What Is Home Assistant? 

If you like watching me hump the air, then first off, see someone, you have problems. second of all I have a Tshirt for you 🤣 teespring.com/ooh-the-zigbee?pid=794&cid=103544 Home Assistant is also available for Windows so you can fiddle around with it before investing in a Pi too, so if you have a morning or afternoon free then it's wicked fun and I highly recommend giving it a go :) Finally and most importantly check out the amazing Dr Zz's, he;s an absolutely awesome dude: ru-vid.com

Hi. Home Assistant developer here (one of hundreds). Great summary! We're hoping to fix several of the things you mention very soon . As you noted, Home Assistant is currently in a transition phase of sorts between _everything_ being configured via the configuration.yaml file and the easier way. That's why guides are sometimes outdated. The thing with voice assistants like Alexa and Google Home is that they require secret developer keys that identify the software - and that's tricky to keep secret in a 100% open source project like Home Assistant. The alternative is that the user requests a personal developer key from Amazon or Google and use that, which is messy... That's why the cloud connection exists, as a middle man to handle those things and keep the key secret. But running those servers cost money that doesn't come from ads... Unfortunate, but there you have it. You also get easy-to-use fully encrypted access to your Home Assistant from anywhere with internet access for those $5, btw, even if your ISP doesn't even give you a public IP.

Every now and then I come back to this video just for the initial “Home assistant! Home Assistant! Home Assistant!!!!!!” part! 😂

I was thinking "What would Paul think" when I was watching Dr ZZs' video. Here is the answer. Thanks mate. 👍

I'm a Home Assistant fan, and I confirm that what you said is totally fair and true ! 👍 Nice video as always!

Great video Paul, I have been using Home Assistant for around a year, it is fantastic but I 100% agree with you, it is not for the faint hearted. You have to be prepared to invest the time but it is so worth it if you can. I migrated from Wink because I saw the writing on the wall and had quite the journey getting my setup to where it is today. It can be really tough getting devices to work, for instance my Schlage Z-Wave Plus front door lock. Thankfully the community as you mentioned is brilliant and I got the help I needed and it has worked flawlessly. I now have multiple Z-Wave devices and around 40 Zigbee devices incl lights, plug sockets, door sensors & motion sensors. The automation within Home Assistant has improved but boy once you discover Node Red it is a whole new ball game. Keep up the great work, I always enjoy your videos Greetings from an "Expat" in Canada !

Thank you for making this Paul, I want MORE

Being a relative oldie (76) and not having an IT background, I really struggled when I first downloaded HA. The secret to getting up and running was to find RU-vid presenters, doing HA videos, who targeted folk who had minimal IT knowledge. I found three who were particularly helpful for beginners - they were Average Automation, JuanMTech and Pinkywafer. Also make sure you add the configuration checker add on, this, if used properly, stops HA from crashing during an update, nothing more frustrating than this.

Thanks Paul, this is the kind of information that I subscribe to your channel for. I'm a semi-retired IT contractor and I have both the skills and the time ... *_This is definitely NOT what I want to spend my time on._* I like fishing a lot better than banging my head against the wall trying to make ephemeral experimental gadgetware work. Yes, this is both ephemeral and experimental, that much is made quite clear by the outdated and useless information on the internet regarding how to do something with it. I could do this, I could make it work, I like fishing more than doing this kind of thing, in fact I like root canals and eye surgery more than this kind of thing too -- So you saved me a trip down the rabbit hole and I appreciate that. Thanks again.

Enjoyed the video Paul. £8.99 for Netflix in UK, Nabu Cassa (Alexa/Google Home integration) works out at £4.05. Maintains the servers and you're giving a small bit back to support the small handful of employees. One of the many great benefits with Home Assistant for me was getting rid of my slow Xiaomi Hub and Philips Hue, as HA connects to devices directly.

About time mate! 👍 I've been preaching HA for a while and as much as I love it. You're spot on with everything you've said. Great vid

Brilliant video. I used to use HA and got to the point I was spending more and more time to do things, I didn't really need. Or changing things when they decided to change how something worked.

