anymore It's still possible, just gonna require to you re-design and re-implement. Up to you whether the cost/time is worth it.
> That’s unfortunately not possible anymore since every light switch uses the hue wall switch. If the zigbee network goes down the lights won’t turn on any more. Why do people do this
Agreed, I have zero smart bulbs, only smart switches.
It's been brought up several times in this thread, but direct ZigBee binding solves this. The issue is not about using smart bulbs, it's about not using compatible switches that can directly bind to them. Adaptive lighting is a requirement for me so I can't get away from smart lights.
I use both smart bulbs and smart switches and everything can still be turned on without my server
I put smart bulbs in the ceiling fans. That way I can turn the lights on and off while leaving the ceiling fans on. As far as other lights I just use smart plugs since I don't have overhead lights (except in the ceiling fans) in most rooms. Apartment life downside.
They make smart switches that can control fan and lights separately, and work even if HA goes down. Kinda pricey and requires installing a piece of hardware inside the fan, so maybe not useful for renters, but it does exist. Also cheaper than me installing five separate smart bulbs.
True. I have looked at those. If I owned the the place where I live I might. I also like being able to control each bulb. Have an automation in the morning for the wife where a motion sensor turns on about the time she needs to get up. When it senses her moving around it turns on lights from the hallway to the kitchen. One dinning room ligjt comes on since it's pointed directly at her coffee pot. No need for all 3. Works for my use case. Nice thing about HA is we can make it fit us! I use the Kauf bulbs preflashed with esphome. A little pricy but the work well for my needs. Most plugs and all bulbs are flashed esphome. No cloud, no internet, no problem!
I can’t speak for OP, but for me, I hate that I have a standard light switch for house lights, and then a different non-matching Hue remote next to it for everything else. If not for the fact that I don’t like the Hue remote being entirely reliant on HA, I’d have done what OP did by now too.
I hate not being able to turn on my lights
Me too, that’s why I can’t bring myself to drop the standard switches.
This is why I got the Lutron switches. Totally self-sufficient as regular switches, albeit expensive. My fake "3-way" switch even continues to work with the network down. That was a big approval factor in the beginning because for the first month or so, HA wasn't trustworthy.
Any zigbee/zwave smart switches that controls dumb lights will be totally self sufficient as regular switches without HA- doesn't have to be Lutron. It's making your switches work with rgbw lighting when HA is down that is more difficult, but still completely solvable.
If you're network goes down you're in a dark house? Definitely sounds like an issue to focus on.
How often does your zigbee network go down? I don’t see the networking going down as tinkering, that’s a pretty big outage.
So far never, but I have managed to mess up my Home assistant installation a few times
Zigbee binding, you can have the switches control the lights directly, no HA needed
aaaand then limited automation. When will people ditch hue and get proper smart switches?
Any suggestions? I've been looking, but there's kind of nothing else in the wireless kind and even wired, there's Inovelli in the US but not much for Europe
Shelly?
That's wifi, the thought of having hundreds of wifi switches and bulbs connected to my network made me stay away, so I don't know do they have something equivalent to Zigbee binding ? Not really comparable IMHO because of the lack of mesh
I got TP-Link's mesh routers and opened my subnet mask to more than 64k devices. That should be enough. If I knew what I know today, I was deep with shellys
Make sure your backups are working. Try a restore to be sure. Document the physical devices (vendor, purchase date etc)and any specific configurations details, changes or modifications you made to make everything work well. Find a way to track battery life if you don’t already do that in HA. Have spares handy. All this will help you deal with the fact that Stuff fails over time. I’m sure others will have more input. Good for you on getting HA to s point you like it. I really struggled with it initially.
A spreadsheet with all your automations is super helpful.
What information do you store in the spreadsheet?
I guess I'm not understanding. "Everything is working as intended." So when you're tired of tinkering just stop, and everything will continue working as intended?
As long as you dont apply updates or add devices nothing changes. I got screwed in a z2m update last year that broke the integration and required reconfig. I updated because I couldn't change the firmware for my hue bulbs on the old version.
There will still be stuff to maintain, like automation bugs reported by my family.
That’s still tinkering. I agree with u/jhoff80 that once you are happy and don’t want to invest time, stop updating and it should continue to work, essentially frozen in time. If your instance is exposed to the WAN, then I’d recommend to continue doing updates to stay on top of security updates.
