Home Assistant : Q&A, Tips & Tricks, Your Configs

Sure. I've just started redoing my dashboards and I've separated some things into one of the new "Sections" style dashboards to give me more flexibility.

This is my progress so far on the first one.

View attachment 1755683

As you can see the Geyserwise card is wider than the original I posted which allows me to make the time span longer too.

YAML:
type: custom:apexcharts-card
experimental:
  disable_config_validation: true
graph_span: 12h
yaxis:
  - id: first
    decimals: 0
    min: 0
    max: 100
    apex_config:
      tickAmount: 6
  - id: second
    opposite: true
    show: false
    decimals: 1
    apex_config:
      tickAmount: 2
apex_config:
  chart:
    height: 350px
  grid:
    borderColor: '#3f3f3f'
header:
  show: true
  standard_format: true
  show_states: true
  colorize_states: false
series:
  - entity: water_heater.geyserwise_water_heater
    name: Current Temperature
    attribute: current_temperature
    yaxis_id: first
    stroke_width: 2
    unit: °C
  - entity: sensor.geyserwise_water_heater_collector_temperature
    name: Collector Temperature
    yaxis_id: first
    stroke_width: 2
  - entity: water_heater.geyserwise_water_heater
    name: Target Temperature
    attribute: temperature
    yaxis_id: first
    curve: stepline
    stroke_width: 3
    unit: °C
    stroke_dash: 3
    color: lightgrey
  - entity: water_heater.geyserwise_water_heater
    name: Element State
    yaxis_id: second
    transform: 'return x === ''electric'' ? 1 : 0;'
    type: area
    curve: stepline
    stroke_width: 0
    color: grey
    opacity: 0.2
  - entity: binary_sensor.geyserwise_water_heater_element
    name: Element Heating
    yaxis_id: second
    transform: 'return x === ''on'' ? 1 : 0;'
    extend_to: end
    type: area
    curve: stepline
    stroke_width: 0
    color: red
    opacity: 0.5
layout_options:
  grid_columns: full
This look looks great, thanks for the info and update.
 
How is Home Assistant these days. Have been running OH2 for a while now and it's time for a change. With every upgrade they always break something and the learning curve is too steep.

What's the leaning curve like with HA? Looked at it a few years ago and it didn't look too impressive but that was a while back.
Looking at installing it on proxmox.
 
How is Home Assistant these days. Have been running OH2 for a while now and it's time for a change. With every upgrade they always break something and the learning curve is too steep.

What's the leaning curve like with HA? Looked at it a few years ago and it didn't look too impressive but that was a while back.
Looking at installing it on proxmox.
Very active community, of course.
Updates very often (once a month? once every two months?)

If you stick to the delivered integrations, you will have a great experience. Their upgrades and migrations are generally sorted out internally by HA.
If you do a lot of manual YAML configurations, you may have to reconfigure some things (I had to move a bunch of YAML for my victron integration out a while back).
If you rely on custom configurations, and the HACS (Home Assistant Community Store) you may find some pain from one release to the next, because then you're relying on third party devs to maintain their integration against the aggresive HA upgrade schedule. There's discussions in this thread about integrations just completely disappearing (because the Repo maintainer got sick of everybody asking him for features and updates and assistance, and ended up deleting the repo completely).

I must admin, I've gotten a bit more hesitent about upgrades over the last two years, but every now and then I force myself to upgrade. And generally I'm able to sort it out withing 30 mins or so.
 
How is Home Assistant these days. Have been running OH2 for a while now and it's time for a change. With every upgrade they always break something and the learning curve is too steep.

What's the leaning curve like with HA? Looked at it a few years ago and it didn't look too impressive but that was a while back.
Looking at installing it on proxmox.
No issues my side since installing on a old windows laptop and I install HA updates regularly.

However some use HA for a lot more than I do and could probably advise better on how often things break with updates etc. The learning curve was not that bad but I did play around and start fresh many times.
 
How is Home Assistant these days. Have been running OH2 for a while now and it's time for a change. With every upgrade they always break something and the learning curve is too steep.

What's the leaning curve like with HA? Looked at it a few years ago and it didn't look too impressive but that was a while back.
Looking at installing it on proxmox.

I find it very stable these days.

Also much easier to use and configure than 2 years ago.

I used to have to fiddle a lot - for the past 12 months or so it’s been ‘set and forget’

Just be sure to install it on stable hardware (mine is running on a Synology NAS Virtual Machine).
 
This is one area I need to upgrade. Lithium batteries ?
No, two really cheap Eaton units. They're only there as a buffer for the inverter switch over, which is just slightly too long for the power supply in my DAS. Technically don't need the one on the networking gear but I had it already so may as well use it.
 