Long time viewer, first time commenter. Love your work (not to mention Dr Zzz's - love his too) - and as a Home Assistant user, couldn't agree more at the time this sucks from your life - especially in the early days. The only thing I would add though, apart from the awesome and mobile interface to HA, is that the whole idea appears to be to do automations rather than just voice control. And whilst you can use IFTTT and all of the native apps (Hue, LIFX, Tuya etc etc) to set up automations it's much much easier in HA to automate cross-platform, and everything in one place. But yeah, that takes time.... Great video

Agree with your points. I got tempted to try using HA as I was only interested in using it to achieve a very simple use case that replaces IFTTT functionality and extends an otherwise brilliant home automation system I have ... several days later, after the basic install was fine, I'm still trying to figure out why the most basic of Webhooks don't work on HA :rolleyes: ... very close to giving up, but I hate letting things beat me.

The Rilled Up Rooster is my favorite part of your videos. 🤣 🐓 "Home Assistant! Home Assistance! Home Assistant! Home Assistant!!"

Thanks for a good video and a good laugh.. and I'm with you on the Home Assistant setup..

I actually laughed out loud at the point you plugged your SD card into your windows PC. In fact still laughing now so I missed the rest of your video. Keep up the good work Paul

Anyone know when hubitat will be back in stock

Love your videos your the man keep up the great work mate

Thank you so much for digging into this for us, it saved me so much time looking into it myself before I would have found out it does 'nothing' for me, regardless of how cool/impressive it is. Glad that community is out there though

This video hits the nail on the head with respect to Home Assistant. I went through the exact same experience about six months ago. I have broadlink too, could not configure it easily so I gave up . Also spotted the issue with connecting to Google Home. Sold my raspberry pi a few weeks later. Home assistant is nice, but you need a lot of time to get it up and running. If you have that time, go for it. If not, steer clear.

You captured my experience perfectly. I find that youtube content on Home Assistant is dated and hurts their community. Any videos that no longer reguire YAML inserts should be replaced. Creators need to use a fresh home assistant Instal so not to leave the noobs behind. Thanks Paul!

Paul, TY for your entertaining videos, keep up the good work. I previously came to a similar conclusion about Home Assistant "Amazing for free open source, but what does it do for me that I can't already do?" Then (in an effort to control my Nest Thermostat) I installed the Node-Red integration. WOW! with relatively little effort I was able to get EVERYTHING (including the Nest) doing EXACTLY what I want when I want. I repurposed a Hue Dimmer Switch to control a media player, send ssh command to turn off my WiFi at night, and much more! , All without having to edit text files or learn a new programming language. I'm so excited about the possibilities with Home Assistant + Node-Red I could hump air!

Love your content and love this very honest review/opinion on Home Assistant!

Hey, RU-vid-Algorithm! That was a good video.

If I jumped through the hoops you had to, I'd be dead frustrated too. Luckily it was far simpler for me: Menu > Supervisor > Add-On Store > File Editor Once Installed, make sure Show in Sidebar is enabled. Then it's as simple as Menu > File Editor Now that's out the way, I don't have the Broadlink RM Pro set up with it, and also no Google Assistant yet. I disagree with the fee for cloud commands so I will be going down the longer but free/less expensive option of getting this working and will report back once that's done. Thank you and keep up the great work. Long time subscriber and avid viewer of your vids 👍🏾

Been using HA for about a year, and it has made huge leaps forward. I did the Nabu Casa subscription to make life easier, and it is good. After watching this, video,I may get a habitat and just try it. I love to fiddle with HA, but trying to make the automations so easy and consistent that my wife, kids and guests have a great experience. Great perspective video Paul.

I have been using home assistant for nearly a year now and completely agree with what you said, after two months I stopped using the forum as it was just confusing and people didn't really help.

I guess it's because my computing started in the era of the Apple II, Commodore 64, and in my case, ZX81, I'm really, really comfortable with character-based terminals, so SSH-ing into a Pi is SOP to me. Doing that and running vi to edit some .yaml file is like second nature. It's not too, too hard, just requires some learning and practice.

Oh, the live-stream! OOHH the live-stream!

Thanks for another great review

I’ve been watching your channel for a long time now. Just want to tell you you’ve been a great help to my smart home set up along the years. Blessings all the way from the US brother

In the current version your Broadlink devices are being discovered :-)

Would love to see a “six months in” video if you do stick with it.