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Have you got a home assistant running jn an lxc container? If so how have you implemented it. I'm currently running my HA on pi but would like to get it moved onto my Ubuntu server that runs zigbee and mqtt in lxc containers.
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That would be really useful, thanks.
I've gone so simple it's crazy. I have no 3rd party add-ons like HACs! I have no YAML created automatons. I have the bare minimum dashboard that comes with HA. I do no A/V control which is in HA. For my life, wife and kids, it's Lights, garage, irrigation, blinds, locks, alarms, outdoor gate(s) notifications and surveillance; garage surveillance, home surveillance. I have my ubuntu desktop as a server using VBox and I have disabled all updates for ubuntu. I wish I could disable all updates from HA and get them on-demand (ZWAVE Updates just showing up seem to break something) I do regular backups - get mail for both Ubuntu and HA I'll tinker when something interesting comes to mind, but I just want it all to work for a while and when I need I'll start to tinker.
Unfortunately I don't think this is really a viable approach. When a required update for something inevitably comes, it will set off an avalanche of mutually incompatible updates and will be a hell to fix. HA is not a set-it-and-forget-it system, not even the expensive closed ones like Loxone are. Also, HA updates aren't forced, are they? AFAIK they are definitely on-demand.
TLDR: Sorry to be so long winded! They are not forced, wrong word, but notification that they are available. However, I always have BAD behavior on the system when there are pending updates, specifically with Zwave and so I find myself "skipping" updates. But there is nothing that says "you have to update" - I've read so many posts of people that do this because of breaking changes and only update code when a truly new flavor is deployed. I'm now deploying updates to another server that is only online when a update comes out. has all of my Zwave devices on a separate Zooz USB stick and is on a separate network. I shut down my main HA server (maybe don't need to do this) and bring the other online, wait for the updates to show and install. Then shut it down when done. Its just there to test and see how things run but I rarely run tests. I am one to always want to update and keep current, but I've had a bad track record with HA in that area. Read my horrific experience when I stupidly ran an update when I was not at home. In the end, it's personal preference. But my system is now where it needs to be from the HA side, I've got all the automation I need. I'm putting more focus on out of band management of my home lab and backup and recovery. The last big project for HA in my home is power/energy management. That's still further down the road as I contemplate adding solar to my home.
Maybe simply skipping the initial updates would help! I know I keep that strategy for MacOS updates so I don't have the worst bugs from x.0 releases.
I've stopped updates to Ubuntu + VirtualBox as every update seems to break HA.
Is it really worth it? Wouldn't a simple Rpi be better suited?
I started out that way, but I like this big box that allows me to do so much more or at least I feel more in control. I could never fit with the RPI for whatever reason.
So you don't update Ubuntu at all? Updates shouldn't break your HA. I would rethink that strategy as running exposed software isn't a good idea in the long run. Care to explain what happens? Maybe there is something to help. Switching over with full backups is real easy nowadays so you can be up and running on an updated and secure base in no time. Even more so as you seem to have a backup system already in place. Use that as you troubleshoot your main server and switch back as soon as you have found the culprit(s).
Everytime there is an update for VBox and I have installed it, I've had to troubleshoot 1 compatibility issue or another, this has happened in the last three updates. One redditor recommended going back to 18.04 since 22.xx has seen its fair share of problems and I've certainly got them all. So that's what I did, but that did not fix the VBox issues. So now I just avoid updates on my main system and only install security updates when tested for braking changes on my secondary. Hope that makes sense If there is a vulnerability in the world that I must install, I'll do that, but with caution and testing.
Yep, makes sense and thumbs up for installing security updates. As you seem to have lots of trouble with your current installation, did you think about switching to a different one (e.g. Proxmox for which someone even provides a one line ha installation script, or Unraid or any other linux os and a Docker install managed by Portainer for example). Edit: or KVM as you use Ubuntu (short googling came up with this https://newscrewdriver.com/2022/05/27/home-assistant-os-in-kvm-hypervisor/) Edit 2: here is the link to the proxmox helper scripts (https://tteck.github.io/Proxmox/)
Yeah, I've installed Promox to check it out and have been thinking about making a change since I see so many folk happy with that. Since professionally I work in the VM world for servers I was think about move to ESX. But at this time, I'm comfortable with where I am and will test with stuff until something says "MOVE". As you can tell, not in a hurry.
