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

ebendl said:
What is the easiest and cheapest way to run a Controller as an appliance these days?

Last I look it was either the Cloud Key or the Dream machine (which was super expensive)
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UCG Ultra - R2k - it routes as well though so if you don't want a gateway then cloud key is still the best / only option
 
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ebendl said:
I'm at the point of my life where I like stability - including my home automation and network. Updates that breaks things are annoying to me!

(I'm also in IT and pushing the "upgrade for up to date security!" message to my customers, so the irony is not lost on me :))

At least with that Unifi controller Docker image that I use it seems like there is still only one container and the previous upgrade went across super easy. Here's hoping it will be the same this time round.

Will try it the weekend.
...

Perhaps the long weekend. :)
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I did my update this morning, turned out to be seamless.

Step1 was to go on to the UI and download a full backup. (mentioned on the new image from linuxserver.io)
Step2: create the mongo db container (for me at least)
Step3. use new image with a new clean data folder
Step4: log in and restore backup. My APs didn't need re-adoption, all settings available in both versions were there, networks etc.
Step5: Confirmed the scheduled optimized is enabled, it was. So I am happy again. New UI is quite a refresh, I like it.

So all good. Much better than previous updates that broke in the past. Worst case, I just restore the VM from previous night backup.
 
Can confirm UCG is pretty amazing, I swapped back to unifi from pfsense when they allowed lan throttling and routing policies.

Dont want my unraid server killing my backup lte internet :)
 
Took me all f**king day and it's still not perfect, but I managed to get my HA dashboards casting to my Google Nest Hub

1748956558859.jpeg

1748956568032.jpeg

EDIT: The dashboard is fully usable, you can switch between toggles, pages, dashboards, etc. but what took up time was getting DuckDNS, Nginx SSL and my internal network talking to each other. I was fighting corrupt HTML headers, auto-logins not working, long lived access tokens not doing what they should, random TLS errors, and a whole bunch more.

I'd give it a 0/10 on the recommendation scale but I will up it to a 3/10 since I eventually got it working.

PS: If anyone's ChatGPT instances are dof today, it's probably because I exhausted all its capacity today trying to get this working.
 
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PhireSide said:
Took me all f**king day and it's still not perfect, but I managed to get my HA dashboards casting to my Google Nest Hub

View attachment 1825131

View attachment 1825132

EDIT: The dashboard is fully usable, you can switch between toggles, pages, dashboards, etc. but what took up time was getting DuckDNS, Nginx SSL and my internal network talking to each other. I was fighting corrupt HTML headers, auto-logins not working, long lived access tokens not doing what they should, random TLS errors, and a whole bunch more.

I'd give it a 0/10 on the recommendation scale but I will up it to a 3/10 since I eventually got it working.

PS: If anyone's ChatGPT instances are dof today, it's probably because I exhausted all its capacity today trying to get this working.
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Most impressive
 
Mzezman said:
Most impressive
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If you wanted to follow the same path of madness I did:

DashCast: https://github.com/AlexxIT/DashCast

You will need to have HA running an https entry point for it to be compatible with Chromecast, and then the DuckDNS/nginx/reverse proxy rabbit hole that followed. And because the device has no on-screen keyboard, you need to disable password auth for the local network device. Well, it technically does have an OSK, but it does nothing, so it is essentially useless.

I think the way you posted a while back using the small Xiaomi clocks is a much classier solution.
 
PhireSide said:
If you wanted to follow the same path of madness I did:

DashCast: https://github.com/AlexxIT/DashCast

You will need to have HA running an https entry point for it to be compatible with Chromecast, and then the DuckDNS/nginx/reverse proxy rabbit hole that followed. And because the device has no on-screen keyboard, you need to disable password auth for the local network device. Well, it technically does have an OSK, but it does nothing, so it is essentially useless.