A very accurate and balanced video Paul. Thank you.

Your "dumbfounded", "Confused", "Seasoned", "Vexed" and "Delighted" (I've left some out haven't I) faces are amusing!

Go to the add-on store in HA and install IDE. There you can acces the .yaml file directly

I wish my Netflix's was 5 dollars a month 😂 but i live in Canada

Home Assistant, Home Assistant, Home Assistant, Home Assistant, Home Assistant, 😂 Love you man!

I got a Broadlink Pro thanks to you and had my curtains working with it after a massive pain of learning my remote(it took aggges to get the right codes) getting this to work well with google home was what drove me to Home assistant also thanks to your videos saying you didnt want it. I now have broadlink set up within home assistant and it is sooooooo great and i have you to thank for the introduction to this. I have now built a remote in a dashboard to control the broadlink like a harmony with activities. . . its great. BUT I do agree it takes a lot of time and a bit of IT development knowledge can help. My setup quickly grew from home assistant with the things I already had to using MQTT and Node Red and Tasmotising swithes . . . . all that gobledegoop. As for help with the broadlink you will want a few add ons You should be able to find these in the suppervisor menu. The first is Visual Studio Code. this gives you a nice editor already set up for home assistant configs. All you need to do to activate the broadlink integration is add your Broadlinks ip and mac (you should be able to find this on your nice ubuquiti router)to the following config in configuration.yaml remote: - platform: broadlink host: IP_ADDRESS mac: MAC_ADDRESS Then for adding codes to do things there's a couple of options. (This is the hardest part IMHO) I extracted the RF codes i had learnt from the Broadlink app (NOT IHC Home) and then base 64 encoded them(more gibberish sorry) IF you know anything about docker theres a program called broadlink manager github.com/t0mer/broadlinkmanager-docker which I use for learning new codes. ,made by this guy github.com/t0mer. Once you have the codes they are exposed to home assistant as switches with on off commands. so for controlling tv inputs or volume etc I tend to have a switch with ON as vol up and OFF as vol Down. this is a sample of my basic config switch: - platform: broadlink host: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx mac: 'xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx' timeout: 