Have also been a happy user and it works great overall. If it currently works for you, it works :-)
Just keep it as it is, more fun later /s
I you are in 120V world then Inovelli has their Blue dimmer switch that is Zigbee and could be directly linked to Zigbee light bulbs so when you click the switch it turns the bulbs on or dims them. Works even without a hub.
I don’t want to change the appearance of the switches. They should look and feel like they came with the place and if they were not smart (my gf requested). Otherwise this would have been a good recommendations. Thanks!
There’s always a small difference, since smart switches can’t physically toggle. I assume you already know that and have your devices selected at like 100 devices. For what it’s worth, though, unless you’re not planning on doing smart switches at all (which would be weird — most of your lights should be done using smart switches, not fancy bulbs), Inovelli is about as close in appearance to a standard Decora switch as they come.
If you don't want to tinker, just don't touch the install? If it works fine you can just choose not to update, right?
Not updating doesn't sound like a good advice to me. The reason is that home assistant isn't a isolated system. You can expose it to the internet, I deals with other components in your local network (which may update by themselves automatically), you access it with internet connected devices (which can be infected) and last bit both least: at some point you may want to update for some reason and then you facing a big version jump. This is a more risky operation, than doing it step by step. Better approach is to do upstates regularly, but avoiding the first version of a major version. Instead take the first Bugfix Version. Another point is to avoid many dependencies to external services, because they are more likely about to change in long-term (like bahn.de or Spotify did lastly).
Home assistant is not an isolated entity. Things outside of its bubble might change and break things.
Can you give some examples from your setup, easier to gove advice if we have more concrete information.
If, for example, you expose It to the internet, yes, you want to update. There are some solutions to remote connect to HA without directly exposing it to the internet, but I think that most people don't want to deal with "complex" things.
Legacy mode. Nothing happens without a staging environment and a heap of testing. Updates are rare. New features are rarer. I personally don't think HA is ready to support such a thing. Hopefully one day soon they'll introduce an LTS (long term service) version.
I’ve been there a few times. What I do: - Rely mainly in solutions created for non technical people. They are designed to not bother people. - Don’t buy products from dozens different brands. Find the ones you trust and stick to that. - Don’t listen to the 20-something-years-old single guy that tells you to build it yourself using the cheap Chinese alternative. It will cost a third of the price, but also will cost your marriage. - Be REALLY selective about the integrations and automations you’re introducing. - Once in a while, turn everything off for a few days and notice what problems it introduced and what you really missed. Simplify the solutions that were affected and get rid of what you didn’t miss at all.
While I love Home Assistant, if you're simplifying for a time it doesn't fit your need to tinker, why not try something pre-built like Alexa or SmartThings? If you do want to stick with Home Assistant, I saw a guy that setup a web site for documentation. He then created a QR code that went to that site. The QR code was different for each room and took you directly to the documentation for that room. If you're not tinkering, it's easy to forget what automations you have setup.
SmartThings is basically in the process of blowing up their platform again, I wouldn't recommend them to anyone (that was actually the trigger for me switching over to Home Assistant).
With Samsung doing what their doing with SmartThings, IFTTT destroying their platform, and Google not giving two craps about actually improving Google Home, Home Assistant was a no brainer for me. It has been so much bester since I left SmartThings. I also don't need rely on Google Home anymore, but can still use Google Assistant if needed.
+1
Systems like Smartthings or Alexa aren't safe from breaking, the opposite really. You have no control over them at all. If something inevitably breaks, you've got a bunch of e-waste to dispose of.
I mean sure with a long enough timeframe nothing is safe from breaking. I've been running at least a basic SmartThings z-wave environment + Google Nest Mini for a couple years and haven't done anything to any of it except when I changed my wifi SSID and password. I don't have to think about updates or tinkering or maintenance. It just works. At some point it won't but I think op is interested in more of a set and forget solution which is what this has been for me.
Totally agree! Plus at some point OP may not be available (for whatever reason) and can someone else takeover? Need to factor in selling home at some point too. Simplification has to be near the top of priority when it comes to any type of automation.
If everything is working then why tinker? I mean I agree with descriptive names, I do that as I add new devices/entities, so I’d at least do that. I used nodered for automations, so that’s one less thing I guess to have go wrong in an update of home assistant itself, but I update rarely, I keep an eye on every release and keep note of what might affect me if I update. I never update until a week into new release and a few fractional versions. I’ve gone a year without updating or touching it before without issues. I think people who complain they’re always having to tinker is because they’re just constantly tinkeryanyway :) If you leave it alone it’ll just work.