No, two really cheap Eaton units. They're only there as a buffer for the inverter switch over, which is just slightly too long for the power supply in my DAS. Technically don't need the one on the networking gear but I had it already so may as well use it.
I have one of those cheap Eatons but it runs the whole rack and is woefully under powered, probably need to split network vs compute in terms of the UPS
 
How is Home Assistant these days. Have been running OH2 for a while now and it's time for a change. With every upgrade they always break something and the learning curve is too steep.

What's the leaning curve like with HA? Looked at it a few years ago and it didn't look too impressive but that was a while back.
Looking at installing it on proxmox.
Its been very stable for me - i actually haven't tinkered with it in ages because it just works. There are some breaking changes when you upgrade but these are very well documented . There is a Core update monthly and the integrations usually follow a similar upgrade cycle as well.
 
Thanks. Sounding promising. I have a range of devices - Google Nest, Alexa, various MQTT temp sensors, Ring Alarm - the list goes on. So will look into setting these all up.

Used a script and setup the image already on proxmox - 5 mins work.
 
Whats my best bet to monitor roof top temperature (where my pool heating panels are)?

I was thinking of either using a TH16 with temp sensor - or - a Sonoff ZigBee Temperature sensor in a water proof box. There's a Zigbee repeater right below the metal sheeting (about 1m away)

I'd like to do away with weather forecasts for my pool automation.
 
Whats my best bet to monitor roof top temperature (where my pool heating panels are)?

I was thinking of either using a TH16 with temp sensor - or - a Sonoff ZigBee Temperature sensor in a water proof box. There's a Zigbee repeater right below the metal sheeting (about 1m away)

I'd like to do away with weather forecasts for my pool automation.
Cheapest is to get a DS18B20 from eg Communica

The wire can be extended to the desired length. Just need to add a resistor (3k3 to 4k7) between the dates and vcc leads on the roof end. It is sort of waterproof, but it won't hurt to thread the probe and the wire into a 13mm black pvc tube (irrigation pvc works great), then seal off the end.

Couple this to an ESP32 or ESP86 and there you go...

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Thanks. Sounding promising. I have a range of devices - Google Nest, Alexa, various MQTT temp sensors, Ring Alarm - the list goes on. So will look into setting these all up.

Used a script and setup the image already on proxmox - 5 mins work.
Home Assistant is honestly so far ahead of anything else at the moment. It's also been rock solid stable for me.

Home Assistant + HomeKit is the best of both worlds which allows you to integrate stuff easily and make even non-Homekit things accessible to "regular" folk on their iPhones.
 
My Sonoff M5 Matter switch crapped its pants a bit last night when I updated my Wifi AP firmware, it latched on to another access point too far away and wouldn't respond. Had to try force it back on to the proper AP by cycling the lights breaker but it completely failed to even start up (and the switches also wouldn't do anything). I had to cycle the power again and leave it off for about a minute and then it came back to life.

Going to get rid of this thing and replace it with a Shelly and real switches.
 
A few hours later...

Philips Hue and Ring Alarm was a 10 minute job.

Google...FU! Try and add my Google Nest. I need to pay a once off $5 for dev access. Then I need to migrate my Nest account to Google. Google...sorry we don't support GSuite accounts. WTF? Really! Your own system and you don't support it.

Created a new gmail account and setup everything again (and again have to pay another $5 for dev access for the new account)

Finally working.

Are there any must have integrations that I should install?
 
A few hours later...

Philips Hue and Ring Alarm was a 10 minute job.

Google...FU! Try and add my Google Nest. I need to pay a once off $5 for dev access. Then I need to migrate my Nest account to Google. Google...sorry we don't support GSuite accounts. WTF? Really! Your own system and you don't support it.

Created a new gmail account and setup everything again (and again have to pay another $5 for dev access for the new account)

Finally working.

Are there any must have integrations that I should install?
Mushroom cards for dashboard design although Bubble cards are also gaining popularity
If you have cameras then the appropriate NVR software integration - if one doesn't exist then Scrypted

But yes mainly depends on what devices you have AND what you want to do with those devices
 
Anyone have an issue with the new version of HACs, where updates don't apply? It say update available, you click update, sometimes need to restart, and then awhile later the same update needs to apply (for integrations/themes)
 
Anyone have an issue with the new version of HACs, where updates don't apply? It say update available, you click update, sometimes need to restart, and then awhile later the same update needs to apply (for integrations/themes)
Once. Just wait a day for their cache to clear. New caching on v2
 
Any recommendations of a smart doorbell (battery or wired) that works seamlessly with HA?
 
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