15 type: rm2_pro_plus switches: open_lounge_curtains: friendly_name: "Close Lounge Curtains" command_on: 'sgDOAQ5YESMSWRIjESMSIxEkEiMSIxEkElgSVhIjEiQRVxJXEVcRJBElSAABFUUAARNFAAEuEVcSVhFYESMSVxJXEVgRJRJWEiMRVxIjEVgSVxEkEVkRJBEjEiMRJBEkESMTIxF9EVcRJBEjElYSVxFYEiMRJUkAARNFAAEURQABFBFXElcRVxEkEVcSVxFXEiURWBEjEnARIxJWElcRJBJZEiMRIxEkESQRJBEjESQSWRFXESQRJBFXEVcSVxIiEiRHAAHkRQABFBIjEiMRJBEjEiMSIxIjElkRVxEkEiMRVxFXEnARJBElSAABFEUAARNFAAEVEVcSVhJXESMSVxJXEVgRJRFXEiISVxEkElcRVxIjElgSIxFHESQRIxIkESQRIxJZEVcSIxEjElYSVxJXESQRJUgAARNFAAEURQABFBFXElcSVhEkEVcSVhJXESYSVhIiElcRIxJXElYSIxJZEiMSIhIjESQRJBEkETwSWRFXEiMRIxJXEVcRcBIjEiRIAAEURQABE0YAARQSVhJWElYSIxJXElcRVxIlEVcRIxJXESQRVxJXESQRWREjEiMRJBEkESQRJBEkElgSVhIiEiQRVxFXEVgSIxIkRgAF3AAAAAAAAAAAAAA=' command_off: 'sgAoARJWElcRVhIjElcSVhJXEiURVxEjElYSJBFXElcSIxFZESQRIxIjESMSJBEkEVcSWRFWEiMSIxJWElcSVxFXEiRJAAETRgABEkUAAS4RVxJWElYSIxJWElcSVxEmEVYSIxJWEiMSVhJXEiQRWRIiEiMRJBEjEiMSIxJXEVkSVxEkESMRVxJWElcSVxElSQABE0UAARRFAAETElcRVxFYEiMRVxFXElcRJhFXESMTVhEkEVcSVxEjElgSIxEkESQSIxEkEiMRVxJYElYSIxEkEVgRVxJWElcSJEkAARNeAAETRQABFRFXEVcRVxIjEVcSVxJXEiURVhIjEVcSIxJXElcRJBFZESMSIxEkESMSIxIjElcSWBJWEiMRJDVXEVYSWBJWEiVFAAXc' close_lounge_curtains: friendly_name: "Open Lounge Curtains" command_on: 'sgAIARIjEiITIxIjEiMRJBFYESUSVhIjESMSWBFXEVgRJBFYSQABFEUAARNFAAEVEVcRVxJWEiMSVhJYEVcSJRJWEiMRVxEkEVcSVxIjElkRIxIjEiISIxIjEiMSVxIlElYSIxIiElcSVhJXESMSWUgAARRFAAE3RQABFBJWElcSVhIjEVcSVxJWEiUSVxIjEVcRIxJXElYSIxJYEiMSJBEjESQSIxEkEVcSJRFXESMSIxFYElcRVxIjEVhJAAEUaAABE0YAARQSVhJWElcRIxJYEVcSVhIlElYSIxFXEiMSVxJXESMSWBIjEiMSIhIjEiMRJBFYEiURVxIiEiMSVhJXElcSIxJXRwAF3A==' command_off: 'sgAoARJWElcRVhIjElcSVhJXEiURVxEjElYSJBFXElcSIxFZESQRIxIjESMSJBEkEVcSWRFWEiMSIxJWElcSVxFXEiRJAAETRgABEkUAAS4RVxJWElYSIxJWElcSVxEmEVYSIxJWEiMSVhJXEiQRWRIiEiMRJBEjEiMSIxJXEVkSVxEkESMRVxJWElcSVxElSQABE0UAARRFAAETElcRVxFYEiMRVxFXElcRJhFXESMTVhEkEVcSVxEjElgSIxEkESQSIxEkEiMRVxJYElYSIxEkEVgRVxJWElcSJEkAARNeAAETRQABFRFXEVcRVxIjEVcSVxJXEiURVhIjEVcSIxJXElcRJBFZESMSIxEkESMSIxIjElcSWBJWEiMRJDVXEVYSWBJWEiVFAAXc' lg_tv: command_on: 'JgBQAAABJ5USExURFDUSExURFBEUERQRFDUSOBITFTQSOBI3EzcSOBITFREUNRITFREUERQ1EjcTNxM2EhQUNRI4EjcSFBQRFAAFKQABJ0sSAA0FAAAAAAAAAAA==' command_off: 'JgBQAAABJpUUEhUQFTQSFBUQFREUERQRFDUTNhIUFTQTNxI3EjgSNxM3EhQUNRIUFBEUERQ1EjcSFBU0EhQUNRM2EzcSFBQRFAAFKQABJ0sTAA0FAAAAAAAAAAA=' Beyond this theres some things i do with templating and node red to make things work as I would like. (more gibberish sorry) If you need any help getting it working id be happy to help

