I want a system so reliable that I can completely forget it exists. I have been leaning towards setting up a few basic automations with Apple Home and calling it good, since it seems like the Apple version can handle simple things like “turn on the lights at 8pm for 3 hours when I’m out of town” or “open the blinds when my morning alarm rings”. Other than that, probably don’t need a ton of smartness besides grouping things into zones that can be turned on/off together
Whatever you do, don't skimp on the lighting smart devices. It usually ends in tears.
The most useful automations are very simple: turn on some lights around sunset, turn off radiators when windows are open, etc.
I have HA, but I used it for a custom application that relies on some integrations with Home Automation stuff (Lights, Sensors)
As an accidental outgrowth of that I was also able to automate the lights to aid my child in keeping a good bedtime routine.
But its certainly not the reason I bought all the doohickeys.
> If I had to count, I’d guess I have maybe 15 working automations across all my half-baked instances. That's it.
There is a big home automation channel in one of the Slacks I’m in.
It has been a running theme for years that people get Home Assistant, start trying to automate everything, frustrate their families, and then get forced to de-automate parts of the house because everyone around them is so fed up with it.
The endless debugging and tinkering is only fun for the person doing it, not the test subjects dealing with it. Even the tinkering gets old after a while and people end up with half-baked automations that they just live with, vowing to get back to it some day when the spark returns.
I did that too in the very beginning but soon realized that you need subtle, non-intrusive rules that make your day ever so slightly more comfortable but don't get in your way if you do something unexpected.
The problem is that HA gives you a million possibilities while Google and apple don't, and most techies just fall for it and start over engineering the shit out of it only to annoy the rest of their family to no end and then getting rid of everything again.
The poor, dumbed down writing notwithstanding, it also takes forever to get to the point.
I didn't enjoy opening this adcrap.
The result is pure freedom. Setup: plug in and connect to Wifi, done. Control: install app, join home network, control lamps anywhere in the house. Automation: A lightweight, customizable app handles everything.
The app polls locally for available lamps, which works flawlessly for 5-10 devices.
Security might be a problem, but since everything lives behind a firewall, I’m comfortable with the tradeoff.
Manual on/off is just a URL shortcut in my chrome bookmark bar.
Basic but does what I want, turns light on when it starts to get dark, and simple bookmark on my laptop and phone to toggle power on/off manually.
There are some automations I've setup that I never have issues with. Perhaps my most reliable being around lights. Not surprising the hue lights work the best. Also my hardwired locally controlled garage doors
There are some that if the power goes out I gotta log back in. Cloud is often a pain.
If it isn't on my dashboard I forget about it.
I've talked to professional installers or resellers and found similar issues with control 4 and other systems so it isn't a unique problem to Home Assistant.
This stuff gets ugly because of how complicated it is to setup, deal with multiple protocols,lack of standards or too many standards, unreliable devices, breaking changes with updates and more.
I’m on my fourth iteration of a smart home setup with HA. Depression, neglect, a feeling that I need to burn it all down and restart, and depression again were all extinction level events for my setup. At one point I had meticulous Grafana dashboards worthy of a Golden Grot that could tell you the concentration of CO2, the pressure waves from the Tonga eruption, a map of Puget Sound gas prices, and other bits and bobs. I had dozens of Airthings sensors, plant sensors, ZWave temp sensors, three weather stations, countless LIFX bulbs, all working in unison to give me a pulse on my house.
Then I had a bout of the existential sads and just stopped looking at the slack notifications when HA connected the dots between a spike in radon and a nearby earthquake. I stopped caring that the CO2 concentration in my office was over 750ppm, or that watering my plants in my office in the winter was contributing to increased particulate in the air. Because I wasn’t listening to the interesting stuff, I stopped listening to the important stuff- alerts about failed drives, dying batteries, and broken updates.
Not caring felt so freeing. I didn’t start things up again until a few months later when I realized I wanted something cool to show in an interview. The cycle started anew.
At first, in the YAML era, because it was insanely hard to create heating automation (not HVAC, just heating).
Second when HA decided that their supported Python version was greater, than Debian Stable's and FreeBSD stable's Python version.
Third when it became near impossible to install manually, especially on something not linux, FreeBSD.
HA might be a great system when set up once and left alone, but nobody seems to be doing that.
animal_spirits•2h ago
Negitivefrags•1h ago
At least you have the capability of getting things into a working state without the original owner, which may be impossible otherwise.
Now of course the best case scenario is when the "smartness" is only additive to the home, and not required for it.
In my case, if Home Assistant isn't working, the house just works like a normal house with all the wall switches functining as you would expect.
If I ever sold the house, I would give the new owner the Home Assistant instance, disable all my automations, but also tell them that I'm not going to help them at all with supporting it. The most likely scenario is that they wouldn't want to use it or care about it, but at least the house works just fine without it.
qwerpy•1h ago
Someday in the far future when someone buys my house, the small but noticeable differences in light switch behavior is going to drive them crazy. I did keep all the original switches for the next owner, if they are motivated to swap them back in.
tehlike•58m ago
timc3•26m ago
Unlike some others in this thread, the 350 devices I have don’t require too much maintenance (have to replace the odd light bulb, and I do some upgrades once a week), and work flawlessly most of the time. I also designed it so that it works without home assistant or any controller.
But what I am going to do - some of the zigbee lights are permanently fixed, but are on manual switches so I guess thats ok. But the irrigation system, some of the lighting systems which are switched automatically, the built in speakers and even the networking might be beneficial to stay.
Would probably have to do an audit and take a couple of days.