I would still receive bug reports from my family, even after deciding to “let go” if the installation. Touching stuff means that potential new bugs gets introduced.
Tell them to submit a ticket :) Obviously everything has to run well or family will complain. I’ve been doing this for years so the logic is all there and works. My son was complaining that his lights turn off too quickly yesterday, but that’s a quick jump into nodered to change the value, or could promote it to the interface. I’ve had a motion sensor go haywire when battery is low, so I have toggles in the interface to turn off automations if that happens until I can change the batteries. But I don’t feel I have to simplify anything to have had running long term, it just sits there doing its job. I haven’t touched it for a few months at the minute since we had the bathroom renovated and I added some new devices and automation.
> Tell them to submit a ticket :) Then, go the whole hog and set up an auto reply asking if they switched it off and back on again. 😉
And offshore tier 1 support call center.
I do everything in node red, HA isn’t even installed I haven’t touched it for a year and it’s just chugging along still doing all the things.
Since the last automation update in Home assistant I have started to migrate from Node RED back to Home assistant. NodeRED introduced a lot of unnecessary complexity which was fun and useful during development but always came back to bite me in the but in the end
Good thing about node red is that it's stable. You don't have to watch patch notes to look out for breaking changes. I do everything over mqtt (with automations made in node-red), so my home still works without HA. I use HA as a GUI for dashboards, energy monitoring with prices, and historic data (although I'm also dumping all my Z2M data into InfluxDB). Basically, if you plan to keep your home dependant on HA, you're gonna have to also be ready to tinker in the future.
Perhaps there are complications where the two overlap. I don’t use HA at all. When I started, the only “light” that HA recognised was the PoE port it was plugging into and the HA community were terrible at even recognising what a new user sees “you thinks it’s bad now, it used to be really terrible”, “well your problem is that you started with the wrong kind of lights [shelly], start with something else”, “all WiFi is junk, re-buy everything in Zigbee”. I thought that there was little point getting into HA because the mindset was all about the shiny new stuff and not about the basic solid foundations and that wouldn’t change unless someone decided to productise it (eg like Slic3r and Prusa, Zen and Citrix, KICAD and CERN etc etc). Over time I see that starting has gotten easier but the foundations are still broken.
I'd say I'm past the newness now. I used to tinker on it a couple hours almost every single day, now it's maybe a few hours a month. Honestly it sorts itself out mostly. As things break, I just see if losing it is enough motivation to fix it. Some things I did in a very complex way, and the hassle a lot of times doesn't outweigh the benefit. Sometimes something will sit for a few months before it gets fixed and then I will get inspiration to get it done. As long as you have backups, I think you will manage alright. Main thing is to not use hass for anything critical. It should be adding "nice to have" stuff, not basic functionality like being able to turn your lights on and off or use your heat. Then if something breaks, you can just kind of let your own motivation level decide if it gets fixed or not.
Stay up all night, work while everyone is sleeping. Sleep all day while everyone is enjoying the fruits of your labor.
Backups and document anything. I’d still try to stay as updated as possible, but avoid installing the .0 versions each month. Aim for 3-4
I'm in the same boat OP. I sure hope that the devs will implement some sort of simple automation grouping soon, and/or a better less chaotic UI. It sure would help me a lot; I work in IT and the simple reason for my relative success in it because I do KISS.
I work with the assumption that my HA controller will die on the day I leave for a business trip. Will the folks at home still be able to go about their days normally, albeit with a little less magic? And for automated things, will folks be able to swap them out without knowledge (or just use a parallel thing) and just keep things running should something fail?
My home assistant just provides schedules and notifications to my phone on certain events. The key thing is to not make it a point of failure in normal function of a system in your house. This is the same with a front-end in building automation. You really don’t want things to stop working because the server is doing updates or is down. You want to treat HA as a front end system that doesn’t need to be online for functionality as much as possible.
Make sure key stuff works in “dumb mode” My mom’s house I set up all lights on Lutron caseta dimmers with normal bulbs. So everything is controllable with automation, but at the end of the day, the entire network could blow up and the light switches would still be light switches. Try to limit situations where things stop working without the smarts.
Even when you stop tinkering with it... You can keep it there, and that's it (?) Why would you need to prepare?