ive just been going through setting up HomeAssistant, and totally agree, you need to invest alot of time to get it how you want it ! But its great once you get there !! one thing of note that wasn't mentioned, you dont _have_ to use a Raspberry Pi, i used an old laptop, so was kinda free, to see if i liked it before i invested any _actual_ money ! (i think most people have had lots of time, but no money recently!!) i also went down the rabbit hole of Tasmota for my devices too (adding/soldering temp sensors to them to, as i could !) been LOTS of fun, great learning curve, some people like golf, i like this as a hobbie !

Hey Paul. Broadlink RM pro instructions are still similar. www.home-assistant.io/integrations/broadlink/ That is the official documentation. It is a bit fiddly to set up because it has not been made an UI integration yet, but you can get it to work. It will take time though.

Another amazing funny video Paul.

Thank you Paul for an honest and fair assessment

Thanks Paul, glad to see you finally giving it a chance. I think this is a great moment to start with HA, since they are making it more and more "dumb-proof" everyday. Cheers, mate!

Finally

I've been using HA for about a year and, boy, you nailed this pretty well. Were it not for my techie background, I'd have hit some of the bumps you did. I have watched them come a long way in that year, however. I had to edit conf files that are now just auto-discovered as you found. As for Tuya, probably the best thing I ever did was use tuya-convert to pull them out of the cloud, all 70+ of them. My router thanks me everyday because they are local now and with HA, they respond instantly. I have three RM Mini 3's all working, but it's all conf file stuff. Once done, it's very solid. Thanks for the video!

I’m a hacker and love playing with Home Assistant and hacking away at home automation. Loads of great fun. I’m also an Apple user and found the HomeKit integration with Home Assistant excellent. Just turn it on and add your HA devices into the Home app on your phone and then you are ready to tell Siri to control your lights. The setup procedure is almost identical to setting up something like an IKEA Zigbee hub for example. HomeKit really is a home run for integration with your automation and it’s so simple to enable on supported software and/or supported home hubs. A big win if you are an Apple user. Way far easier than setting up google and she shall who not be named skills and abilities. Thanks for the great video.

Ah the old 'What the Fu&k is that' paradox of how to documents that feature the knowledge of how to do stuff only if you understand the terminology that if you already know then you'd already know how to do 🤔

This is almost the same experience I had, although as I was trying to make the pi do more than just home assistant so the installation was made horrendous by home assistant coming in various guises, and the nerds not having any way of explaining the differences to a noob like me! The end result wasn’t much improved on my hubitat experience, having to search for community produced code and implement it in an unfamiliar system is a pain in the a*s! Honestly, if you have all the time in the world to learn Linux and the put the work in, I’m sure home assistant could be useful, but for me, I’m glad that my pi is configured to do other jobs in the network, as home assistant hasn’t been accessed since I set it up and tried (and failed) to get all my devices up and running.

What a useful video!!! I want to tinker but I don’t know if I have time!!

I just got my Pi today and went about setting up home assistant. Honestly, as someone who has no coding experience whatsoever I found it quite easy to get things going. So far I've setup some automations and I've added home assistant to my Apple Homekit which was a major thing for me to have. I'm currently in the process of setting up circadian based lighting functionality for my lights. Did I need a 70 euro Pi4 for this? No, I probably could've spent 30~40 euros and had the same experience. Did I talk myself into it by saying I will be learning new skills and creating new projects? Definitely! Most home users will probably go with an iPad or Apple TV as their hub device instead and have Apple handle everything with an intuitive interface. I have absolutely zero need for an Apple TV or an iPad so the Pi made more sense to me, especially since you have so much freedom with this kit. So far all my Tradfri devices are working perfectly and I have yet to test out if my zoning rules are working. I feel like that's how you should be looking at home assistant right now, just a nifty project which allows you to do more with your smart home devices. Did it change much from what I previously had going? No not really. I had some scenes setup with specific light intensities/color temp which would trigger at set intervals based on the sunset. Home assistant just made those transitions smoother/less jarring and not rely on my phone being on/at home. Same goes for turning off the lights or turning them on when I leave/come into the specified zone, that's just me being ultra lazy. For the amount of money I spent on the Tradfri + Pi I could've just as well bought myself a Hue system which does all of that by itself. Then again, after seeing how Philips discontinued support for the old bridge that's just something I'm not willing to risk a few years down the line again. I want to be in control of my devices and run them locally.

Ah cracking up 1 min in 😂

Only 1 second in the video, thumbs up, Paul. But... get on the live stream with DrZzss, seriously!

very on point analysis! I have a home-assistant based channel and I found ur analysis fair and well based! Grats!

I'm now getting into this, I don't have the time to code this stuff, but I love learning new things. So, I guess I'll make the time for weekend projects. The video was awesome 👌

That totally cracked me up and is so true. I checked out some home assistant videos on RU-vid and ended up watching some guy in what look like a laboratory, rewire his light 💡. He seemed to be talking English, but I only understood one sentence, ”It's relatively easy”, he said. A blatant lie. 😂

Home assistant is heavy stuff, I use it 3 years already, with almost daily updates and breaking changes, difficult to keep alive 100% and honestly I think things get more and more difficult. Sometimes I have to spend hours to find why a little thing is not working and many nice custom cards got deprecated those days.

