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The little smart home platform that could (www.theverge.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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  • Home Assistant is now part of the Open Home Foundation, a non-profit aiming to fight against surveillance capitalism and offer privacy, choice, and sustainability.
  • The foundation will own and govern all Home Assistant entities, including the cloud, and has plans for new hardware and AI integration.
  • Home Assistant aims to become a mainstream smart home option with a focus on privacy and user control, while also expanding partnerships and certifications.
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[–] 136 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Is HA not already the mainstream option for privacy and user control? Maybe I just live in a bubble, but it seems like it's already the go-to if you care about those things.

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  • [–] 65 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I took it to mean they're going to put it in prettier packaging, simplifying its use for the average Joe.

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  • [–] 40 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I have been using it for years and still find some things confusing. Like idk why it's so hard to figure out how to customize the dashboard and create new widgets for it. I've been a professional web dev for 8 years and if I'm struggling with it, you can bet most people aren't even going to bother. Idk what's so hard about providing simple html, css, and js like every other web framework.

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  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago

    Because it's either full-auto, or full-manual, with no wiggle room in between. That being said, they have made the right moves in hiring the right people in the community to be ICs on the project to fix stuff like this, and they are killing it. Ex: they hired the Rhasspy dev a year ago, and he has already revamped the entire voice assist workflow in HA. Great work.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    yeah nothing ever makes me feel stupider than my home assistant, which half-works for random reasons, even though like, I can actually develop things. Woe unto anyone wading into that without any coding background/inclination or interest. I hadn’t really ever encountered YAML before working with HA (I’ve been using HA now for like 6 or 7 years I just realized).

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    I’ve been running HA for two years and barely understand YAML, let alone the main YAML config, which is keeping me from accomplishing a few things I want to do, like taking better control of my air filter.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    I have a lengthy coding background, back to the days when it was common for spacing and line length and line endings to be significant to the code. Maturing out of that was one of the major advances in programming! I can’t comprehend people bringing that back: a pox on yaml, and python, and similar, for bringing back the nightmares

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    I love my HA dashboard but it took seemingly far too much effort to get it sensible. I had to know how to ssh in and edit a locked YAML file and create new template sensors just so I could have some temperature sensors show as “50” instead of “50.0028472” or some shit.

    I think they fixed that in an update though. But there’s always something that requires multiple extra layers of digging around.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Recently had to manually reinstall HA then restore from a backup manually because there was no GUI option. As software, HA is great, as a product usable by laypeople it still needs work

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm totally cool with that. Even as a more technically-minded user, I see a lot of things that could be way more streamlined.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Yeah I’m not using it yet, partly because I’m not at the home server level of Linux competency, but I do want to move towards it at some point

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    If you want to skip ahead, there are also a few ways to get Home Assistant running that don't need any level of Linux competency:

    • They sell their own devices that are more or less plug & play.
    • Installing Home Assistant OS on a Raspberry Pi is just flashing the image onto an SD card.
    • Installing Home Assistant OS onto a dedicated device involves shortly booting into Linux from USB to flash Home Assistant OS onto the internal disk.

    If you don't want to run Home Assistant OS, and instead want to run Home Assistant as one of several applications running on a Server, that's when you need to start getting comfortable administrating a Linux server.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I didn’t realize their devices are plug and play. I’ve considered one before and probably will go that route if it’s that easy when the wife and I have more than a pair of light bulbs to control

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Just do it. Quick and easy, and not that complex. Even if you only have a couple of light bulbs, now you can schedule them, automate them, integrate them with any voice assistant you may use

    You may find you already have a lot more than just a pair of lightbulbs. Mine sees my router and stats, printer status, TV, speakers, thermostats, my phone, among things I got before HA

    For me, I crossed the threshold when I decided to treat it as an appliance (Raspberry Pi 4) rather than one more thing that depended on me setting up a lab. I still haven’t made progress in the lab, but HA just works

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    If you want the awesomeness of self-hosting with somewhat less drama, give unraid a look-see! Although if you are looking to just host HA and not have a full media center and other stuff, it could be overkill.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    My attempts at self hosting have been mostly an attempt to set up jellyfin, *arr, and foundryvtt on an old computer at which point I realized I don’t really understand terminal or networks. I’m getting a bit more comfortable with my terminal in my desktop, but I’m going at a reasonable pace nowadays. I don’t have a ton of time or money to sink into it

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  • [–] 40 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    For technical people... Yes.

    For people who aren't that technical? No.

    Don't get me wrong, the Home Assistant Green and SkyConnect dongle is great and massively makes maintenance for the regular joe easier (no pis or other hardware that loads from the SD/hardware considerations).

    But some stuff in UX would have to improve, which it already is doing ofcourse.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You would need to make touching a config file non existent. They've improved this over time, but not quite there I imagine.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's especially true when it comes to things like HACS. I love HA but I've also told everyone I know that, if I die, rip all that shit out and replace all the "smart" stuff with regular stuff.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Or ….. I choose stuff that work’s normally, with “smart” being an addition.

    • Smart thermostat works exactly like a dumb one, if you’re not online and there’s nothing programmed.
    • Smart switches work exactly as a dumb one, if there’s no automation saying otherwise.
    • Alexa works exactly like Alexa, if there’s no integration with HA.
    • Flood sensors do beep, even if nothing is integrated to notify your phone
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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You're not wrong and, to be fair, I'm mostly exaggerating when I say to rip out all the smart stuff.

    Thermostat would stay, Alexa is being phased out but google home would stay, flood sensors I have at this time do not beep because of the stress is causes the pets just during normal testing, but those could be easily replaced.

    However, I also have a ton of lighting, zigbee sensors, zigbee smart plugs, camera motion automations, alarm system automations, garage door automations, and other routines that can't just be taken over by someone that has no desire to mess with HA. It's not always about the functionality of the device itself, but what HA does to enhance it.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    While I know I was claiming the opposite, it is actually an anxiety by of mine.

    In my first townhouse I had wired in speakers, and network/cable/phone everywhere. There was a really nice structured wiring box tying it all together. It was beautiful.

    When I sold, the realtor made me leave my speakers, my router, my switches, because she claimed it was part of the house and no one could use the wiring without it. What a load of BS that was, but when a home sale is on the line, no point in swearing the small stuff. After I factory reset things, what good does it do them over buying their own, wither own account, and a user manual?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Mine as well, i have a closet with a half rack with all my networking gear, NAS, UPS, proxmox server, etc. If I'm gone, it's time for whoever lives here to just get a combined router/modem from the ISP and call it a day.

    "can't use the wiring" So in the old days they made people leave all their phones connected when they moved right? /s

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    As a technical person working in tech, I’ve heard of home assistant but only ever spoken to one or maybe two people that have actually tried it. It doesn’t seem that mainstream. Meanwhile, every smartphone has a proprietary assistant built in.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    The assistant in your phone is not the same as home assistant.

    Home assistant is mostly used to group all your smart home stuff and create automations.

    Being a technical person myself, most people I know want to try it but don't have the use for it due to living in appartments.

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