I think the way you posted a while back using the small Xiaomi clocks is a much classier solution.
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I'm curious. By way of learning, a random Google search came back with this : https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/cast/

Seems a lot more straight forward. But there are some folks out there mentioning delays. Was there a particular reason for going with the DashCast option ?
 
hilt_ctn said:
I'm curious. By way of learning, a random Google search came back with this : https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/cast/

Seems a lot more straight forward. But there are some folks out there mentioning delays. Was there a particular reason for going with the DashCast option ?
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I cannot remember exactly, but there was some sort of reason.

I will need to think back and see what my reason was once the trauma is gone. I came across DashCast while I was looking up alternatives, but both came down to needing the same steps to achieve it (https support, mainly). I think persistent casting was also something that could be flaky with the HA Integration.
 
My efergy hasn't worked for ages and it seems they have stopped the service.... Now I'm sitting with an efergy transmitter and a hub which are of no use.

What are we using now to monitor power use from the grid? I have 3 phases - looked at the shelly monitor - sonoff seems to only have single phase monitors.

Anyone managed to hack their efergy hub to output direct to HA?
 
mrb13676 said:
My efergy hasn't worked for ages and it seems they have stopped the service.... Now I'm sitting with an efergy transmitter and a hub which are of no use.

What are we using now to monitor power use from the grid? I have 3 phases - looked at the shelly monitor - sonoff seems to only have single phase monitors.

Anyone managed to hack their efergy hub to output direct to HA?
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Mine still works fine. Have you tried to sign into the website? https://engage.efergy.com/dashboard
 
Tinuva said:
From the buy now button on the link on my previous post., not tindie. Came in with buffalo.
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So I never actually bought this. Looking at it again, do you know if this was the courier they used when you bought from ZigStar (the "Buy now" button, not one of their 2 retailers - Elecrow or Tindie)?

1751391874202.png

Elecrow is definitely more expensive and I would guess it ships from a western country:

1751392028603.png
 
Anyone have any idea why 3 CBI Astute isolators all bought at the same time have all stopped working at almost exactly the same time? (all used on inverter aircons that are not currently being used)
 
xrapidx said:
Anyone have any idea why 3 CBI Astute isolators all bought at the same time have all stopped working at almost exactly the same time? (all used on inverter aircons that are not currently being used)
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Platform outage?
 
xrapidx said:
Anyone have any idea why 3 CBI Astute isolators all bought at the same time have all stopped working at almost exactly the same time? (all used on inverter aircons that are not currently being used)
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I have had 2 fail though at different times
 
PhireSide said:
Platform outage?
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Screenshot 2025-07-04 104353.png

Its starts by doing this, and then eventually doesn't come back on - the power switch on the unit also does nothing - you therefore can't reset it.

These are also the version that defaults to off after a restart - so its a real pain in the ass. Definitely won't replace with the same.
 
AmazeBalls said:
I have had 2 fail though at different times
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I have four of the isolators, two are dead, this one has just started dying, all within 3 months of each other - while carrying no load.

The only surviving one is on the geyser, which was installed a year after these.
 
Just checked, all bought in November 2022.

That's a helluva high failure rate compared to Shelly/Sonoff - think I've had one Shelly fail, and two Sonoff - and that was ages ago.

I suppose rather now than later as I was about to put the CBI Astutes in more places. (wellpoint, irrigation pump and pool pump)
 
xrapidx said:
Just checked, all bought in November 2022.

That's a helluva high failure rate compared to Shelly/Sonoff - think I've had one Shelly fail, and two Sonoff - and that was ages ago.

I suppose rather now than later as I was about to put the CBI Astutes in more places. (wellpoint, irrigation pump and pool pump)
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Strange, our one CBi Astute that handles our pool pump is still working, we lost one Hellerman Tyton a while back that was handling our larger geyser.
 
I'm trying to add a Sonoff M5 to my Home Assistant using Matter. I followed the instructions by scanning the QR code and selecting it as a new device. After about a minute, I get a screen that says "Something went wrong."

I’ve held the button for 5 seconds to enter pairing mode, and my router is set to 2.4GHz.

Any ideas on what might be causing the issue?
 
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