Great video as always mate.

This video opened my eyes. I just heard about HA a few days ago and since then, I am reading all kinds of guides. Watching this video sums it all up. I'm gonna stick to Google Assistant. As for Home Assistant? Ain't nobody got time for that.

Install File Editor addon and YAML files can be edited easily within HA

If you just want a simple solution for home automation don't use Home Assistant. If you want complex automations and integrations and are prepared to make home automation a hobby then Home Assistant is for you.

good that you are diving into home assistant yuz i wanna start too

Great video and I agree with your conclusions. I love HA, but I like to get under the bonnet and tinker. It' not for everyone. BTW all the config files can be easily edited from within Home Assistant itself via the excellent 'File Editor' plugin. Also there's a voice assistant add-on, called 'Hey Ada!', as an alternative to Alexa/Google, although I haven't personally tried it out yet.

NodeRED can get you free Alexa Control

Install HACS to get the Alexa integration easy, install Microsoft Visual Studio Code add-on to get to the configuration.yaml files and the rest. You can also integrate your IFTTT pretty easily and free too

Always great videos Paul! One question about Hubitat... I’m trying to use my streamdeck xl with multi-actions to turn off my office at a single click. It uses ifttt but some of the lights I have aren’t compatible with ifttt. Will the hubitat give a UI on Windows?

Great videos ... Keep them up

I blame the companies that make the smart devices. They try to lock you in and make it hard to control them with free stuff. And they cal this security. Companies need to get together and figure out a common protocol, so we don't need to hack every device.

Brother, I feel your pain. I tried HA too, also Homebridge. Same damn thing. I’m a self-confessed nerd - spent ~30 years in IT support, but I’m NOT a Linux nerd or a coder by any stretch. NOT a “super-nerd”. As long as you only have gear that requires a pre-configured STABLE plugin, the pain is manageable, but (like everything else in the Linux world, apparently) as soon as you step off the yellow brick road or have any sort of problem, the water gets very deep, very fast. Then you find out that there are different kinds of super-nerds - some are incredibly patient and will bend over backward to try to help you out, but there’s a significant population that will heap scorn on you for being unfit to even occupy space on the planet. In the end, I decided that these solutions aren’t ready for prime time. I’ll stick with the frustrations and limitations of more off-the-shelf stuff. Standard disclaimers apply: your mileage may vary. (By the by - an ad I had to endure before watching your video was actually interesting - Intellithings and RoomMe. Apparently reasonably priced smart home proximity detection solution. Worth checking out and keeping an eye one, I think. Maybe they’d send you a starter kit gratis for an honest - and entertaining - review?)

I am a big fan of home assistant and your video is spot on! I run HA because I want my house to work even when there is no internet. And the ability to be fully disconnected from the various 'free' services where I am the product. Unfortunately, this does require some serious level of tinkering and also ability to deal with frustration getting it all to work. The stuff the people at Tuya and IKEA now do for you. The monthly fee is not for the faint of heart though. It is partially a donation to support the project and product which' user-friendlyness has massively improved over the last year. But if you only want your voice assistant to work, it is pretty expensive compared to the 'free' alternatives.

Totally agree with you, there are way too many Home assistant users that's say "it's easy if I can do it then you can" no you either have the time or your brain is programmed differently to mine also yes totally agree they start talking about things I have to google the term, or just miss steps out because they think you should know these steps??. Yes agree if you want the basics it's easy, but if you want to create complicated routines or create a smarthome tablet dashboard, programming is needed then it gets complicated. Yes it does. Great video btw.

A very funny and very interesting vlog thank you.

Great video. Couldn't agree more. Started looking into home assistant a few days ago. 6 docker containers and 2 new dongles later and I can sit hours in front of the screen editing Config files, restarting server checking configuration is OK and feel I achieved nothing. :) wish I'd seen your video a week ago. Will keep going though as I also feel its worth it. And I like to learn.

I love home assistant and I agree with you that it takes some time for some things to work as you want. I also think the time is worth and that there is no other platform that allows you to control everything at that level.

Hey Paul, great video. Your the one who let me buy broadlink and I am totally happy with it I have more than 10 devices in every room with A/c and TV. All of them connected locally to home assistant and I don't use the broadlink app any more. I don't use RF so I have no idea how to do that but for IR devices there is custom integration (smartIR) super easy to install with many IR cods ready to use. Best of luck

As a huge home assistant fan I'd say this is mostly spot on. If you enjoy tinkering with it, home assistant has so much more to offer than any of the competitors. If you don't have the time and patience, hubitat is the next best thing if you want local control. Perhaps the most important thing I'd recommended people is to do is make these kind of architectural choices like your hub, communication protocols, privacy, etc before you start buying smart devices left and right.

Another cracking video cheers Paul. P.S installed my first smart socket and two bulbs yesterday so I'm on the way to be smarter.......or maybe not just skint. :-)

Hi Paul! Your informative and entertaining videos have finally gotten me interested in home automation. I wasn't too keen on this before, but now I have some ideas. Oh, and I'm not new to technology, as in the mid 80's, I was employed in the high tech arena in Massachusetts. Specifically, repairing 68020 and 68030 symmetrical multi-processor systems running System V Unix, at the component level. Your wit and snarkiness are truly refreshing!

Really Great Video.. Fair and Balanced observations from a new user. I would agree with your statement about Home Assistant having a bit of an identity crisis. Popular vs. Powerful. Part of the special sauce in Home Assistant for me is the Nerdiness of the whole thing.. The extreme customization capabilities leads to a steep (and constant) learning curve.. I don't know if they can ever achieve what they want, which is to appeal to a mass audience by dumbing down the nerdiness while keeping what is special about Home Assistant still in there. It's quite a challenge.

Another brilliant utube video thanks 😊

I've just set up HA over the last few days and I have got broadlink working with it. I can now turn on and of my lights and dim etc and I've got them connected to the home control buttons on my harmony remote! And these are just normal bulbs, not Philip's Hue or Lifx. Other than that though I'm wondering what home assistant can do that Alexa cant...

Hi Paul! Thanks so much for sharing your insight about Home Assistant. Also loved your IFTTT rant :-) you saved me from going down that road of regret. You seem to know your stuff so I wonder if you have some advice for me regarding automation of my solar hot water heating system. Simple Thermostats (even Nest and the like) just don't give me the ability to get the most out of it. I would like my heating system to factor in the outside temperature, the cloud-cover, the temperature of the heated floor ... maybe the weather forecast? Do you feel like brainstorming some of that?

Love your videos, Thank you !! very informative. Quick question, is this integration Home assistent-TUYA also possible with Hubbitat-TUYA ?

Awesome video! I'm definitely gonna give it a go since IFTT isn't free anymore 😭

Good honest video. Couple of points for you, it's pronounced "Dr Zees", he's a anesthesiologist(sleep doctor) I believe and his videos are very informative and easy to follow. You can edit the Yaml files directly from the dashboard using a simple addon called File Editor (previously Configurator), it really is simple. I do agree that its not a simple plug and play solution, it's more focused on people who like to tinker and see how things works and then find a reason to use them, but I do find that if you step back from it for a few months as I did, when you come back you need to almost re-learn the whole thing as it changes at a very fast pace and sometime fundamentally. On a whole I love it as you can use low cost hardware like Sonoff and NodeMCU modules etc to fairly easily create anything that you need (or most of the time don't) and expand as much or as little as you want, and you don't have several different apps all monitoring your habits and god knows what else. Also the fact you can make a great looking touch screen hub for your wall and control everything through HA is the golden ticket for me. Alexa integration is a sticky point but then if you really do want "privacy" then why would you have an Alexa device in your room!

Great vid as always. I have been using HA for years now. I added it because was a cool front end to my zoneminder. (you actually do not need zoneminder and all your cameras should easily pop in here). But, def it is in transition. There are a lot of addons that will get you pretty far. I still just use Alexa in her natural state. But def this gives me a nice central front end to all home toys. I set a local vpn between my home and phone which means I can control everything from my phone from everywhere. I always watch your vids anyway but will be watching for this thread since more integration and more ability to all off all these chatty toys would be GREAT! Keep up the great work!

Yep, my experience was more or less the same as yours. Out of the box it seemed great, and then started to get super complicated to fill in the gaps. Try changing the room of something too :). If I wanted to spend much more time I’m sure it can be made to do what was needed, but don’t want to spend time... I don’t have enough of it.

I'm ringing my bell again. big up from Scotland 👌

As someone who took the plunge to HA a couple of months ago, I fully agree with your points here :-) It can do a lot but you have to be willing to learn a good amount of coding if you want to go past the basic "switch on my hue lights".

So glad I’m not the only one who struggled with it! Thought I had missed something but sounds like I’m just not nerdy enough to get it! The only reason I’m still using it is so I can get tuya led strip lights to come on with my ikea worktop lights.

Love home assistant but you're 100% right, if you want to get the most out of it it is a steep learning curve. Unless you're willing to put many many hours into it, stick to the ready made stuff that's available. Saying that once you pick it up it is great but be ready to be forever tinkering with it. Also these days it's much more user friendly than when I first started using it.

Very funny yet informative video. I presently use Homeseer on a linux box. It works pretty well for what I need but always looking at other possibilities.

A home assistant nerd here, love your vids .... now that is out of the way, just install the configuration add on so you can edit the file from your web interface.

I'm assuming you can still use Echo as normal and then Also have Home Assistant running so you can have the browser-interface and such? So both running with the same lights, plugs, etc, but as separate systems? Like how my Smart Things hub can be controlled using the ST App & I can control the same plugs and lights with Echo This could just be a 3rd way to control things?

Thanks Paul.

Dr.Zzs was a great help in finally figuring out Tasmota. But even he would have to be online 24/7 explaining how to reconfigure the constant updates that break a HA installation that used to work.

Hi Paul Have you managed to get the all your devices working in HA? Tuya has local local Integration on HA and there is a new BroadLink integrated and with HA Are you going to do an updated video for this? I'm a Smartthings fan and have integrated all my devices with HA but I'm now going to buy a Conbee 2 Zigbee USB stick and move all my devices from Smartthings to HA so it can be local I have managed to follow a few videos on RU-vid and it's not that hard to get remote access to HA and the voice assistants added Enjoy watching your videos, keep up the good work :)

Appreciated the video, and the humor. That said, in the latest version of HA there is an add-on called File editor, so you can access your config.yaml file from HA directly from the browser, no need to use Samba. On to Broad link, here is my setup in my config for my rm2_pro_plus and it works flawlessly. The key piece you may have been missing is you need to download the Broadlink Manager exe, set it up to detect your device, then simply point the remote at the device and push a button. It will spit out your command string. - platform: broadlink host: 10.0.X.XX mac: '78:0F:XX:XX:XX:XX' type: rm2_pro_plus switches: tv: friendly_name: "Mancave TV" command_on: 'JgBgAAABKpIVERURFTUVERURFREVERURFTUVNRURFTUVNhQ2FTUVNRURFREVERU1FREVERURFREVNRU2FDYVERU1FTUVNRU2FQAFDQABKkgVAAxZAAEqSRUADFkAASpJFAANBQAAAAAAAAAA' command_off: 'JgBgAAABKpIVERURFTUVERURFREVERURFTUVNRURFTUVNhQ2FTUVNRURFREVERU1FREVERURFREVNRU2FDYVERU1FTUVNRU2FQAFDQABKkgVAAxZAAEqSRUADFkAASpJFAANBQAAAAAAAAAA'

As usual u nailed it with this video, Paul. Home assistant has a steep learning curve and asks for a lot of time to actually grab how it works. It is also very powerful and it has changed a lot for me as I have started automating my smart ware. I recommend installing the node red add on which gives you a sort of gui for automations. It is some sort of flow chart for automations. But it also has a steep learning curve itself and asks for a lot of time to get everything just right. I'm still happy I started using it but going back in time I'd probably use something easier to master. Even though I'd probably not have such a powerful tool at hand then 😉. If you decide you need a new hobby then home assistant is certainly worth considering!